Welsh Farm Life; Penyrallt Home Farm

Home Alone, Early Spring-Cleaning, Burns Night

2012-01-25T02:33:00.000-08:00

Hammamelis mollis flowers are so lovely to see in a winter garden where everything else is rather soggy & looking a mess. Snowdrops are appearing in the verges along the drive now and daffodils are shooting up everywhere.

I am in the very unusual position of being on my own for a couple of days. The Farmer & Younger Son have gone to Austria!They have taken the opportunity to join a group of farmers on a trip to the Pottinger factory at Grieskirchen, near Linz. Pottinger are agricultural machinery manufacturers which is why I felt they could go without me! I'm sure the visit to the factory will be fascinating but may not be able to hold my complete interest for a whole day & they will enjoy a blokey trip centred on big farming kit much more without me...and someone has to be here to walk the dogs!
Tomorrow they will be visiting a dairy farm near Salzburg and then will be returning home very late tomorrow night.

I shall take this chance of a couple of days without having to produce meals at regular intervals to tackle some long awaited house-work...an early spring-cleaning I suppose, going where I have not gone before in many months I ashamed to say. Into dark corners where lurk spiders & a film of dust, polishing silver, sorting out clothes for jumble (or charity shops nowadays. What has happened to good old-fashioned jumble sales? I suppose they've been superceded by car boot sales & the charity shops.) and generally doing stuff that gets put off all the time.

This evening I have been invited out to a Burns Supper with some friends who have recently moved down here from Scotland. I love haggis but have not made it for a very long time...we have not killed any sheep recently! If I have time during my busy day of house-work I shall maybe make some shortbread to take with me. A perfect meal, haggis with mashed tatties & neeps followed by rich buttery shortbread and a dram together with readings of poetry and telling of tales.

A Good Frost, Winter Farming

2012-01-14T02:36:00.000-08:00

At last, a proper cold & frosty winter's morning! Walking the dogs first thing was lovely with the sun glimmering through skeleton trees onto frost-silvered fields.

With the better weather the Sons are busy getting on with the last of the hedge-trimming & muck-spreading so we have a constant background hum of tractors. More unpleasantly there is the pervading odour of disturbed muck (though this soon dissipates) coming up from the slurry pit as Younger Son makes his trips back & forth filling the huge slurry tanker that he then takes up to the top fields to spread the ever important muck to encourage a good crop of grass for the summer. Farming jobs throughout the winter are made so much easier when the weather is fine.

I have my first holiday-makers of 2012 in the cottage this weekend & they are fortunate in having such a glorious morning to wake up to.

First Lamb, National Botanic Garden of Wales, Hunting & Shooting

2012-01-07T03:10:00.000-08:00

Two days ago we were all very surprised to find a lamb had been born to one of our ewes as we are not due to start lambing until March! What we think has happened is that a ram lamb somehow escaped being castrated and has gone about his fell deeds amongst the flock. How many more lambs will appear before March is anyone's guess!

Yesterday the Farmer & I visited the National Botanic Gardens near Carmarthen. We have not been for several years and had been promising ourselves a trip there while there is an exhibition on of fungi that has been brought down from the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh.
The exhibition was very good with marvellous huge models of mushrooms & toadstools and very good videos of time-lapse photography showing the growth of fungi and their importance on every aspect of the natural world.
The gardens themselves and the plants growing in the great glass dome were looking very different from when we last saw them. The plants in the dome were well established now and look extraodinary though I did find it a very surreal experience and rather discomforting...it is very odd to walking round a 'garden' under a roof, it is completely artificial environment with a constant hum of the heating system in the background. There were a couple of sparrows flying around & they must have have a very strange & unnatural life. It is not like seeing plants growing in a greenhouse somehow. There is a very attractive greenhouse with collection of bromeliads which was amazing.
The gardens proper outside were lovely, even in January & there were daffodils in flower, also primroses, pulmonaria and beautiful red hammamelis. It was interesting to see the place after a long time and would receommend a visit.
Entry to the gardens is free throughout January.

During the week a local foot pack of hounds worked their way through the valley and caught 2 foxes, though there are many more living in the woods. Today one of our local mounted hunts is out and will be working this end of the valley as there is a pheasant shoot going on at the other end. With some of our neighbours already busy lambing the foxes will have to be kept under control.... we lost our peahen to one recently and of course we will be lambing too in the next couple of months.
The Farmer & Younger Son have gone beating for the shoot with the labs who were very excited as usual at the prospect of a day spent rootling through briars and thick undergrowth.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T03:59:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!
This is a reminder of what the weather was like this time in 2011...very different to the warm , very wet & muddy conditions we have to start off 2012. Things can only get better one hopes!
Yesterday I found snowdrops in flower and have seen daffodils flowering in a hedgrow in the neighbourhood!

Too Early for Spring, Death of a Peahen, Delicious Turkey & Happy Christmas Visitors

2011-12-30T03:30:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are at the very end of the old year and with such mild weather in stark contrast to what we were enduring this time 12 months ago. It is so mild that the birds are singing and in the garden yesterday I found narcissus in full flower & a couple of of very frail looking primroses! Daffodil shoots have been visible for a couple of weeks now & I have seen snowdrop shoots in the hedge banks for a month or more.
The holly trees are still covered in berries...is that portent of a hard winter yet to come?!

Tragedy struck last night in the form of the 'gentleman with sandy whiskers' who took a fancy to our sweet peahen and she is no more! Over the last few weeks the Farmer has been feeding the peacocks outside the kitchen window and they had become quite tame and appeared regularly at breakfast time for their daily morsels of bread or cold potatoes. I hope Charlie Peacock won't now go into a decline & pine away with loss of wife number 2.

Christmas came & went very quietly in our household. We had one of our home-reared turkeys which was quite delicious though far too big to fit in the oven! The Farmer decided to bone it and then rolled it up with stuffing & sausagemeat and it then fitted perfectly. Boning a bird in that way is great, it means there is no fiddling around carving the bird & every scrap is eaten. ( The Famer & Younger Son did talk about putting a woodcock in a pheasant in the turkey, but we left it too late to gather the necessary birds. Another time we will definitely try that rather medieval way of cooking a fine roast bird.)
The presence of our 11month old grand-daughter was lovely. At that age all she is interested in is the wrapping paper which was was very sweet to see.
Our guests in the cottage over the Christmas weekend kept themselves to themselves & said they had had a very happy time just being on their own and thought the cottage was perfect for their Christmas holiday & I must admit it did look lovely with the Christmas tree lit up and a roaring fire when they arrived.

'A Christmas Reunion' or 'Tan ar y Comin' - Filmed at Penyrallt

2011-12-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

With the huge number of films being shown on television at this time of year I find myself wondering how many people will catch a film that was made here at Penyrallt Home Farm in 1993 starring James Coburn & Edward Woodward. It was called 'Tan Ar Y Comin/ Fire On The Common'' or 'A Christmas Reunion'. It is shown every Christmas on at least one of the many channels that are now available, though as we don't have tv ourselves we never get to see it & unfortunately it is not available on dvd (we do have a very old video copy that is in poor condition but no video player these days).
We spent the summer of 1993 hosting the film crew & having our house taken over as a set both for interior & exterior shots. It was great fun and we met a lot of great people. As well as having Edward Woodward here for some of the time, the director David Hemmings was here as he was working in conjunction with Carol Byrne-Jones who was directing the Welsh version of the film. They worked together filming 'back-to-back' which meant every scene was filmed in English & in Welsh.
We all had great fun, with the Farmer & the Sons (who were very young at the time) all taking part as 'supporting artists' or extras. Even our dogs, poultry & cattle were roped in & our house & buildings were used from all sorts of angles and looked wonderful.
The script was based on a book by the Welsh children's author, the late T. Llew Jones who was born just down the road from the farm. He remembered coming up here to play as a child so the idea that his story should be filmed here was rather fitting. The story centres around an orphaned gypsy boy who inherits mare & her foal on the death of his grandfather, but then learns that he is the illegitimate heir to the local squire (Edward Woodward). Much trouble ensues but with a happy outcome, of course.
The Welsh version is set entirely in Wales but the English version has scenes set in Boston which is where James Coburn comes in playing Father Christmas(!). You'll just have to try and see the film!
Despite these oddities, it is good film for family viewing and has a definite Christmassy flavour.

Christmas Turkeys

2011-12-18T02:02:00.000-08:00

Today is turkey killing day! Sorry to be so blunt about it but it is the reality of rearing table birds. At least we can say with all honesty that they have had very happy lives wandering around the farm foraging for beetles & worms as well as having an ever full hopper of pelleted turkey food, which is a world away from the lives of the poor creatures produced in intensive poutry units by the thousand.
(I saw a very funny card the other day with a picture of a beautiful bronze turkey in fulll display mode with placard round its neck saying 'Eat Ham'!!!)
I will quite miss them being around the place with their strange turkey-talk being audible all over the farm, though they have completely shredded my geraniums and various other plants in pots that are struggling through the wintery weather.
The Farmer has taken the plucking machine down to the slaughter area and he & the Sons will get the job done cleanly, quickly & efficiently. The turkeys will then be stored in the cold-room until they are collected or delivered to their final destinations, the ovens of family, friends & neighbours. The Farmer says they will be killing out at about 12lbs + which is reasonable size I think, not too big but large enough for several meals...or enough for everyone to get heartily sick of turkey curry & turkey sandwiches, which personally I adore!

Miserable Weather, Farmer Visits School

2011-12-16T04:04:00.000-08:00

Rain, sleet & hail but no snow! Everything is grey, damp & sticky...we need some real cold with frost and snow to cheer the landscape up!

Yesterday the Farmer went into a local primary school at the request of one of the teachers to talk to her class of 9-10 yr olds about farming and food production. He went armed with large photos of our cattle & sheep, a great bag containing a fleece & carders & some samples of hay, silage & manure(!). Apparently the children were great, really interested & knowledgeable and to the Farmer's surprise the conversation covered not just farming but vegetarainism, food imports, hunting & vermin control. He was impressed by the standard of questions asked and the comments of the children on the various subjects.
He was encouraging the teachers to bring the class out to farm next May to witness shearing and to then visit the National Wool Museum which is wonderful and only five minutes down the road from the farm. I hope they do arrange such a day; we would certainly enjoy it as much as the children.

Pruning Apple Trees

2011-12-12T02:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, in the pouring rain, we hosted an apple-tree pruning course. The instructor was one of the gardeners from the Centre for Alternative Technology at Machynlleth and she was very knowledgable and came equipped with pruning knives & a lot of information.
8 people came along to learn this useful skill as well as ourselves (though I spent most of my time doing the catering as per usual!) and despite the hideous weather it was a very enjoyable day. It is always a good sign when people sit over cups of tea & cake in the warm kitchen after being out in the cold rain, for a couple of hours chatting.

I had not realised that apple trees can be pruned either in winter or summer depending on what you want the tree to do. Winter pruning encourages growth of the tree itself while summer pruning encourages the cropping of fruit for the next year.

