Spring has sprung!!

Well according to the Met Office it may have been the start of Meteorological Spring last week, (when we were knee deep in snow) and it may not be the Vernal Equinox until the end of the month, but for me, the first lambs to arrive mean that Spring is finally here in Ashleworth, especially as the snow is all but washed away, and the sun is putting on a halfway decent performance as well.







There's nothing quite like a ewe with her new lambs, in this case twins, one boy and one girl, to make you feel that winter is at last, if not over, then on the way out.

 This ewe is a Wiltshire Horn, a traditional old breed that sheds its fleece  naturally so needs no shearing, which I'm hoping will mean less work for me in the summer.

Being pretty hardy types they can lamb outside with no assistance, which is what this one did as I found when I went out to feed them this morning. I will put her in the barn tonight as the forecast is for frost and maybe some snow, but they seem good strong lambs and I think they will do well.

Fame At Last! - Home Farmer Magazine Article

I'm afraid I'm very pleased with myself this week. Having never been in print before (well there was that incident back in the sixties, but we'll draw a veil over that...) I find myself featured in this month's edition of Home Farmer magazine. Amazing! Well, me and my cow Rosie that is. The nice people at Home Farmer have kindly reprinted an extract from my blog back in 2014 when I first got Rosie, when I wrote about the trials and tribulations of learning how (and how not) to milk a cow. 

So I thought it would be a good idea to put up a few pictures of Rosie, who is still with me, and due to calve in about eight weeks time. She's been an absolutely lovely cow to have, and has put up with my often bumbling efforts to care for her with the kind of patience and stoicism that only a Jersey cow can. She has a very calm temperament  and endearing personality, and I always say she would come in and watch TV with us if we let her! 

Anyway it was great to be featured in a national monthly, even if it's a somewhat specialist readership, I feel quite proud that they thought my ramblings would be of interest to readers.  Home Farmer magazine is a great little publicaton  for people interested as the title suggests in smallholding, small farms, gardening, cooking, preserving, wildlife and other related subjects. It's presented in a down to earth no nonsense kind of way, with contributions from experts and amateurs alike (hence my inclusion!)

I was asked to produce some higher quality images for the piece so we went out with my trusty phone camera, and got loads of shots of the wall, the cows feet, my feet, cowpats, and sundry other stuff before we managed to get a couple of decent shots. Cows just won't stand still when you need them to! Here's one  of me in fits of laughter with Rosie's last calf  Daisy photobombing the shot at the back.

Home Farmer magazine can be purchased at good retailers or to see what's in this month's issue click here. That's me on page 42 by the way...

Storm Doris

We have, or rather had, an old disused milking parlour down at the end of the field. 

The roof was already off when we came here, and although I  have harboured thoughts of  restoring it, I was assured by everyone thatlooked at it that it ws beyond hope, and the recent storm Doris has finally  put paid to any such ideas. This is what remained after the storm

The makings of a nice brick path somewhere in the garden I think.

 There was though, the remains of three galvanised milking stanchions, which we have removed and will try to install in the poll barn

There was a bit of tree damage as well - this lovely apple tree has been more or less halved, it had way too much misteltoe on it's branches which I think may have contributed to the damage because of the weight. So some nice logs for the fire, some applewood sawdust for the smoker, and some tidying up to do.

Bird Flu

Since the announcement of incidents of the latest strain of Avian Influenza in the UK, Apha, the Animal and Plant Health Agency, have been issuing details of recommended ways in which poultry should be protected from contact with wild birds. For large commercial producers this isn't too much of an issue, as the birds tend to live in enormous hangar type buildings anyway, but for small poultry keepers like me, it's more difficult. I can't just conjure up a building to house my chickens, so we have had to be a bit inventive. So we have made an enclosure with some old Heras fencing, the type of thing normally seen on building sites, and covered the top with some polyester netting, again the type normally seen on scaffolding on building sites (because it's cheap and readily available)
Chickens however, are very quick to find any gap in your defences,and although i though we had everything covered, it wasn't long before they found this easy exit through some broken bits of fence

 and they were all out again. So I've patched it up, and hopefully all will be ok again for tomorrow. We will of course have to move this arrangement around the field at regular intervals to make sure the birds continue to have access to fresh grass.
We all fervently hope that this latest strain of bird fly will be short lived and we can go back to our normal free ranging as soon as possible, especially now that the birds are coming into full lay. I've even had a couple of goose eggs in the last few days!

Best Ever Chocolate Brownies Recipe

I've been promising to give this recipe to my friend Dawn for ages, but haven't got round to writing it down, so as we're doing the supper for the WI ladies tomorrow, I thought I might just as well write it down now then it's there for future reference and anyone else who might like it. I've tried lots of different recipes over the years, I used Nigel Slater's recipe for ages, and it's good, but now I prefer to use the whisking eggs and sugar method rather than the creaming method he goes for, Anyway  having tweaked and tested, this is the final edit. Until I change my mind again of course...

