the accidental smallholder :: diary archives

Lazy (?) Sunday afternoon

The weather this weekend has been sonewhat variable. Last night we had a lot of rain and it was very windy. During the morning, it brightened up and the sun got out for a while but by 4pm, it was dark, raining and windy. So time to light the fire and get out the seed catalogues.

I now have my orders prepared and tomorrow, in the cold light of Monday, I'll go through them and delete half the potato and tomato varieties and some of the more fanciful species. I'm going to have 5 tubers of Mayan Gold and I'm going to grow them in pots, so I know they're safe. At £2.49 for 5 tubers, I might put them by my bed!

I was allowed to help with the bacon curing this morning. In previous years, this has been Dan's preserve (pardon the pun) but he's away this week, so I recieved my instructions this morning. We've two cures on the go - streaky bacon and, for the first time, back bacon which is in a salt and sugar mix. They look good already although they have four days to go. Dan's bought himself a new smoke generator - early Christmas present. He'll say more about all this tomorrow, he assures me.

I've started manuring the vegetable beds. As I clear horse poo, I'm putting it straight on the beds rather than in the heap. The hens are having a swell time. I've done the comfrey bed; now I'm doing the rhubarb bed. Potato bed next, I think.

Anyway, back to the fire now. It's 7.45pm, which is really 8.45pm so almost my bed time. I took Friday afternoon off so I've got long hours in the office to look forward to this week to make up time. Still, at least it's dark outside, so I don't feel like I'm wasting time!

Forth Valley and West Fife Smallholders Association - Inaugural Meeting

The inaugural meeting of the Forth Valley and West Fife Smallholders Association will take place on Thursday 29th November in the Theatre Bar, Alloa Town Hall at 7pm.

Diane Alderdice from Forth Valley Food Links will be the guest speaker.

Light refreshments will be available.

It would be helpful for catering purposes if you would let me know if you are attending and the names of those attedning in your party, so that I can do name badges.

Look forward to meeting you all on the 29th!

There is a forum on the website devoted to the Association on the Forums, too.

What some folk eat...

I was browsing the Ascott Smallholders' Supplies website tonight - retail therapy, I'm afraid.

The website's been upgraded since the last time I looked and it now has one of these facilities that shows you what the last person who bought that item also bought.

There was a book listed called "Home smoking and curing". The person who bought this also bought a multi-mouse repeating mouse trap and a live catch rat trap.

I rest my case...

Now the pigs are gone...

we've started clearing down the pens and the hut. And washing the "snak-a-ball", which always makes me a bit sad.

Anyway, it was a nice day yesterday, so Dan and I spent a few hours clearing down the pig pens. I cleaned out the hut - a dusty but not unpleasant job. Although the pigs don't dirty in the hut, they do trail in a lot of mud, so I like to get this cleaned off now, rather than having damp mud lie on the wood all winter. All the straw was swept out into one of the pens - a combination of weather, hens and other wildlife will soon see it gone into the soil.

Dan cleared all the rubble that the pigs excavated over the summer and dealt with the emerging docks. He's now sown a mix of herbal grass mix and phacelia in one pen. The scientific reason for this is that we had these seeds in the garage and I'm too tight to buy any more - "waste not, want not", as my old Ma used to say. The pen that had grazing rye in it last year is already regrowing, so we'll leave it alone and see how it does.

The fencing needs a bit of attention - a couple of spars have fallen down and the gate ( the beautifulest gate) into the field has disintegrated completely. We were going to do away with it, but it's a shortcut to the river from the garden. Once we get these bits done, we'll be ready for next year!

Managing grass

This is such a vexed issue - managing grass is rather difficult, I think. If you have the right amount in the summer, you don't have enough in the winter; if you have enough in winter, you've far too much in summer ( especially if you have no easy way on conserving it).

Yesterday, we split the horses' field in two. They are all being wormed this weekend and I'm clearing the half they aren't on - picking poo and cutting thistles (well, Dan's cutting thistles). Once the wormer has worked (48 hours or so), they're going on to the clean field and I'll try and keep it clean. Chris is then going to harrow the top half - not ideal at this time of year, I know - cut the thistles and we'll rest it for as long as we can.

Hopefully, we won't have to worm again or at worst, infrequently. And the grass will get better. Here's hoping!

I wish I'd had my camera...

because yesterday, I saw something I'd never seen before and wished I could have recorded it. I popped out to collect eggs. As I went into the field, I looked left under the willow and saw the three sheep lying down. Nothing unsual in that, but one of the young cockerels was lying on Juno's back. Now, I've seen lambs lying on their mother's back, but a cockerel? By the time I got back with the camera, everyone was up and looking for food, but I definitely saw it...

TAS forums now open

After a long time prevaricating we've finally got around to launching the TAS forums. The kick up the backside I needed to get it done came in the shape of the imminent first meeting of the smallholders' association Rosemary is trying to get up and running locally (date confirmation coming soon) - we wanted somewhere to meet virtually to make communications easy.

There's not much to see there right now, but we're hoping that lots of you will register and participate, and turn it into a valuable resource for smallholders everywhere - although it will have a Scottish flavour they are most definitely open to all.

We'll work to intergrate them into the site over the next few months, if anyone has any requests or suggestions for improvements let us know.