We have a large number of fruit trees here on the farm in two orchards so were able to have a variety of trees to look at. The old smaller orchard has trees that are anything from 100 to 150 years old while the new orchard has about 30 trees that were planted 12 years ago. As well as apples we have pears & plums, a couple of cherry trees & a very young mulberry tree.

New Vehicle, Turkeys, Pheasants & Christmas Food

2011-12-03T06:20:00.000-08:00

At last after almost three weeks of having no vehicle the Farmer & I can now get out and about in our lovely new (to us!) Daihatsu Fourtrak. We have been very fortunate in finding this 4x4...it is ten years old but with very low mileage (only 46000!) and in near perfect condition & at a very reasonable price. Let me dispel the myth that all farmers drive around in new Discoverys or similarly expensive vehicles. Most of our farming acquaintances have terrible tatty pick-ups or down-at-heel saloons that do everything from carting bags of feed & wet dogs to getting the wife to town, which of course is just what our vehicle does, though while it is is still in its shiny polished show-room state I am very loathe to allow muddy boots & filthy dogs anywhere near it. I am sure however that by the end of the week it will be getting that well-used farm vehicle look despite my best intentions...after all it a work-horse and has to be utilitarian and just going up and down our drive it is already spattered with a fine coating of mud.

Well, we are on the run up to Christmas and I already have 3 Christmas cards on the dresser, two of which arrived in the third week of November which really is a bit too soon.

The turkeys are doing well. We had 20 but are now down to 18 thanks to the over-enthusiasm of Molly the sheepdog. They spend much of their days roaming freely around the farm and can be found chattering gently to each other in sunny corners. They are so ugly but quite entertaining to watch with their need for company and constant reassurance that they are all within in sight of each other.

The Farmer, Younger Son & labradors have gone off beating again today. A nice dry day for it and the sun is trying to glimmer through the cloud. They will all come back tired, muddy & with a brace of pheasant apiece which will hang for the best part of a week before I have to do something delectable with them. Iam getting through the range of cooking methods, roasting, casseroling, braising & I think I shall try making a type of terrine with some of the meat, also game pie always goes down well.
I spent the morning making large quantities of mince-pies which I shall freeze for a couple of weeks to be brought out nearer Christmas & I must get on with making marzipan for the Christmas cakes and various special sweetmeats (nice old-fashioned phrase) to be given as presents in pretty tins & boxes.

New Look Website, Olympic Free Zone

2011-11-17T02:52:00.000-08:00

The new look website (http://www.penyrallt.co.uk/) for Penyrallt Fach Cottage is now up & running & it looks wonderful. I am very pleased with its clean fresh appearance and many thanks must go our good friend G. The Mushroom Grower who apart from being a purveyor of fungi is bit of a whizz with a computer.

We've had good year with the cottage bookings, Christmas & New Year are booked up and I already have several weeks booked out for 2012 which is encouraging.

I would recommend Penyrallt as good place to escape the Olympic hysteria that will no doubt grip the country next year...we will be an Olympic Free Zone and extend a warm welcome to anyone who feels the need to retreat from the media frenzy that will mark the sporting fixtures of 2012!

Moving Lambs, Home Decorating, Death of a Daihatsu, Leonardo at the National Gallery

2011-11-16T02:44:00.000-08:00

I have just come in from helping the Farmer & his dog seperate our lambs from a group of cattle with whom they have been sharing grazing, to bring them up to yard to check them over before selecting those to be sold and those that are not quite ready yet.
Splitting off a group of scatty sheep from a group of curious & flighty young cattle & getting them through a gate onto the lane & making sure they go in the right direction (not up towards the main road!) is not the easiest thing in the world with only two people & a dog. However with much rushing about and waving of sticks and shouting at the cattle to keep them away from the gate we managed and now the lambs are safely up in the yard being sorted.

Things have been very busy lately. I have spent most of last week painting & decorating our stair-well which was in dire need of sprucing up & of course the job got bigger as I went along as it always does. However, it is now done and though I say it myself the stair-well looks very good with its new soft grey walls & clean white woodwork.

Yesterday our faithful old Daihatsu Fourtrack was declared dead at the MOT station which is bit of a blow. We have had it for 10 years and it has worked hard for us but it turned out that it was held together by rust that has gone beyond welding so we now have to look for a replacement vehicle. It is actually quite scary to think that we've been merrily driving around in a vehicle that failed the MOT so spectacularly! But thank goodness we have such things as MOTs!

Last week the Farmer & I treated ourselves to an evening of culture when we went to Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan to see the live showing of the preview of the Leonardo da Vinci Exhibition at the National Gallery. The theatre was packed which amazed us...there is obviously a real appetite for such cultural events as we are so far from London and travelling up there is so expensive. Whatever one's views on Sky & the Murdochs, Sky Arts certainly did us a huge favour by showing the exhibition. It was wonderful and to have art experts discussing the paintings at very close quarters was fascinating. If one is able to go up to town then a visit to the National Gallery while it is housing the 'Madonna of the Rocks' & the Burlington House Cartoon is a must.

OMScO, TB Testing of Cattle, Well Matured Christmas Cake

2011-11-02T05:22:00.000-07:00

I missed the opportunity yesterday to write 1-11-11 which looks very neat & tidy, however we had to attend an orgainc milk producers meeting and the day just disappeared.
The meeting with OMScO (http://www.omsco.co.uk/) was good in that we were informed of a much needed price increase in our milk price which pleased everyone. The very worrying thing is though is that the organic dairy market in UK is still dropping & we are so dependent on export sales to Europe and the exchange rate. The market for organic dairy products is still growing on the continent. Unless the British retailers by which of course one means the big supermarkets, take an interest in organic products there is very little that can be done to up the consumer demand. Impressive tv adverts may do something for certain products but not necessarily for the whole industry. New marketing strategies are trying to be found & the comsumer needs to be better informed on the value of organically produced milk & other foods.

Last week all our cattle, the dairy cows & the Herefords were brought in for their annual TB test. The vet came out to do the preliminary injections & then returned two day later to test for any reactors. There were none which was very good news for us. TB is an on-going problem for dairy farmers and many of our milking colleagues have suffered loss of herds & restricted movement of cattle. We are very fortunate that so far we have not had TB coming into our herd; maybe this is due to the fact that we are a 'closed' herd, not buying cattle from outside. The badger cull in Wales has been stopped though the Farmer & I have never been fully convinced that a cull was the answer. Vaccination of both cattle & badgers would seem to be a more sensible approach.

Last week I made the Christmas cakes and when I was putting them away in the oak cupboard in our dining-room I found I still had one left from last year...so we are eating it! And as a very well-matured dark fruit cake it is excellent, rich & moist with strong lingering aura of brandy & spices. Can a really good rich fruit cake be left to mature too long? I don't think so.

Free Range Dairy Initiative; British Dairying Magazine Article

2011-10-17T03:36:00.000-07:00

In this months' issue of 'British Dairying' which arived at the breakfast table this morning there was an excellent article by Neil Darwent of Lordswood Farm proposing a new intitiative to promote the image of milk & dairy farmers in the UK. Mr. Darwent is setting up a Free Range Dairy (FRD) initiative which hightlights the real value of British milk being produced by cows grazing grass in fields. This may seem a fairly obvious notion but with the recent planning applications for mega-dairies in which the cows are kept in sheds and never see a blade of grass something needs to be done whereby the comsumer is told the truth about farmers & their herds in Britain and thereby putting real value into our product. We find that with many of our visitors ther is an anxiety that milk in Britain is produced or will be produced in large mega-dairies. For those of us who are at the smaller end of the milk production scale this is very important stuff. While many consumers may believe that their milk comes from grazing cows the dairy industry as a whole may not maintain that perception as greater intensification looms. If British dairy farmers can use their integrity & build on the fact that our nutritious,wholesome & delicious product comes from fields of grass there would be no need for added ingredients or ridiculous processing such as filtering for pseudo benefits.
Mr Darwent feels that there is a 'growing air of inevitability about our future milk supply coming from fewer and larger farms' but that attention must be returned to value in order to preserve our diverse dairy industry. How right he is.

Walking the dogs this morning I wandered through our herd of milking cows, who took no notice of us, and relished being among these large animals as they grazed on the lush aftermath on one of our silage fields,
The noise of them pulling at the grass and chewing it along with smell of grass and warm cow is something quite special at very close quarters.

Autumn, Approaching Winter

2011-10-13T02:17:00.000-07:00

Misty autumn mornings with the hedgrows glinting with dewdrops on cobwebs and the occasional flutter of leaves falling from the trees as the dogs & I take our post breakfast walk.
There is terrific crop of acorns which are scattered everywhere. We really ought to have pig to snuffle them up as its the only way that we can make use of them! Though saying that I recently met someone who is gathering acorns & peeling them with the intention of grinding them to make 'flour'. My feeling was that its going to take a veritable mountain of acorns to make any quantity worth speaking of!
More useful are the sloes which seem to be doing well this year but the brambles are not good which is very disappointing.
The elderberries are plentiful too & they can be used for jellies, medicinal syrups & wine. The elder tree is associated with ancient magic; bathing one; eyes with the grren juice of the wood was said to confer the ability to see invisible beings and in Scotland it was said that if you stood under an elder tree at Samhain you would see the faery host riding by.

The Sons have been kept busy over the past couple of weeks with hedge-trimming both here at home & around the neighbourhood. Calving has been taking place too, with about 27 calves born over the last two weeks. It has all gone well and I am getting used to the early morning wake-up calls of the calves demanding their buckets of milk. It is another sign that winter is on the way.
We took delivery of 20 white turkeys last week which are being fattened up for the festive sacrifice in a couple of months time. Yes, we are already thinking of & planning for Christmas!

Primary School Visits Farm

2011-10-01T04:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we hosted a group of 6yr olds from a primary school in Gorseinon, near Swansea.
The weather was perfect unlike on the day of the school party visit last week, and so we were able to have the children sitting out on the yard for their lunch.
The Farmer & I walked them across the usual route over the fields down to the river at the bottom of the farm and then back up top the farm-yard. Coming away from the river where the children were told about how it flows to sea and seeing all the little insects & creatures living under rocks and flying around over the water, I overheard one little boy saying to himself 'This has been the best day ever!'
That made the day for me.
On the way up to the yard they were able to see Molly the sheep-dog demonstrating her skills with group of sheep & some of the Traditional Hereford cows & calves accompanied by the bull ( a very docile creature).
When we got to field with the dairy cows the Famer separated out his 'pet' cow and she most obligingly went up to the children who were all sitting in silently in a row on the grass and sniffed and blew gently at them. They were thrilled! The Farmer showed them how she chewed the cud and they counted the number of chews (usually about 37) betweeen each swallow and then observed the bolus of grass moving down her throat.
Two of the children afterwards told me that they had never seen a cow before, only in pictures. Once again I must emphasis how important visits by school groups to farms are, for the very reason that children never see real animals at close quarters and I hope we have given them life-long memories of a real farm.