This makes a pretty substantial slab of brownie, it fills a 9 inch 23 cm tin, but you can cut the into teeny pieces if you want to stretch it round a crowd. Or you could use an oblong 12 x 9 inch tin and make it thinner, but you will need to cook it for a shorter time. And this is one of those recipes that depends substantially on the quality of the ingredients, so don't stint.



8 oz/ 230 gr dark chocolate
8 oz/230 gr butter
4 eggs
5 oz/180 gr caster sugar
5 oz/180 gr soft light brown sugar
6 oz/150gr,  milk and white chocolate chopped up or chocolate chips
3 oz /90 gr cocoa
3 oz/90 gr self raising flour

Melt the chocolate and butter together and allow to cool a bit.
Beat the eggs and sugars together until pale and light.
Pour the chocolate mix into the egg mix.
Sift the flour and cocoa onto the mixture and fold in.
Lastly fold in the chopped chocolate pieces and turn the mixture into an 9 inch 23cm square tin, lined with parchment.
Bake at gas 4 180 electric 160 fan for 30 - 40 minutes. Timing is the most important part of the process, it should be just soft  in the middle,but not liquid. It will firm up as it cools, If you cook it too long you'll just have a chocolate slab, and a heavy one at that! So keep an eye on it.

I don't put nuts in, but you can add chopped walnuts brazils or pecans if you like.

Gardening Without Backache -No Dig Gardening

I'm a huge fan of Charles Dowding's method of No Dig Gardening. There are loads of reasons why I'm so keen,  one of the main ones being my state of aged decrepitude which prevents me from doing as much digging as I used to be able to manage. But for the best explanation take a look at  any of Charles many books and articles on the subject. In a nutshell the idea is that you cover the ground that you have, whatever it's like, with a layer of compost and you plant into it. That's about it, and because it's such a simple idea, people tend to think it can't possibly work. Surely you have to dig, trench, rake,kill the weeds, and so on? Well no, what you should really be doing is to attempt to disturb the soil as little as possible,- digging just destroys the soil structure and chops up beneficial earthworms and other soil organisms. So not only do you not need to do it, you positively shouldn't do it.

When I moved here a year ago, we had no real garden to speak of, but lots and lots of lawn. So the first job was to fence off an area of the field to make a vegetable garden. I covered the areas to be planted with cardboard, to help kill the grass, and took delivery of a ten ton pile of compost courtesy of Severn Waste who make the compost from green waste. The compost is very reasonable in price, but unfortunately the delivery costs do add up. It all depends how far you are from your local green waste processor - check out your local depot.

All I had to do was move it to the appointed beds, which took a while I must admit. A few barrowloads every day soon made an impact.

The results have been amazing. Not everything did well, but most of what I planted did ok, considering it's the first year of a new garden. In an indifferent year for tomatoes we had tons, squashes and pumpkins grew like triffids, beans did less well, but salads and herbs were great.  The new asparagus bed is looking fine, although it's too new to harvest until next year, so we will see what next year's growth looks like in due course.

The main disappointment was my raspberry canes, most of which failed, so I will be filling in the gaps during the winter months with some new plants. Strawberrries and brassicas both grew well but were subject to caterpillar and bird attacks respectively so I will need to arrange protection for them for next year.

Anyway that was last year, and I have just availed myself of another ten tons of compost, this time for my new ornamental plantings. Luckily the very helpful lady at Severn Waste managed to find a delivery for me at a good price. So I took delivery of the ten tons on the appointed day courtesy of the lovely Louise, of Louise Ward Haulage based in Evesham, who has been operating her 18 ton tipper truck for nearly twenty years, and did an excellent job at a good price. I have a ready supply of cardboard from our warehouse, so I used it as a base, It's not really vital but it rots down readily and does help a bit to kill the weeds and grass. So it's back to barrowing for the next week or two. Before I get to do the good bit, the planting.

Christmas Pudding (Revised Recipe)

I posted my traditional Christmas pud recipe a year or two ago, but I've slightly revised a few of the ingredients. I rather like Nigella's recipe, so I've added some prunes to the mix, so it really can be called a plum pudding, but I can't be paying twenty odd quid for the Pedro Ximenes sherry, so I will stick with my mix of any sweetish sherry that's in the cupboard, and some  dark flavourful beer for the liquid part.