Oxford Sandy and Black weaners for sale

Ready three weeks or so; £40 each. Contact Peter on 01360 440480 (Ballat Crossroads, by Balfron)

Wanted - restauranteurs

Come on you down-shifters! Fancy a wee restaurant in an up and coming location? Alloa needs you - and we'll try and supply all your runner bean needs!

Alloa, the county town of Clackmannanshire, is a town on the up. To be fair, it was starting from a fairly low base, but it's going in the right direction. So if you want to get your foot in the door, there is a restaurant premises for lease in the town.

Alloa is basically a fine Victorian town that had fallen on hard times due to the demise of its traditional industries - coal, textiles, brewing, distilling, shipbuilding - you name it. But it, and all Clackmannanshire, is experiencing something of a resurgence. The railway is due to open early 2008, so Glasgow will be 50 minutes away by train. The new Upper Forth Crossing (called the Clackmannanshire Bridge, we hope) opens next year too, improving connections to the motorway netweok - yet here we are, with the Ochil Hills to the north and the River Forth to the south, a patchwork of small towns in the countryside, relatively unknown.

There's been a lot of housebuilding, with more to come, so the socio-ecomomic profile of the area will be improving. But we need places for these wealthy folk to eat! In the last couple of years, an old brewery in Alloa has been converted into a pub called "The Old Brewery". It's nice inside, does reasonable food and has a policy of keeping out the riff-raff (and Alloa has its share). A few months ago, an Italian restaurant opened in the town. It's very good. Both are BUNGED.

So when I was in town today, I noticed that a pub called The Linen Vaults is up for lease as a pub or restaurant, and I thought some of you foodie entrepreneurial types might be interested. It's a very nice red sandstone (I think) building - it used to be the Linen Bank (before my time) - hence the name of the pub! In the late 70s, it was "Rosemary's Restaurant" and I worked there as a Saturday girl (there was another Rosemary involved, too). It operated as a cafe until 6pm, then it closed, was hoovered, table cloths, candles and posh place settings put on te tables and it reopened at 7pm as a "proper" restaurant. It's been a couple of pubs since then, but it's back on the market.

If any of you decide to take it on, I don't mind doing a shift or two waiting tables. I know how to silver serve and I scrub up OK!

Free range cockerels

We're learning all the time here - sometimes by accident rather than design.

When I fed the animals this morning, I failed to secure the door on the pen holding the three young cockerels properly. As luck (good as it turned out, but bad at first discovery) would have it, the pen is on a slope so that the door swung open. When I went out about 10am, I thought Hobbes had shrunk then realised that Hobbes' "boys" were out.

Now, I was concerned about this on two counts (well, three if being considered a dope was a concern for me); firstly, I was worried that Hobbes would harm them - he intimidates them dreadfully by strutting round the pen and crowing at them and secondly, I was worried that they wouldn't find their way back at night. I shouldn't have.

Hobbes. after an initial flurry, ignored them so long as they stayed away from his harem (which they did). I actually managed to catch them in the afternoon and put them back in the pen. These were the chicks that I spent quite a lot of time handling when they were young. As soon as I did, Hobbes was back terrorising them. All three were piled on top of one another in the corner of the pen. So I decided to let them out and hope they would have the sense to go back to bed there. As soon as they came out the pen, Hobbes ignored them and they, him.

Tonight, all three were in the correct accommodation - their batchelor pad. So tomorrow, they can get out again. They'll not be around for much longer, so it's good to see them free ranging in the meantime.

So, lessons in poultry behaviour today! Wonder what we'll learn tomorrow.

Huntly Farmers' Market

Dan and I were up in Aberdeenshire this weekend, tentatively looking at property. We'd like some more land and there's not much around here, so we thought we'd look North East. It was very nice and there were lots of suitable properties but it's not home. I'm not sure I'll ever leave Clackmannanshire.

Anyway, while we were there, we visited Huntly, which is a nice town with a lovely square (and a nice tea shop called "The Merry Kettle", if you ever visit). The local Farmers' Market was on and, although small, it had some good stuff including two stall selling local, farm produced butter, cheese and yogurt. We bought some butter (unpasteurised and unsalted), soft cheese and drinking yogurt. It's all lovely!

We also bought some mincemeat muffins, which were OK. As a keen muffin maker, I decided to make some of my own this morning. I must have gone a bit hogwild last year with the mincemneat making, because I've still got a few jars left. This is good, insofar as it combines awfully well with our apples in a crumble or a steamed sponge. The muffins are rather nice - I wish you could have smelled them, too. The kitchen was all warm and spicy. I will have to get my tasters to try them and give a verdict - that's Dan's Mum and Dad and the milkman. If it get's the thumbs up, I'll put the recipe on here.

Winter is coming!

Winter is coming - I've put the curtains up! I'm on holiday this week (half term) and it's pouring rain today so I won't be in the garden and the empty chicken arks are too wet to paint, so I'm busying myself indoors.

I always take the living room and hall curtains down at Easter - since we have no neighbours, it's nice to have the windows bare and let the light in. But at the October holiday, they go back up. In fat, Dan's Mum and Dad had put up the living room ones at the weekend, so I only had the hall ones to do today. So tonight, it will be all snug, especially if I light the fire. I lit it last night for the first time this autumn and had to fight my way past Cassius and the dogs to get anywhere close. In fact, Cass is curled up on the footstool in front of the hearth NOW (noon) just in case he misses it.

the garden needs the rain - it's been very dry. And another plus is tha Smokey looks quite clean - until he rolls in the new mud, of course.