After we waved the children off the bus at 2 o'clock I had to set to and cook for dinner party we had last night. We had a very good though very late evening & one of our guests is staying for the weekend so there is a lot of food preparation going on (when isn't there actually, guests or no guests?).
Having been rather stuck for pudding last evening I experimented and made a blackcurant meringue pie, not having a any lemons in the house. I just replaced the lemons with blackcurrant puree and it worked a treat and was the star turn of the meal which was very gratifying especailly as it accompanied by thick cream from our own cows.This has in the past been described as having the consistency of axle grease...quite unlike anything one can buy nowadays when what is laughingly called double cream can pour like milk.

Fungi Forays, Home-Made Apple Press

2011-09-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

At last we seem to having a glimpse of the Indian Summer that the BBC keep talking about. When the rest of the country has bathed in gloious autumn sunshine we have had grey skies and damp air. However, today things have improved and the Sons have begun mowing grass for various neighbours to make silage. A busy few days are ahead of us.

With the damp weather it has been a bonanza time for fungi. On my daily walks with the dogs I have found many different varieties around the farm. I have taken pictures of many of them but identification is difficult. I think most of them are boletes, but further than that I cannnot go except to say that I think I found what are known as Plums and Custard and the deliciously malevolent sounding Amethyst Deceiver. I have seen a number of enormous fly agarics and greasily yellow waxcaps. Apart from the large, easily seen fungi in the hedge banks there are also many tiny delicately gilled toadstools to be found in the fields of all shades from creamy white to dusky grey. I did find some field mushrooms yesterday but they seem to be few & far betweeen this year for some reason. I am certainly not confident enough to eat any of the other types of fungi , though according to the books many of them are edible. We have eaten puff-balls & parasols in the past & I know shaggy ink-caps are supposed to be delicious, but I do prefer field mushrooms or cultivated shiitake!
http://www.maesymush.co.uk/

The Farmer has spent a great deal of time over the last few days in the orchards up a step ladder harvesting apples. There has been a superb crop this year and in order to maintain our winter intake of vitamins most of the fruit is being juiced and then frozen. Also a lot of cider is being made!

One day when we are in funds I would like us to get a small pasteuriser rather than keeping the juice in the deep freeze. However until that time freezing will have to do.

The Farmer has built himself a fruit press which looks rather splendid and is very effective.

Robins Wood's Brilliant Blog, Learning to Knit

2011-09-24T00:48:00.000-07:00

Please read Robin Wood's latest (Friday 23rd Sept.) blog posting. He is a man who talks so much sense and is out there practising what he preaches.
http://www.greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/
also see
http://www.heritagecrafts.org/

I have been teaching myself how to knit again. Having learnt as a child though never really mastering it, I lost interest & always felt I was happier with a sewing needle than a knitting needle, however I am now really enjoying twisting a length of yarn round a pair of metal pins. The resulting knit is getting to look less & less likes a cat's cradle as I persevere and hopefully before too long I shall be able to produce a small garment for the Grand-daughter.
It has been so long since I did any knitting I have bought myself an excellent book 'Knitty Gritty; knitting for the absolute beginner' by Aneeta Patel. Its wonderful with very clear instructions, photographs and simple patterns.
I was brought up in a family in which great-aunts & my mother knitted beautiful pullovers with Fairisle yokes and marvellous intricate Norwegian & Arran jumpers which seemed to be produced so effortlessly. I will be happy just to make a decent piece of plain stocking stitch!

Local Primary School Visits Farm, Australian Visitors

2011-09-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday, a grey drizzle-laden day, a group of 5-7yr olds from our local primary school were brought to visit the farm. The school is only a mile away yet the children were brought in huge bus instead of walking down across the fields which would be so much more fun for them. However, they duly arrived fully kitted out in wellies & many of them with waterproof over-trousers which I was pleased to see. Despite the miserable weather the visit was great success with the Farmer marching them around the farm showing them everything from silage & grass to a new born calf out in the field with its mother & aunts which they were thrilled by.

After walking up hill & down dale, which the grown-ups complain about more than the children!!,

lunch was eaten in one of the farm sheds after the obligatory hand-washing which the children find as much fun as anything else...washing in a trough of cold water after having queued up for a squirt of liquid soap and then being handed a length of paper towel seems to be quite an experience!

Again we were surprised by the fact only two children in a group of 35 from a little rural school, come from farms. When the Farmer went to the same school some 40-odd years ago the majority of the pupils were farm children. This is why is so important that we continue to have schools visit us and for the children to see livestock and machinery and feed-stuff in the proper context & to make the connection with the food that they eat..

This group took back to school with them a lovely collection of bits & pieces that they had garnered from the hedgerows; they had sloes, hawthorn berries, acorns, beech husks, fungi of various kinds & wisps of sheeps wool, real treasures that they guarded most jealously getting onto the bus for their return to school.

The following day we conducted another farm walk, this time for three adults who were holidaying in the area from Australia. They had 130 acres, (a mere garden by Australian standards of course!) which they were hoping to stock with cattle. They were amazed at how green Wales is, but then it never stops raining whereas in Oz it never rains at all! Or so we like to believe.

After a good walk round we all came into the kitchen for tea & cake and compared notes on life in Australia & Wales.

We love having visitors from around the world and as it is extremely unlikely that the Farmer & I would ever go to the Antipodes we do get an insight into a different world. We were particularly fascinated by one of our guest's experiences living out in the bush alongside an Aboriginal tribe who still lived in the traditional way with very little contact with white people.

Exmoor National Park, Cider Orchards & Marilyn Monroe's Dresses

2011-09-17T06:31:00.000-07:00

The Farmer & I ran away to Exmoor last weekend! On the spur of the moment we decided to book a cottage and just go. The Sons were more than happy to be left in charge for a few days and so off we went. I managed to find a delightful cottage (http://www.the-malt-house.co.uk/) & the owners, though a bit surprised, were willing for us to arrive that evening and we headed off down the M4 after lunch. We had a very good run and found the tiny dot of the village of Exton where the cottage was located, without too much difficulty even though it was up a tiny lane in very quiet & secluded spot. Perfect!

As well as sleeping & reading a huge amount, we spent a lot of time exploring Exmoor, neither of us having been there before. It is lovely and though several places were heaving with 'charabanc outings' on the whole there were few people around. Porlock was a sweet place as was Dulverton. Dunster was beautiful but parking impossible & of course we went to Tarr Steps, the impressive ancient stepping stones across a small river which is a magnet for walkers. We approached it from the non-tourist side, i.e. the side without the pay & display carpark! and though it is a ford the Farmer would not drive through it in our 4x4 as he said would be showing off!

Although we are not church-goers we are church visitors ansd there are some lovely old & very interesting village churches dotted around Exmoor. They all had lists in beautiful script of the vicars who had served those parishes dating from the 13th century; I think the earliest one we saw was 1270 going right up the present incumbent who came in 2009. There was real sense of continuity in seeing the names of the men who had conducted the rites in those remote parishes over so many centuries.

The cottage was very comfortable & the Farmer was very kindly given the use of a music-room that was attached. The owner was a violin-maker & player and so he and the Farmer had good conversations.
I had the aurally interesting experience of sitting reading one evening with the Farmer playing some Bach in the adjoining music-room and hearing the bell-ringers practising in the village church which was only a 100 yards from the cottage. As I said aurally interesting, harmonically horrendous!!! not a musical experience I would want to repeat!

We left for home yesterday and on the way stopped at a cider orchard in Somerset (Pixford Fruit Farm, Bishops Lydeard) to buy cider (for the Farmer to compare it with his own !) and were able to go into the orchards to see the harvesting machines which the Farmer was fascinated by. The orchards were very beautiful with their serried ranks of trees many still laden with glowing red apples and others with the ground underneath carpeted with greenery-yallery fruit where the trees had been shaken ready for gathering up by the harvester.

We then made our way to Claverton just outside Bath to visit the American Museum in Britain. This is a place I have vivid memories of being taken to as child on several occasions & the Farmer had never been so now was our opportunity to call in as we were passing..more or less!
The museum traces the story of America with a display of rooms furnished in different styles showing the progress from the 17th century to the 19th. There was also gallery of portraits in the folk art tradition which were beautiful.

But an unlikely bonus to the day was the exhibition about Marilyn Monroe. It was display of her dresses as worn in her most well-known films including this fabulous scarlet sequinned number from 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'.These gowns & other items from her home had been collected on her death and were now in private collection that has been loaned to the American Museum for a temporary exhibition.

The exhibition was superb, even the Farmer was impressed & its not really his kind of thing! The dresses were stunning and the work in them, the beading & embroidery was beautiful. The exhibits were shown with a background of songs from the films and further illustrated with the life story of this Hollwood icon & victim. I love the films, especially 'Some Like it Hot' & Sugar Kanes's little black beaded dress was in the exhibition.

After all that glamour it was back to the farm and family having endured horrendous traffic through Bath & on the motorway, crawling at 20mph much of the time! It was relief to get back onto our own quiet country roads and to find that while we were away seven calves had been born and the Sons had been kept very busy.

Darwin & Philosophy, Third Leaf Books

2011-09-06T01:42:00.000-07:00

It was a very dark & stormy night & this morning I went out to inspect the damage with the dogs and found this large branch down in the big garden. It had not done any great damage & I am surprised that more had not fallen.
I always expect September to be fine golden days with the hints of autumn in the air. Not so this year, clearly. Is this blustery weather the tail end of the hurricane that that hit the east coast of America recently?

Yesterday the Farmer & I went to lunch with our friend & neighbour the Author & his wife, neither whom we had seen for a very long while.
He has just written a new book that has been launched on the internet as an e-book called 'Darwin Plus! Evolution, Science, Religion & the Paranormal...a Reconciliation'. A weighty title & a bit cranky (as the Author himself would be the first to admit!) but do not be put off by this. It is extremely readable & very interesting dealing with beliefs, rational thinking & the materialism of science. The Author's style of writing carries one along with ease even when dealing with such potentially heavyweight material and certainly provides a feast for thought & debate.
This new work is a bit of a departure from the Author's previous books, though they do touch on his philosophies, in which he writes very entertainingly about his life as smallholder in West Wales over the past 30 years, 'Scenes from a Smallholding' & 'More Scenes from a Smallholding' by Chas Griffin, published by Ebury Press.
The new e-book is available from http://www.thirdleafbooks.co.uk/.

Local Agricultural Show & Rural Skills Displayed

2011-09-04T03:58:00.000-07:00

For as long as I have lived in West Wales our local agricultural show has been held about 10 miles away. I will admit that we have not attended it for a very long time; it is always held on the first Saturday in September & Saturday is my busy day with cottage change-over & the arrival of new guests. In fact we last went to it in 1997 on the day of Princess Diana's funeral ( the show was surpisingly well attended, a great antidote to the general gloom of that day, though a minutes silence was held). However, this year (and apparently will be for evermore) it was held on a new site just half a mile from us, so we had no excuse for not going. Also the Sons had been asked to be stewards for the judges of the dairy & beef cattle classes. So, yesterday despite the very unfortunate heavy drizzle which continued throughout the day, we made our way up to the fields of our neighbour which had been turned into the venue for the 137th Annual Llandysul & District Show.
It was such a pity the weather was simply atrocious for such an event as the new site is excellent, being very accessible from all directions and with superb views across the Teifi Valley. Nonetheless, a considerable number of people turned out to show their cattle, sheep & horses all of whom, people & animals, stood for long periods of time in the persistent rain & got soaked. So much time & effort is put into preparing animlas for showing that rain cannot stop play.