And speaking of beer, I seem to have struck up something of a passing relationship with my local brewery here in Gloucester, called, naturally enough, Gloucester Brewery. They have kindly allowed me to pick up an occasional bag of their spent brewery grains which my cows pigs and chickens absolutely love, and whilst I'm doing that, I get to pop in and have a look around their newly revamped shop on Gloucester Quays. It's in one of the many wonderful old buildings on the quay, and has been done up very sensitively and in keeping with the old vaults. It must have cost quite a bit, and the work has been going on for some time now, but the end result is really good. I generally take them in a few of my free range eggs in return for the spent grains, which I hope they like. So today finding myself in need of the aforementioned dark full flavoured beer, I bought a bottle of this Dockside Dark
with (it says on the label) "coffee chocolate and subtle sweetness". It's just perfect for Christmas pudding, so I might make an extra one for the guys down there as a small thank you. Mind you, I'm not sure how pleased they'll be - although I love it, I know that traditional Christmas pudding isn't everyone's thing. Still it's the thought that counts!

About a pound/450 grams of mixed dried fruit, about half currants and the rest sultanas and finely chopped ready to eat prunes.
Zest and juice of 1 lemon and 1 orange
1 teaspoon of mixed spice
half a teaspoon of cinnamon and nutmeg
6 ounces/150 grams of dark brown muscovado sugar
1 tablespoon of black treacle
a glug of rum or brandy

4 ounces/100 grams fresh white breadcrumbs
2 ounces/50 gr ground almonds
3 ounces75 gr plain flour
6 ounces/100 gr shredded suet
Around half a pint/250ml of sweetish sherry and dark beer such as Dockside Dark 50:50 mix
3 eggs
1 medium cooking apple such as Bramley, grated, I never bother peeling but you can if you like.

Soak the dried fruits in the sherry and beer mix overnight or longer. Add all the other ingredients and stir well.Everyone in the family should get to have a stir, and make a wish.
 Add your family heirloom charms or coins cleaned with an overnight vinegar soak. Turn into a large pudding basin or two smaller ones.. Cover and steam for at least six hours. Allow to cool and store until Christmas day when you will need to steam again for a couple of hours. Or if you're pushed for hob space on the day just use the microwave to reheat for  a couple of minutes or so when you're ready.

Herdwick Sheep,(or Olympic Hurdlers)

First blog post for ages, yes I know, I get more erratic over time, and in all sorts of ways, but that's another story.

Well anyway, when we first came here to Ashleworth in Gloucestershire, I decided to get a few sheep, so I got a couple of pretty Jacobs, a couple of pedigree Coloured Ryelands

Coloured Ryelands

and a ram, Teddy the Tup,

Teddy the Tup as a lamb

and all was well. They wandered about nibbling grass and generally doing sheepy stuff. So far so good.
















Then a friend announced that he had five lovely Herdwick ewes for me, and that's when the trouble started. 

Herdwicks are fell sheep, happiest on the windswept landscape of Cumbria, where they rarely see a human being from one month's end to another, and don't come across many fences or other means of containment. It turns out that when they do come across either of these obstacles their first reaction is running and jumping, usually both. Herdwicks are great at browsing on rough grazing, of which I have quite a bit, but when they'd had their fill they were over the months to be found mostly out on the lane, in the vegetable garden, harrasing the chickens in the chicken run ,stuck in the hedge, in the neighbours field or, worst of all, along the lane and on the neighbour's front lawn. (The neighbours were very understanding, fortunately). I came to the conclusion that Herdwicks are not sheep, they are gazelles with woolly coats on.  So although they produced five lovely lambs

 which are Ryeland/Herdwick crosses and so hopefully less wild, I decided that would have to go.

 Two are in  the freezer, and the other three were sold last week to a lovely man who came to collect them in his van with his little daughter.  It took us all an hour and a half  to catch them and load them onto the vehicle, (in the pouring rain I might add) but the nice man and his little girl seemed pleased with them and eventually drove off over the horizon as I breathed a sigh of relief. No doubt a proper farmer with big fields and proper fences would have no trouble with them, but here at the Cottage Garden Farmette, they were just the right sheep in the wrong place, or possibly the wrong sheep in the wrong place.

And just a quick word about the ones in the freezer. My Proper Farmer friend warned me that mutton can be strong, tough and fatty,so it was with some trepidation that we tried the first chops for dinner the other night. They were delicious. And I'm really looking forward to a slow roasted leg or shoulder some time soon as per this recipe of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. The fuller flavour of  the meat of older sheep which has fallen out of favour in recent decades with consumers  (referred to as hogget if it's just over a year or so old, or mutton if  it's a properly older sheep,) has been championed by a number of high profile individuals, the said Hugh FW, and apparently no less a person than the Prince of Wales goes banging on about hogget and mutton at every opportunity. If it's good enough for His Royal Highness, it's good enough for me. I bet he's got proper fences.