As well as the livestock classes there is very serious competion in the horticultural section. There was a fine display of huge leeks, giant onions and smooth skinned potaoes and elegantly tapering carrots as well as magnificent dahlias, sweet-peas & chrysanthemums all having been so carefully produced for the show.The floral art section is always popular at local shows but my favourite group of entries are the childrens ones; a miniature garden in a egg-cup or a necklace made of sweeties where great ingenuity is shown, though I was surprised to see 'Any item made of Lego'!...not excatly a tradtional rural craft.

Some the most beautiful examples of rural crafts on show were the walking sticks. There were classes for Thumb Sticks & Shepherd's Crooks made from wood or with horn forks or crooks. They were stunning with some the horn being just polished to show up the natural colours or having been carved & painted as a curving trout or the head of a heron or a badger.
It is wonderful how much skill there is in the rural community that is only ever seen at small local shows.

We bid our French Student 'Bon voyage' on Thursday when we put him on the train to Plymouth and we are now back into our usual busyness without having to translate everything and being aware that many explanations are not really understood. Still despite the langauge difficulties I think the FS had good time here with us...on his last night we, with a group of friends went to one of our favourite beaches and had a picnic fry-up. We took our Canadian canoe as well which the FS thought was great; he & others paddled out where they were watched at very close quarters by a seal whioh was a binus for them all. We had a lovely time and watched the most spectacular sunset with the sun a glowing orange disc of fire dropping down below the horizon like golden penny into a slot machine.

First of the New Calves, French Students

2011-08-31T02:56:00.000-07:00

The first calves of the season have been born in the last few days. These in the picture are not twins though we had a set of twins born this morning. Unfortunately they are a heifer & a bull which means the heifer will probably be a freemartin and therefore sterile and fit only for slaughter.
These calves are the first ones born as result of artificial insemination by Elder Son who did his training a year or so ago. By having our own flask of semen straws here on the farm and someone who is trained saves us having to pay AI fees and so far the results are looking good.

Although the photo is rather dark this is our first Ayrshire calf to be born this year. It is a bull calf, we always hope for heifers but he will rear well for beef.

With the sudden improvement of the weather today it is all go for more silage, both our own & that of neighbours. Younger Son has gone off to mow on a neighbouring farm while Elder Son & the Farmer are busy preparing another clamp inside one of the sheds & turning our own grass that was cut two days ago.

The French Student has gone off for the day with the Belgian vet which is great for him & relieves us from having to keep him occupied here. He cannot drive tractors so on days like today when it is all tractor work it is difficult finding jobs for him. He returns to France tomorrow & I think we have done our bit for Anglo/French relations for a good long while. We have had many French students over the years, some better than others, but is hard work, for them & us, when their command of English is so limited. I suspect they think their English is quite good until they actually get here and find that they are unable to understand most of what is said. My dredging up of 'O' Level French gets us through the very tricky patches but it is a strain...a month can be a very long time! The FS himself however, seems to be very happy and to have enjoyed his stay which is the main thing I suppose.

Silage All In, Home-drying of Fruit, Home Brewing

2011-08-25T05:57:00.000-07:00

The last of the silage crop was brought in this week & our fodder supply for the winter is secure. The forage wagons have been cleaned and greased & put away in the back of one the sheds until next summer. Everyone on the farm is always pleased when this stage is reached & it means the weather can do whatever it likes from now on & we won't have to worry about it.

As well ensuring that the cattle have their winter feed the Farmer has been very busy harvesting our bumper crop of plums & devising ways of preserving them. As well bottling & freezing we have been experimenting with drying them to make prunes (the Farmer loves dried fruit of all kinds). To this end a number of wooden boxes with mesh bases have been constructed. The plums have been halved & de-stoned and then laid in the boxes which are now stacked on the top of the Rayburn. They take several days to dry but the end results are very satisfactory.
There is also a lot of plum wine bubbling away in the kitchen & some bullace wine too, I think. This in addition to the quantities of cider & beer that the Famer is brewing. The kitchen smells marvellous with all this fruity activity & it is producing a lot of very palatable booze at half the cost of buying commercial stuff and with a great deal more fun. I, however, don't drink any of it!

Yesterday the Farmer & I went to Cardigan ( to buy some more fermenting bins!) and had lovely day once the 'shopping' had been done. We went down to Gwbert, which is the estuary of the river Teifi and watched the tide come in and the large flocks of swans, Canada geese & curlews gradually losing their standings on the sandbanks to the incoming waters.
We had escaped the Sons & the French Student for the day & had left them to their various employments of mechanics & the painting of gates. Today the FS has gone with one of our local vets who is a French speaking Belgian, on his rounds. It is a wonderful opportunity for him and gives him a break from having to communicate in his poor English with us & gives us a break from trying to interprete. It is a strain on all of us & we are driven at times to drawing pictures!

Foreign Vets, Home-grown Fruit & Veg

2011-08-18T02:33:00.000-07:00

Several times over the past couple of months we have had 'Ministry' vets turning up having got lost, the latest one at the beginning otf the week. The main reason for these arrivals is that on the whole they have been Spanish & therefore unfamiliar with the area. They have been sent out armed with a map, the name of a farm & the farmer & little idea of where they are going.
They arrive here, get out of the car, tog themselves up in wellies & over- trousers, grab their clip boards then come to the door & say they have come to test our cattle. They have not as they do not have an appointment.
They then ask if we are Mr. Jones? We say 'No'. They say 'Is this ....Farm?' We say 'No'. They say 'I am lost!' We say 'It certainly looks like it!' & then have to go through a great rigmarole of trying to find out where they are meant to be, which is difficult for the poor Spanish vet having to cope with Welsh place names & for us having to interpret & show on the map that in fact they are probably even in the wrong parish!
What I am getting round to is that while the vet is only doing his or her job, they are very conscious, as are we, that they are compromising the anonymity of farmers having their cattle tested for TB by a lack of local knowledge & frequently an inadequate grasp of the English language & a strong accent, a situation made more difficult by local accents & that many older Welsh farmers are more at ease speaking Welsh.. For some reason a lot of the vets employed by Defra seem to come from Spain & also in the local abattoirs & it is a cause for concern and there is potential for serious mistakes to be made.

We have been picking plums...there is bumper crop this year but sadly they are lacking flavour, so we have bottled them in a syrup. They will be delicious in the winter when made into crumbles & sponge puddings.
The blackberries are beginning to ripen now and it looks as though there is going to be a very good crop of them too. Hazelnuts are ripening as well and I hope I shall be able to gather a reasonable quantity to keep for Christmas before the squirrels get them. In the garden I have a red hazel which produces deep pink nuts with lovely flavour.
While the polytunnel has been keeping us well supplied with cabbages, courgettes & sweetpeas, the tomatoes are doing very badly. Very little fruit has set & what toms there are are not ripening. We cannot think of a good reason for this at all & it is very disappointing as one of the best things about this time of year is freshly picked tomatoes for salad lunches with good bread & local cheese.

Younger Son, KT & the Baby took A. our French student to the Pembrokshire Show near Haverfordwest on Tuesday. They had lovely time & A. came back very pleased with his day having bought himself a real Welsh rugby ball. I hope he has room for it in his backpack!

Weekend Away, Visitors- Familiar & Unknown, Wood-Piles

2011-08-15T03:41:00.000-07:00

While the farm work carries on as usual & I continue to produce meals at regular intervals we have had a number of visitors over the past couple of weeks, including various family members making their annual summer pilgrimage ot the farm which is lovely. It is always good to see them, but we also have had total strangers turning up having found their way here for an assortment of reasons, some of which have proved to be very interesting.
For example last week a couple arived from London coming to look for a house that they last visited in 1969 (!) that happens to be the old 'big house' here on the farm. They certainly saw some changes but were able to tell us a large part of the history that we had not been able to discover for ourselves, which was fascinating.
The following day another couple turned up hoping we could tell them the whereabouts of a neighbour who had left the area about 25 years ago who had owned a Bristol motor-car that now belonged to friends of theirs in England who wanted to track its history. We weren't able to help them but they came in for a cup of tea and it turned out that they had been involved with the Soil Association in the 1970's & had been small-scale cheese-makers which led to very interesting conversation for a couple of hours.

We still have our French student A., who seems to have settled in to our mode of living quite well. I don't think he has ever worked so hard in his life before but he no longer gets up at the crack of dawn to help with the morning milking! He eats everything that is put in front of him & is very polite & well-mannered. We converse reasonably well with him now and I hope he does feel that his English is improving, though we get some hilarious moments where his politeness overides comprehension!

We have another delightful family from Germany in the cottage this week and who seem very pleased with place and their two small children have been adopted by the Labradors as happens so often.

The Farmer & I went away for 24 hours this weekend having been invited to a party up in mid-Wales ( a sleep-over!) near Carno at a sweet cottage tucked away in a fold of the hills. It was accessible either over a railway line where one has to use yellow telephone to ensure that there are no trains rushing towards you or down a rough track with two gates to be opened and a very, very narrow railway bridge to drive under. We had borrowed Younger Son's Ford Focus which was just as well as I don't think our 4x4 would have squeezed through... as it was the wing mirrors were scraped on the stonework!
We had an excellent weekend of really great conversation, wonderful food & very interesting people many of whom had travelled up from London & Bristol and so lived very different lives to those of us in Welsh hills, and we have returned home exhausted.

The Farmer, Elder Son & A. are doing a splendid job of processing the very large logs piles that have sitting seasoning for a year or more and filling the fire-woods sheds with very satisfying mountains of logs which should keep us going for good long time.

This afternoon I think we shall be picking plums. There is a good crop this year and we must get them before the wasps!

London Riots

2011-08-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

We are all appalled by the recent events in London & other cities and whilst no-one can condone the behaviour of the rioters & looters & the wanton destruction of small businesses there must be an understanding of the reason for this violent expression of discontent & hopelessness.
Please read Robins Wood's blog on the subject...he expresses it much better than I can.
http://www.greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/2011/08/london-riots.html

Food for Thought Against Racism

2011-08-07T04:12:00.000-07:00

I found this gem posted on my Facebook page.
'Your car is German. Your vodka is Russian. Your pizza is Italian. Your kebab is Turkish. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Brazilian. Your movies are American. Your tea is Tamil. Your shirt is Indian. Your oil is Saudi Arabian. Your electronics are Chinese. Your numbers are Arabic and your letters are Latin. And you complain that your neighbour is an immigrant? Pull yourself together!
Copy and paste if you're against racism.'

I am of Scots/Irish descent living in Wales, the Farmer is English with a dash of Dutch, our grand-daughter has Scots, Irish, English & Welsh blood.
We have French, German & Portugese visitors here on the farm at the moment.
We have Swedish, Finnish, Polish, Dutch, German, Russian, Italian & Muslim & Jewish friends & neighbours.
We have Indian, Chinese, Thai restaurants.
Welsh is the first language in this area.
We live in a fascinating multi-cultural society even here in remote rural West Wales.

Free-Range Christmas Turkeys, Swallows Eaten by Owl

2011-08-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

This morning the turkey poults that the Farmer bought in some weeks ago have been allowed out to roam about and I now have constant backgound chorus of cheerful, if ugly birds, talking turkey in the yard. They are hideous with their naked heads & necks but quite fun to watch as they move in a flock around the yard picking up beetles & other insects.
Molly the sheepdog, however is in deep disgrace as yesterday one of the birds had escaped and she could not resist the tempatation it offered...it had a brief experience of freedom swiftly curtailed by an over active collie who left trail of tell-tale feathers across the yard and was found crunching bones under the climbing frame.
Hopefully the remaining poults will survive until the week before Christmas when they will be quickly dispatched having reached a good weight and will taste superb, thanks to the exercise & diet of creepy-crawlies. Meanwhile we have the dubious pleasure of having them marching around the farm...they can cause havoc in the garden having very big feet, but are quite entertaining with their vocal exercises and defensive posturing & rattling of feathers.

Continuing the avian theme, the Famer has his wood-working workshop in one of the old stables in which for the past 150+ years the swallows have nested and raised their broods without let or hindrance. However, this year a little owl has moved in and there are no more swallows in the rafters above the workbenches, just some sad little inky blue/black feathers floating around. It seems that the owl found a feasting place with an a la carte menu. While we regret the swallows very much, it is rather pleasing to have an owl lodging in the building so near human activity. There are many more swallows in the other buildings & it will be interesting to see whether next year the hirundines try to recapture their territory from the owls...almost inevitably though, I think the owls will prove the victors.

French Student Comes to Stay

2011-08-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

It is some time since the Farmer or I had to visit a railway station. On Tuesday however, we found ourselves waiting at Carmarthen station ( and Adlestrop it is not!) for some considerable time. A bleak experience even on a baking hot afternoon.
We were there to meet the 17yr old French student who has come to stay for the month of August. He had given me the wrong time for his arrival and after the 6th train had come & gone with no sign of him the Farmer & I were beginning to get quite anxious. Although we had a mobile phone number for him it did not work without the international code which, of course, we had not thought to find (duh!) & he had no number for us other than our house number (we are very lackadaisical about communications...it never occurs to me to have the mobile with me at all times, or indeed at any time, except when someone reminds that I do have one!). However an hour after we had expected to met him, A. appeared much to our great relief. He rather sweetly showed me scrap of paper on which he had clearly been working out how to say in English 'I made a mistake about the time'!
A. is with us for a month and so far he seems to be settling in quite well. The Farmer & Elder Son are keeping him very busy with logging & building a new wall in the slurry pit and there any number of things lined up where an extra pair of hands will be useful. He seems to be competent and has driven a tractor previously which always helps. He's managed to get up at 6.30. each morning to help with the milking & is very tired by bed-time. We appreciate that is a strain having to get through the days struggling with the language tho' so far he, and we, are coping quite well with my scanty French and the help of a dictionary.

Damp Start to August, Arrival of Bees, Melin Teifi & Welsh Wool Products

2011-08-01T01:59:00.000-07:00

The 1st of August & a very grey morning...its not actually raining but the air is heavy with damp and while attempting to do a bit of work in the farmhouse garden I got soaked by the wet coming off the shrubs as I struggled to remove the strangling weeds before they take over completely make the garden more jungly than usual. It has been a good year for the wretched hog-weeds and the nettles seem to be bigger than ever and as for the bindweed & goose-grass they are rampant, much worse than last year. That said as long as the lawns are mown regularly and the worst of the weeds kept at bay the garden will pass muster.

Yesterday the Farmer was delighted to find that one the empty bee-hives that he has around the gardens has been taken over by a swarm of bees. He reckons they have probably been there a couple of weeks as one of the supers (the box that the comb is built in) is quite full. He would like to feed the bees but is worried that the smell of the sugar solution will attract wasps who will just wipe out the colony. We lost a colony last year to wasps and don't want to risk it again having not had resident bees for a couple of years now. It would be great if these new arrivals can survive.

I have just been reading the blog written by Robin Wood of the Heritage Craft Association (http://green-carving.blogspot.com/) in which he is saying that there is little, though growing, support for tradtional crafts in this country. He is working very hard with the HCA to advance the interest & support for all types of tradtional skills.
Last week I visited our local woollen mill, Melin Teifi in Drefach Velindre, to discuss having some Welsh tapestry counterpanes made for the beds in the holiday cottage. Teifi Mill is a small mill that is producing beautiful traditional Welsh wool fabric and sells all over the world, sadly though, the mill will be closing in couple of years time. They make lovely old fashioned nursing blankets for babies as well as gorgeous blankets for beds and the traditional Welsh tapestry that is used for bedspreads. They also take commissions using the customers choice of colours & design for furnishing fabrics & blankets. I found a suitable design for the new counterpane and I shall go over to the mill again shortly to place the order.

Second-cut Silage, Strawberry Jam

2011-07-27T02:56:00.000-07:00

Last evening at the end of a very busy day I went to help the Farmer move a small bunch of cows into clean grazing after the field had been mown for silage. The ladies-in-waiting as they are known, being cows due to calve fairly soon, made their stately progress down the lane in the lovely evening light, stopping on their way to drink from the stream that runs down the side of the lane. Cows drinking is a lovely sight...they slurp quite delicately (if that isn't a contradiction in terms), from the surface of the water in a most genteel manner.

The menfolk had spent the day bringing in the second cut of silage. A contractor came in with his self-propelled precision-chop harvester to deal with a field of whole-crop barley, crimson clover & vetch which ensiled makes excellent fodder for the cows over winter. Two fields of grass were also cut. The silage clamp is now very full and we can rest assured that there is enough feed to see us throught the winter. There will still be some big bales made later on as extra safe-guard.

While the men & machines were busy harvesting winter feed I was doing my bit to replenish the larder by making strawberry jam. I had bought a tray of stawberries ( unfortunately they are one of the fruits we don't grow ourselves) and set to hull them which took about an hour and then set to boiling them up. Strawberries are very low in pectin which means they need something added to make the jam set. I had added some setting agent but the set would not come after hours of boiling so then I remembered I had some gooseberries in the freezer which are very high in pectin. A good handfull of goosegogs thrown into the roiling swirling pan of strawberries worked wonders. I had a setting jam very quickly and was able to fill the jars. I ended up with 15 jars of good jam which should see us through.
I might just make some goosebery jam now and maybe try to use up the backlog of other fruit of various kinds in the freezer before this years crop come in.

The Farmer has just brought in trug of produce from the poly-tunnel so I shall sit in outside in the shade of the garden swing and shell peas for lunch and think of what to do with a rather overgrown courgette..it is not yet a marrow but is too big to be zucchini, hmmm.

Visit to CAT, Machynlleth, Farmer's Market

2011-07-21T02:04:00.000-07:00

A misty July morning in the valley, promise of a lovely day.

Yesterday the Farmer, our friend G. the mushroom grower (http://www.maesymush.co.uk/) & I went up to Machynlleth to the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT).
G. had not been there before though the Farmer & I have visited it several time over the years & we were both taken there by our parents as children when it was very, very new & still looked liked a slate quarry with couple of small wind turbines stuck on the hillside.. It is very different now with the harsh slate landscape softened by many trees & gardens and the various buildings demonstrating the sustainable technologies that are being developed to produce & save energy. There are many small garden plots with many herbs, fruit trees, bee-friendly planting and information on effective composting.
There is a very good bookshop in which, once you block out the scented candles, has lot of useful material, though there is quite a lot of 'fluffy' stuff too.
The new WISE building (the Wales Institute for Sustainable Education) has been built since we were last there. It is a huge low- or zero-carbon structure made of rammed earth & wood. It has a lecture theatre, seminar rooms, accommodation & a restaurant all designed to be as low energy & as light as possible and looks amazing ( http://www.cat.org/) with a vast curved wall housing the theatre which dominates the view of the building from the gardens that surround it.

After a late picnic lunch sitting on a blade from a wind turbine near the 'station' for the water powered lift that takes visitors up to the entrance of CAT, we went into Machynlleth to find our friends R. & M. who were at the weekly Farmer's Market selling their bread (http://www.mairsbakehouse.co.uk/). Mach.'s Farmer's Market is great, many stalls all selling wonderful food stuffs as well as the usual market stall goods. We bought some bread, naturally, and some wonderful cheeses including a good strong farmhouse Cheddar & a piece of golden-hued Shropshire Blue which with some home-grown salad will make a delectable supper.

Trawsnewid Calon Teifi Transition Group Folds

2011-07-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of emails, meetings & dialogues the Farmer & I attended a final meeting yesterday in which our local Transition Group Trawsnewid Calon Teifi was closed.
It is very sad that this has come about but due to 'a breakdown of trust & co-operation' it was felt that the group could not move forward in its present form and the only way to resolve the difficulties was to bring the whole thing to an end.
In order to dissolve the group in the most civilised & painless way an external facilitator was brought in to ensure that feelings were not allowed to get heated & possibly result in unpleasant scenes which would have been distressing for everyone present.
The facilitator was extraordinary in her control of the space & energies that were in the room. I have not experienced anything quite like it before. What had the potential to be a very disturbing meeting ended up as a calm & expressive gathering of people, most of whom had the same desires to bring about a peaceful change to an extremely difficult situation. By allowing those who wished to speak and express their views & feelings about the situation in a safe & trusting environment a very meaningfull & constructive dialogue was achieved which was fascinating to observe & resulted in a much healthier atmosphere of hope.
It is sad that after nearly 4 years of hard work & dedication by a number of enthusiastic people it has had to end, however there is feeling that eventually a phoenix can arise from the ashes and a new Transition group will be able to start up and carry on the work albeit in a somewhat different mould.
Despite the demise of the umbrella group the single interest groups that had formed, such as the Food Circle, the Veg. Group & the Energy Group will continue to function as usual until such time as everyone can be brought together again.
A new website has been set up to give information regarding the transition movement in the Teifi Valley, http://www.teifitransition.org.uk/.
http://www.disciplineofpeace.org/

Primary School Visits Farm

2011-07-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had a visit from one of our local primary schools arranged by the charitable arm of the the Countryside Alliance, the Countryside Alliance Foundation (http://www.countrysidealliance.org/).
A photographer/journalist from our local paper, The Carmarthen Journal, also turned up, so we hope there will be good report on the visit in next weeks edition.
Despite the threat of horrible weather a group of 30 3-4year olds arrived during the morning in a state of high excitement. The visit got off to a wonderful start with one the little girls finding a baby frog (broga bach) in the grass as she got off the bus. Fortunately the Farmer managed to catch it before a hoard of curious small children trampled on it and they were all able to see it at close quarters.

After a demonstration of sheep shearing and a good walk to see some cattle ( to wear them out !) they ate their picnic lunches sitting on bales of straw in one of the sheds. Lunch was followed by the Farmer showing how butter is made. In good Blue Peter style we had prepared some earlier, though a small hand churn was passed around for everyone to have a go and then I spread some of the fresh butter on to crackers for them to taste.