Welcome to Rosie

I've got a cow. A beautiful pedigree Jersey heifer, Dalena Gunner Rosen or Rosie as I call her. She's absolutely lovely, halter trained so easy for me to handle, and with a quiet and docile nature. I've always wanted a cow, and when the opportunity to buy Rosie came up I couldn't resist. I've had her about a week or so now, and it's been a steep learning curve for me, but I've had a lot of help and support from Lena who breeds Jersey cows, and from farming friends and neighbours. The first day I spent trying to work out how to keep the cows feet out of the milk bucket, and the second day, I managed with aching back and arms to get about half a bucket of milk when Rosie decided to change position and in the blink of an eye, over went the bucket. I now know the origin of the saying about not crying over spilt milk!

On about the second or third day, when I was starting to think I'd never be able to manage it, and I don't mind admitting that tears of frustration were not far away, along came Jeremy my farming friend and gave me an on site demo and a few tips. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. Among Jeremy's suggestions was to get

a calf for Rosie to nurse. It's important that all the available milk is taken from the cow at each milking, or the cow's system takes any left unmilked as a sign to reduce the supply. So  a few days later a lovely little Aberdeen Angus cross calf came along and she takes any milk that I fail to get and will enable me to go over to once a day milking in due course, as she grows and takes a larger supply. Also she's really cute and Rosie loves her. and I don't think it's ever ideal to have one of any animal on its own

Of course it's pretty unusual these days for people to keep a single cow, it's not economic in modern farming terms, but in days gone by many country people kept a house cow, and enjoyed their own dairy produce. I've so far made some delicious butter, some crème fraiche. I've also made some not very successful clotted cream, and some soft cheese that was rubbery enough to stuff a mattress with.  But never mind, there's an endless supply of fresh milk every day at the moment I'll try again, and as I say it's a learning curve. I've learnt so much since I've been here at Chidgley, and fulfilled some long standing ambitions, so I'm grateful for that. Anyone know where I can get one of those old fashioned three leg milking stool with a little handle on the side for any quick position changes that may be needed? -  I'm sitting on an upturned bucket at the moment and the maker's mark is becoming indelibly imprinted on my rear...

Spot The Goose Egg

 My geese are laying well. I've never had geese eggs before and they are certainly impressive in size, and the taste is just gorgeous. Recipes suggest allowing three chicken eggs for one goose egg, so you'd think they wouldn't be difficult to spot. But the geese seem to like burying the eggs in the straw in their nest, so you have to dig around quite a bit to find them.

I have four geese, or rather three geese and Hissing Sid, the gander. Ganders are known to be a tad on the over protective side during the mating season, which is about now, but although he does hiss a bit at any passing individual, including the dog, who just ignores him, I can't say he's particularly intimidating.

I made a  jam and cream sponge the other day for the holiday cottage visitors with a goose egg, and it seemed to go down well. They weren't on holiday in fact, but were  students who were making a murder mystery/comedy film as a final exam project for a film studies degree, and for some reason decided that we would make a good location for the action. They had part of the field roped off as a "police investigation area" and with policemen and white suited forensic officers wandering about in the field it certainly kept us amused. I'm really looking forward to seeing the finished production.



But back to goose eggs, delicious to use in any recipe but probably best of all soft boiled with a big pile of toast soldiers. Place egg in tap hot water, bring to the boil, boil for about eight minutes.

Ginger and Marmalade Cake

The thing about having a good supply of home made marmalade, or indeed any other preserve, is what to do with it once you've made it. I do give quite a bit of it away, and it's quite handy for guests in our holiday cottage, but that still leaves a good supply to use ourselves. So this is an easy mix cake that keeps moist in the cake tin, and has a good flavour without the need for icings, fillings and all the attendant sugar calories and effort. It's a versatile recipe, you don't have to be too exact with it, and it's useful for using up odds and ends of things in the cupboard, the last of the golden syrup,

 remains of a jar of crystallized honey, and so on. You can use all syrup if you like, and grated citrus makes a good addition if you have the inclination.

 

Marmalade and Ginger Cake

Stand a saucepan on your digital scales and weigh in
350grams/12 ounces of golden syrup, honey and marmalade in whatever proportions you like
150 grams/6ounces of butter
and warm over gentle heat until just  melted





Put the pan back on the scales and add
9ounces/250grams  of plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
good pinch salt
2 medium eggs
about a quarter pint/150 ml milk

and beat briefly with a hand mixer till smooth. Or a wooden spoon if you are from Yorkshire (ie strong in  th' arm and weak in th' 'ead, Yorkshire born and Yorkshire bred)

Pour into a lined tin, mine was 11" x8"/ 27cm x 20cm

Bake in a moderate oven for about 30 mins till risen and firm.  Try to avoid getting the top too dark.