After being shown a very big tractor with engine revving loudly which impressed the little boys no end, we took them to see the laying hens, Two sensible little girls were then allowed to go with the basket to collect the eggs...they were thrilled! The Farmer caught one of the Bluebells who very patiently put up with being stroked & cooed over.

We had a lovely time with then children and although they were so young I hope they got some inkling of what a farm is all about and where their food comes from. However, when I asked one of the little boys what had been the best bit of the day he said after a long pause for thought, ' Going to the toilet!.' I was somewhat taken aback! The facilities are in a rather basic but perfectly clean & functional portable wooden 'tardis' known as the Ty Bach, (Welsh colloquialism meaning 'little house') built by the Farmer that is plumbed in with flushing loo and wash basin, but I would doubt it merits being the high light of the day!

Glorious Summer, Sun Affected Cattle, Leeches & Other Pond Llife

2011-07-04T02:38:00.000-07:00

Dappled shade on a summer's morning...we have been having such glorious weather these last few days, though apparently it is not set to last, with rain forecast for the middle of the week. Ah, well!
Hay has been made while the sun shines though; the Boys having been off turning hay for a couple of neighbours and its been perfect weather for the digger work that has been going on in Elder Son's garden.

This morning I helped the Farmer & Elder Son move one of the Hereford cows and her adopted Belgian Blue X calf out of group of very young heifers to join the rest of the Herefords. The calf seems to be suffering from a reaction to the sun whereby its white hair is dropping out. We have seen this happen before; it does no lasting harm and looks worse than it is, though it will probably retard the calf's growth somewhat. The worst case of it we had was many years ago in along hot summer when one of the black & white dairy cows lost all her white hair and was left looking very strange with pink skin patched with black hair. That case so severe that the Farmer would leave her in shed during the day and put her out to graze at night. She did recover.

It has been wonderful weather for the insect life around the farm with giant dragonflies zooming around like miniature helicopters and a better show of butterflies than I've seen for a couple of years. The Farmer & I walked down to check some cattle at the bottom of the valley & I saw a common blue, which is not so common here and many little brown fritillaries and commas. Outside Elder Son's cottage every year there are Red Admirals which spend much time sunning themselves on the sun soaked gravel, while up in the polytunnels the Farmer is greatly excercised in keeping the activity of the cabbage whites to the minimum before their caterpillars colonise our brassicas. The other problem he is having to contend with is rabbits...they have eaten all the leek seedlings and I think there is a sacrificial row of cabbages! Stalking rabbits with a shotgun is not easy in a polytunnel...the risk of puncturing the plastic being one problem and traps just don't work.

Back to insects and suchlike, yesterday I was down dabbling my toes in one of the ponds, it being so hot, and saw a rather revolting creature clinging to piece of pond weed and waving itself around in the water. It was a leech and quite horrid in the way it stretched iteslf out to length of about 3inches and then contracted down to about 1/2 an inch in its search for another anchor point. The Farmer has been swimming in the ponds these hot days but somehow I just can't make myself join him & the more repellant inhabitants of the water. Whilst I quite appreciate the place of the leech in the great scheme of things and its use in medicine, which has been revived, I really don't fancy swimming alongside them.
Squidgy, stretchy, sucking creatures apart I love watching the other life-forms of the ponds; the water-boatmen sculling about in the clear shallows and the other creatures known as whirligig beetles that look like drops of mercury skimming across the surface of the water. The dragon & damsel flies are spectacular in their aerobatics and compete with the swallows in their displays. The labradors make full use of the ponds in this hot weather and don't even bother to ask for a stick to be thrown before they leap in and swim around just for the sheer pleasure of it...they don't know about those leeches!.

Brightening up of the Weather, Major Gardening Works, Cottage Refurbishment

2011-06-26T02:13:00.000-07:00

After several days of damp grey gloom there is at last blue sky appearing this morning for which much rejoicing.

There has been great activity here over the last few days with major works going on around Elder Son's cottage. The great thing about having boys who own diggers & other useful machinery is that when landscaping work has to be done we can just get on with it.
Elder Son & KT have decided to remove a somewhat tangled shrubbery and make a larger lawn for their baby daughter to have a safe play area so I spent most of Thursday replanting large shrubs and other plants in a cleared raised bed and fortunately they do all seem to be surviving the transplants well. I guess the damp cool weather has helped. Once everything is finished it is going to look very good and should be easier for KT to maintain.

I have been busy also with refurbishing elements of the holiday cottage (http://www.penyrallt.co.uk/) while it has been empty for a couple of weeks before the mass of summer visitors start to arrive this week.
I have had a new carpet laid in the bedrooms, a new sofa, rugs, lampshades and have made new curtains for one bedroom & the bathroom. It is all looking very good and comfortable. The new carpet is lovely...I just hope I don't regret my decision to allow dogs in the cottage once more! I do ask people not to let their dogs in the bedrooms but short of putting a gate across the small passage to the bedrooms it is difficult, though most of our visitors are very good about the small house-rules.
As well as putting new furnishings in the cottage it does also act as my overflow book storage, hence the over-filled bookcases and books attractively placed in the bedrooms in lieu of any other decorative items (I don't really 'do' ornaments) and after all 'books do furnish a room'.This use of the cottage is justified however when on occasion I have guests arrive who walking into the sitting room say thing like, 'Oh, how lovely, lots of books!' or 'I needn't have brought a bag of books with me!' I make an effort to put in really good childrens books and we have had requests from children (& grown-ups) on the day of departure to take a book home with them to finish. Also books are left behind, including some written in Dutch, which is useful as we get at least one family from Holland each year.

Newport Pembrokeshire, Coetan Arthur, Nevern Castle, Welsh Game Fair with Mud,

2011-06-19T03:37:00.000-07:00

The Famer & I have given ourselves two days off, as it is raining (!) and spent the first day pottering around Newport (Pembs). It is a tiny place but with a wealth of excellent galleries (http://www.newportcollective.co.uk/, a lovely jumbled junk/antique/curio/book shop where we picked up some wonderful history & travel books from the early part of the 20th century (they don't write books like that any more!) and several good coffee shops. A perfect place for pottering in the rain.
Just on the ouskirts of Newport there is Coetan Arthur, a impressive cromlech which is approached rather bizarrely by a footpath through a small cul-de-sac of smart modern bungalows with neatly manicured lawns & perjink (a good descriptive Scottish word) gardens. Indeed, the last bungalow has the chamber just yards away from its kitchen window. Although the stones themselves are impressive, the cap stone balanced on only two points, it does lack the atmosphere of Pentre-Ifan because of its close proximity to 21st century suburbia.
After calling on some friends not seen for long time to admire their very beautiful newly renovated house, we then went to Nevern castle which has had some recent archaeological digs.done. It was always a lovely place, just a large mound in a wood with magnificent beech trees, but no real castle remains visible. Now, after careful tree-felling and excavation of stone work and some clearing of the moat it is still a wonderful place but more clearly the remains of a castle, though the remains are not extensive. It has fascinating history the details of which can be found at http://www.neverncastle.co.uk/.

Yesterday we went to the Welsh Game Fair held near Llandeilo, in the rain and the mud was incroyable!! Nonetheless we had a very enjoyable time though progress around the showground was very slippery and our boots were rapidly caked in thick sticky mud, yuch! which made walking around quite difficult. I think the people with push-chairs & very small children probably suffered the most.
We were very entertained to see on our arrival at the Countryside Alliance stand that a photograph of the Farmer has been used on one of their large display boards. It is superb picture of him introducing a group of school children to our dairy cows. The picture was one of many taken by Charles Sainsbury-Plaice during a visit to Penyrallt by a school from a Carmarthen that was arranged by the Countryside Alliance Foundation,
http://www.countryside-alliance-foundation.org.uk/.

Silage Crop In, Orphan Pheasant Chick

2011-06-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

The silage is all in and the pit is very full, a superb crop this year and everyone is very pleased. It was glorious sunny day but rain was forecast for the evening.
Younger Son had been mowing until very late on Monday night, then on Tuesday the Farmer spent all day from 10.00am until 1.30pm (!!!) rowing up while the Sons carted the grass to the pit where our good friend S. was buck-raking & levelling the grass. They were all working until 1.30 in the morning but the rain was on its way and so they just had to carry on until the end and they got it done in time.

I had spent the day cutting piles of sandwiches and making up cold drinks for them all though it was eaten on the hoof as there was no time to stop for more than 5 minutes as the process of raking & carting was finely tuned to keep the chap on clamp from getting overloaded, but also to prevent him waiting for the next load. It is quite a business making silage!
Yesterday morning was then spent rolling the clamp to get the air out and covering it with the plastic sheets and tyres. So that is it now until the next cut later in the summer.

This morning the Farmer has brought a new lodger into the kitchen. He was out early with the dogs and they disturbed a hen pheasant who had survived the last shooting season and had made a nest in one of our bottom fields. The foolish bird flew off and the dogs found her nest but the Farmer rescued a tiny pheasant chick which is now cheeping gently in a box by the Rayburn. It probably hatched only yesterday . It is tiny but very pretty with its dark striped fluff. They hand -rear quite well so hopefully we''ll succeed with this one.

Wild Cattle, Silage underway

2011-06-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

A glorious sunny morning for the Farmer's birthday and high jinks with a neighbours escaped cattle!
After a peaceful birthday breakfast with a visit from the lovely 5 month old, smiley grand-daughter all hell let loose when it was found that large number of cattle from a neighbours rented fields had broken down the fences & got into our freshly mown silage fields & into another field containing some of our young animals.! The Sons managed to round them all up and try bring them down to the yard. However, on their way they managed to inflict some damage toYounger Son's car by barging past it parked in a gateway. They then got into my garden smashing two fences in the process, trampled a precious tree peony & a rhododendron, broke branches off trees and then made their way into the field of dairy cows! It was mayhem! They also got into the cottage garden and churned up the lawn.
When we eventually got them into the yard, along with the dairy cows, they then had to be sorted out ; the dairy cows bemusedly being returned to their grazing and the visiting beasts separated from our own.
The owners of the rampaging bovines arrived & they were then walked back down our drive and into a, hopefully, more secure field. Most of them were Limousins which are notoriously flighty and mad and once they get it into their heads to run they just go & it can be difficult (& on occasion dangerous) to get them calmed down enough to move them quietly to where you want them to be.
Elder Son has just come in to say that he has found two more of the invaders still in one of our fields..they must have been hiding when the others were rounded up. They are very wild it seems and it is going to be interesting to see how we get them moved when their owners return later today.

After all that excitement the silage harvest is under way. The Sons mowed lots of grass last night and this morning the Famer is tedding it before the machines go into pick it up later. It is going to be a very long day as rain is threatened for tonight so they want to get it all in today. There is a very good crop which is great.

Flaming June Where Are You?, What is a Farmer?

2011-06-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

Are

Just to prove it really is June and that that the roses are out and dogs lie around in the sunshine, or a least did two days ago! Today one would think it is the middle of winter...cold and so wet! I shall be lighting the fire later!
No hope of getting on with the silage today, though the forecast is not so bad for tomorrow & Tuesday. The Farmer & Sons are keeping their fingers crossed that things will improve after today...surely Summer will return soon. One good thing about the rain is that it will help bulk up the grass which always a good thing...clouds & silver linings comes to mind!

In the last issue of the Country Land & Business Association (CLA) magazine Land, there was interesting article on how the European Commission is defining Farming.
Apparently the definition of an 'active farmer' is being tightened up for those who claim the Single Farm Payment (SFP).
When the SFP was first introduced in 2004 the definition was a person or group who 'excercises an agricultural activity' and agricultural activity was defined as 'the production, rearing or growing of agricultural products including harvesting, milking, breeding animals and keeping animals for farming purposes, or maintaining the land in good agricultural & environmental condition'.
The Commission is concerned that payments are being made to people who are not genuine farmers and so is trying to find a way of whittling out those claimants. This means non-farming beneficiaries such as companies, investors, authorities & nature conservation organisations.
The most intereresting point in the article is that the 2004 CAP reforms decoupled support payments from agricultural production and introduced the Rural Development Regulation. This meant that there was active recognition of farming being a multi-functional activity which encouraged farmers to diversify into more varied land-based activities. Much of this diversification was encouraged to incorporate the voluntary agri-environmental schemes. It now looks as though the new proposal is going to make it compulsory for all European farmers through the Mandatory Greening notion of direct payments, to deliver basic environmental public goods, but as the CLA article says, there are many business forms in UK agriculture involved in land management activities, not just 'active farmers'. The issue is going to become very complicated but the main concern should be that payments are made and that all payments are appropriate and that all conditions of payment are met rather than worrying about who does what on the land.
As 'active farmers' we should have no worries about this legislation but may it just become another layer of paperwork that we have to wade through, to prove that we are actively farming & and managing the land effectively.

Shearing Time & Time Past,

2011-06-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

On one of the warmest days this week the Farmer got the shearing done for which the sheep were duly thankful I should think. We have only about 50 ewes at the moment and though it was along stint for the Famer he got them all done, with some help from Elder Son who did some of the catching and handling.
As with so much farm work nowadays things have lost the social aspect. Now we shear our own small flock whereas in past we used to get shearing contractors in and it would be a day of very hard work but much jollity & team effort with copious quantities of tea & sandwiches being consumed at intervals. It is the same with the silage making. When we had contractors doing it over two or three days it was an occasion for lots of chat over meals either in the kitchen or picnics out in the fields and very late nights. Now with the kit that the Sons use it is all over in a matter of hours. Something very important has been lost, sadly.
The weather is holding us to ransom at the moment...with the threat of heavy showers over the next week or so The Farmer reckons we are going to have to 'snatch' the silage whenever we can.

Silage Time, Replacement Peacock, Hay Festival

2011-06-02T01:48:00.000-07:00

Well, the silage season has started...this is Younger Son working on a neighbour's farm yesterday. Both he & Elder Son were out till late last night and are off again today to finish on theat farm and then move onto the next. The Farmer is off today to turn grass on yet another neighbours fields, so it all busy, busy, busy.
You may wonder why they are all doing other people's silage and not our own, well the simple reason is that ours is not quite ready yet. We don't usually do it until the middle of June. Farming organically we do not use artificial fertilisers which means that our crop is slower to bulk out, though we get as good a crop as conventional farmers, just a trifle later.

It is grey start to June though the sun did come out yesterday afternoon and hoefully the cloud will clear later today, but it is cool and overcast. However the roses are coming into flower and the gardens are looking very pretty despite the battering they received last week from the strong winds that we endured.

Since the death of our peahen, Hettie, the Farmer has bought (!) a replacement female and Charlie is now calling again. The single egg that Hettie managed to lay before she departed this life is now safely lodged in an incubator for 29 days and so we may have a baby peacock to hand rear, which will be be an interesting experience to say the least. Fortunately the Farmer has great patience with small creatures and no doubt it will become part of the cavalcade of young birdlife that has been resident in cardboard boxes in the kitchen over the years! The worst were the baby pigeons which were revolting and very smelly!

On Bank Holiday Monday the Farmer & I went to visit family in Brecon and and some us went over the Hay Festival. We had not booked to hear any of the speakers but it was interesting just wandering around the Festival field and browsing in the surprisingly few, bookstalls. We really ought to book tickets for some of the events next year (as I say every year!) and 'do' the festival properly. It must be fascinating to hear certain writers & actors talking on their particular subjects and giving another perspective on their work as well as the lectures by historians & journalists. Maybe next year.

Country Wedding Party

2011-05-26T02:29:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the week I had long baking session as the young couple who have been staying in the cottage this week were here to be married and had asked for a large batch of cup-cakes for their wedding reception.
J. & M. arrived here from London on Saturday by public transport (it took them 11 hours!) to be married on Wednesday in Carmarthen Registry Office and then to have their wedding party here in the cottage garden.
While they were off doing the deed, the Farmer & I decked out the exterior of the cottage with bunting and set out tables & chairs with pretty tablecloths. The sun was shining but we did unfortunately, have a rather gusty wind blowing but with the judicial use of clothes pegs we managed to keep the cloths anchored to the tables.
J. & M. returned very happily as a married couple during the afternoon, being brought back in a very smart open-topped BMW with the customary ribbons attached, followed by their small family party of about 12 people 'all in their best looks'. They then proceeded to have a very happy & relaxed party in the garden.
The bride & groom had wanted just a small simple wedding, out of London, and I am so pleased that they thought Penyrallt would be good place to do it and we were more than happy to help them have a lovely day, especially when J. said everything had been perfect!

'A Sense of Place'; The Teifi Valley, West Wales

2011-05-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended a workshop put on by Visit Wales for the Teifi Valley Tourist Asscociation (http://www.teifivalleyholidays.co.uk/) entitled
'A Sense of Place' the purpose of which was for the TVTA to learn how it may most effectively promote the Teifi Valley as a worthwhile tourist destination.
Of all the attendees I had lived in the area the longest (nearly 30 years) by having married a resident, everyone else had chosen to move here for the beauty of the area and the way of life it offered. It was fascinating to hear what people had to say about why they were drawn to this part of Wales.
For many it was the sense of re-connection to simpler values, a slower, more relaxed way of life and the great beauty of the valley.
We discussed the varied aspects of the area such as the rich history and the diverse artistic population that has come here, the artisan food producers, the Welsh language and its survival here and the fact that the Teifi Valley is a perfect base from which to enjoy easy access to Pembrokeshire, Cardigan Bay, the Cambrian Mountains and Carmarthenshire and of course the castles.
TheTeifi Valley stretches for 75 miles from the source of the River Teifi up in the Cambrian Mountains of Ceredigion to the estuary at Cardigan. Along those 75 miles there can be found a diversity of landscapes from empty moorland where only the sheep & the buzzards can be seen, gentle rich farmland & flat river meadows to impressive water-worn gorges and rushing torrents of white water with ruined castles & ancient religious houses, a university, old drovers inns and ancient market towns.
The TVTA will try to harness all this wonderful range of history, arts, food, landscape and the stories of the people who make & live in this part of Wales to make the Teifi Valley a recognisable region that people will wish to visit. Care will have to be taken however that we are not overcome by our own success and end up by West Wales becoming as over-crowded as Cornwall. It is a fine line to tread between having desirable and successful tourism on a sustainable level and mass tourism that will result in spoiling the area.

Laburnum Hedges, Demise of a Peahen,

2011-05-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Despite the vile & unseasonable weather we are having at present, the farm is looking beautiful in its May-time glory. Yesterday we had a short respite from the blustering winds & rain and I was able to take photos of the laburnum, or golden chain, which grows in our hedges and looks so magnificent at this time of year.
Many miles of hedges in this area are planted with laburnum trees which have grown from fencing posts put in by the farmers many years ago. They pose no threat to livestock which is always a concern to people who see the hedges for the first time. Cattle just don't touch it.
The rain over the last few days has brought the growth on apace in the fields & gardens, though the winds have damaged certain of the garden plants, particularly the taller rambling roses & I have had to remove stems laden with buds as they been snapped off by the wind. The hedgebanks are full of pink campions, stitchworts and jack-by-the-hedge & the last of the bluebells, looking like a medieval tapestry.

The Farmer came in yesterday with the sad news that Hettie the peahen was dead. Having looked after her & Charlie all through the winter and seen them safely (we thought) released to wander around the farm it was a bit of a blow. We can find no reason for her death and she had even made nest a laid an egg. The Farmer had removed the egg as peacocks are notoriously bad sitters & mothers, and as we have a couple of broody hens the egg will go under one of them, so maybe we will get replacement for Hettie. Charlie meanwhile is still strutting around though rather less vocally than he has been I suppose because he no-one to screech at now. He was chased by one of the Labradors (who was soundly scolded) and I saw the extraordinary sight of a full grown peacock with his massive tail feathers trailing, flying across a meadow and landing up in a tree. He was most put out & spent the next little while sitting on a branch about 20 feet off the ground being tossed about by the fierce wind that was blowing, looking very foolish.

Peacocks, Lambs on New Grass, Lammas Project

2011-05-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

Just before Christmas the Farmer acquired a pair of peacocks, Charlie & Hettie. In order that they did not try to return to their old home they were kept confined in a large and airy loft until it felt they had been here long enough not to make a runner. They were let out a week or so ago and have learned the lay of the land in their new surroundings very happily. Hettie is very unobtrusive and spends a lot of time back in the loft or in one of the cattle sheds while Charlie struts his stuff around the place with great presence and much shrieking. He was in the garden of the farmhouse the other day while we were having tea and through the windows we were able to see his magnificent display of the great fan of his tail...an exotically unlikely sight somehow in a Welsh farm garden, but quite stunning. Hettie was with him at this point and seemed totally unimpressed with his posturing and preeening!

Things are rather quiet on the farming front at present. Lambing has finished and the ewes with their tiny companions trotting alongside are all out in the fields. Lush new grass is now growing apace after the recent rain that fell in the last couple of days, much to Farmer's relief and the fields that have been shut up for silage are beginning to thicken up very nicely with the clover growing very well.

Yesterday the Farmer & I had an opportunity to visit the Lammas Project in Pembrokeshire (http://www.lammas.org.uk/) The Lammas Project is an eco-hamlet being created under the new 'low impact development' planning policy (Policy 52 JUDP 2006) that was set in place in Pembrokeshire and is now for the whole of Wales.
Under this new policy eco smallholdings can be built in open countryside as long as they are off-grid and blend into the countryside. The people involved in these developments must be working the land, getting 75% of their needs from their smallholdings.
The project is in its second year and the 9 families that are living in this eco-hamlet are working to get their houses built and crops growing. Many of them are living in caravans whilst building cob and straw bale dwellings and in time it will look great. However, we were surprised at how little had been done in terms of growing food in 2 years. The food production plots were not very large and we could not see how any of the families were going to keep themselves fed. There was almost no livestock to be seen, one family had a few chickens but that was all and there were no decent sized plots of potatoes and other vegetables that would produce sufficient food for a family. When one thinks of the incredibly productive gardens that can still be found on farms, particularly those run by older people, and that have been managed using tried & tested husbandry methods over centuries it seems a pity that the new smallholders do not try to replicate thse amazingly productive gardens. And they all need a pig!
All that said, as a project Lammas is fascinating and it will very interesting to visit it again in couple of years time.

Basket Making & Bread Making Courses in West Wales

2011-05-06T11:18:00.000-07:00

Local Basket Making and Bread Making Workshops

Basket Making Courses

Learn how to make country style baskets for every day use: berry picker, shopping basket and log basket. The basket is the ultimate bio-degradable container able to last 50 years with care and repair. Try to come to as many days as you can to practice your skills and make a number of baskets.

Dates; Saturday 21st May, 11th June, 9th July
Tuesday 21st June, Thursday 21st July, Wednesday 3rd August

Venue: 1 Castle Green Pentrecagal, Newcastle Emlyn, SA38 9HY

Time 10am-3pm.

Please email for more info. and to book a place. Small classes - no more than 6 people.

Email; jules87@btinternet.com
Mob; 07964530436

Bread Courses and Open Days at Mair’s Bakery

Sourdough baking with stoneground flours: 25th May, 24th September, 22nd October 2011

Baking in a commercial retained heat wood fired oven; 27th-29th May 2011, 26th-28th Aug 2011

Sustainable bakery open days; 24th July , 29th August, 25th September, 23rd October 2011

Contact for more info.;

Mair’s Bakehouse, Pwll y Gaseg, Cwmduad, SA33 6XP

Phone; 01559 370082
Email; richard.coldman@btinternet.com
Website; http://www.mairsbakehouse.co.uk/

Day Out in Pembrokeshire; St Govan's Chapel, Green Bridge, Rock Stacks

2011-05-06T05:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the Farmer & I took a day off and went down to the south Pembrokeshire coast to visit St. Govan's Chapel which is tucked into the cliff near Castlemartin. This part of the Pembrokeshire coastline is owned by the MoD and is used as a firing range, and thank goodness it is, otherwise it would no doubt now be covered in St Govan's very own caravan parks, visitors centres and other monstrosities!
On previous occasions when we have gone down there it has been closed to the public, however yesterday we struck lucky. We were able to drive onto the range and walk along the cliffs and to the flight of little steps that leads to the chapel. It is an extraordinary place; a tiny stone-built single room with a well and stone altar. It is named after the hermit who lived there in the 6th century though the building itself is thought to be medieval. It was very damp and dark. It is wedged into a narrow angle in the cliff with steep rocky area leading down to sea and must have been miserable place to live, but then those early saints were stoics and needed few creature comforts. Did he live on sea birds eggs & seaweed do you think?
I am not good with cliffs & caves and found the whole place rather unnerving. The Farmer however loved it and went off rock-hopping as is his wont, under the cliffs and exploring the geology of the cove. I took myself back up the narrow stairway onto the cliff top and had a lovely time looking at the profusion of wild flowers growing in the turf. I found rich magenta orchids and tiny yellow pimpernels, violets sedges and tiny blue squills.

When the Farmer returned to the top we walked westwards to what is called Huntsmans Leap and the grass all along the clifftop was a mass of squills creating a blue haze over the short cliff-top turf.
Legend has it that a huntsman jumped across the the gap between two parts of the cliff on his horse but on looking back to view the gap both he and the horse fell to their deaths. Looking at the distance involved it is impossible but makes a good story.
We next made our way further along the coast to the Green Bridge of Wales and Rock Stacks.

The Green Bridge is self-explantory being a fine example of erosion by
sea & weather.
Rock Stacks, a collection of rocky stacks(!) off the cliffs is the home to the largest mainland breeding colony of guillemots in South Wales and was an amazing sight, thousands of birds crowded together on treacherous ledges on the cliffs and all over the tops of the stacks. There were not just guillemots but razorbills and seagulls with jackdaws mingling in the swirl of birds that was constantly flying around overhead. The noise was tremendous and downwind, the smell of guano was very certainly pungent.
For lunch we went to the excellent Stackpole Inn (http://www.stackpoleinn.co.uk/) in the very pretty village of Stackpole and had very good meal before heading west towards Fishguard and visiting some acquaintances on our way home.
Pembrokeshire was looking stunning even in the very welcome rain which fell in extemely localised showers...because we are needing it so badly at the moment we didn't mind that it rained on our day off and today it has rained properly here which is good, the grass will come on well now.

Before heading off down to Pembrokeshire we went and did our democratic duty and cast our votes in three elections. It seems that Plaid Cymru has held its seat in our constituency which is no surprise to anyone and we're still awaiting the results on the other elections.

The Royal Wedding, Orchards Full of Blossom & Late Lambs

2011-04-30T03:24:00.000-07:00

The first of my lily-of-the-valley to flower in the garden this year & very timely for the Royal Wedding where the bride's posy was made up of the sweet flowers.
We don't have television, but I was able to watch The Wedding not too far away. And it was lovely & it didn't rain! It was a superb spectacle & despite the pomp & pagaentry managed to remain a simple service involving two families, albeit with millions of on-lookers.
I thought the trees in the Abbey looked superb and the bride's small posy of lily-of-the-valley was beautiful and so much better than the huge overblown & tortured bouquets that so many brides seem to feel is necessary.
As for the Dress it was stunning, just so elegant and simple. For those of us living out in the sticks with very little opportunity to see or wear beautiful clothes but have an interest in such things, an occasion like a royal wedding is a marvellous window onto a scene of elegant shoes, amazing hats and beautifully made outfits by wonderful designers. A far cry from the world of wellies & jeans!
The music for the wedding was wonderful; there can never be too much Parry and the specially commissioned anthem by John Rutter was beautiful. English choral music at its best.

With the very dry weather we have had lately the Farmer is beginning to pray for rain to come soon. He & the Sons have doing a lot of field work and now we need some rain to dampen the soil and start things growing.

We are still having lambs arrive intermittently though most of them are now out in the fields with their mothers. The very new ones are in one of the orchards and look very decorative under the tres which are thick with blossom at present. The blossom has been superb this year and as long as we don't get a late frost the fruit crop should be good.

Celebratory Tea-Party (Not for the Royal Wedding!)

2011-04-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Easter Monday, we held a tea-party to celebrate the birth of our beautiful grand-daughter. She is now just over 3 months old and a good age to be presented to her extended family.
So, invitations to a gathering of the tribes were sent out and enough food to make any self-respecting tea-table groan was baked.
We are fortunate in having access to a marvellous canopy (not shown to best effect in the picture) which was erected over the main yard along with a small marquee to provide shade or shelter, depending on the weather. We were blessed with a glorious hot sunny day and the sun-shade was greatly appreciated.
We played host to about 80 people, mostly family members, several of whom had travelled considerable distances to be with us. The age-range was huge, from baby Lili aged 3 months to her paternal great-grandfather aged 82. We had gangs of small children playing merrily on a slide all afternoon, glamorous langorous teenagers with their dead-straight curtains of hair & airs of sophistication and their parents & grandparents all milling around in a lovely melange of generations.

I had spent days baking and as always I was quite convinced there would not be enough food so made more(!) but of course all that was presented got eaten. There were sandwiches containing cucumber, egg, tomato, home-grown beef, great numbers of meringues made with our own eggs filled with our own cream, profiteroles, iced Easter biscuits, iced buns, chocolate cake, coffee cake, Victoria sandwich,
Welsh cakes, Bakewell tarts, muffins, bread-&-butter-with-hundreds-&-thousands (something remembered from childhood parties) and a beautiful two-tiered confection of a cake to honour the baby which was made & decorated by her mother.
I dug out old bone china tea sets and ancient lace & embroidered table-clothes and with the immeasurable help of my brother & sister-in-law, did a rather good bit of set-dressing for a proper tea-party. It all looked lovely with home-made bunting and festoons of pretty paper flowers. We put tiny posies of spring flowers on all the small tables each with its beatiful cloth, which were dotted around on the grass with chairs and benches placed strategically.
The Farmer had spent the week mowing all the lawns to within an inch of their lives & when I was not baking I was tidying the gardens & potting up scarlet geraniums to be placed in odd corners and along window sills to prettify the yard. And though I say it myself it did all look very good on the day!!...well worth the effort and hard work.
The baby behaved beautifully all day and all her vast family thought she was wonderful and we have some marvellous photographs of the entire party with Lili in the centre. Although she will have no memory of the day I think everyone else will be able to talk of Lili's Party as very happy family get-together.
The day ended with just a small group of family & friends sitting round a fire in the farmhouse garden eating chilli con carne & drinking the Farmer's home brewed beer until after dark. All very pleasant.
And today we are dismantling canopies & gazebos, packing away china, washing fragile linen and generally getting back-to normal after an incredibly busy week as of course, all the preparation had go hand-in-hand with the usual farm work.

Lime-spreading, Returning Holiday makers, Red Cow-Slips,Harvest Trust

2011-04-16T06:27:00.000-07:00

It has been a very busy week here for the Farmer & the Sons. Two days were taken up with lime spreading on several fields which has not been done for a few years. A large lorry delivered several loads of ground limestone onto the yard which was then loaded into a lime-spreader and distributed over the fields. Work started on Tuesday but a wind got up and the Farmer had to call off the work as the lime was blowing away. Fortunately the following day was calm and still so the spreading was able to continue.

When not dealing with the lime Younger Son & the Farmer were kept occupied with re-locating YS's workshop. He does all the machinery maintenance and servicing of the tractors and implements on the farm and has an extensive and well equipped workshop but, as is always the way, had outgrown the space he has had for several years, so it was decided to allocate him another shed. This involved putting in a loft & moving his 'lock-up' as well as putting in a window, so the job, like Topsy just grew into a bigger project than originally intended.

I am waiting for my next holiday makers to arrive. The family who left this morning after their 8th consectutive year here (!) had a lovely week with very reasonable weather and were as usual very loath to go, but have promised themselves to return next year. It is great when families return to us and we see their children growing up and they feel that the farm is an important part of their lives...rather like the swallows returning each year!

The daffodils are almost over now, though we are very lucky in having a range of varieties that flower in succession so I should still have some for Easter. Primroses and primulas are appearing everywhere and its always lovely to find self-seeded plants appearing in unexpected corners that were empty last year. I have a small but steadfast colony of cow-slips in the farmhouse garden, but in the past few years some of the them have been producing flowers with dark crimson edges which must be the result of cross-pollination with red primulas that are also in the garden. they are very pretty and there are still plenty of the proper yellow

cow-slips coming up through the grass.

During the week the Farmer & I met with some people who work for a charitable trust which gives children with low self-confidence and are socially withdrawn a holiday in the countryside. Harvest Trust (http://www.harvesttrust.com/) was set up about 20 years ago on a small farm near here and has welcomed hundreds of children through its doors. The trust has had amazing results in enabling children who have difficulties in the class-room and in social situations to become more confident and even to speak and join in activities. We hope we may be able to host visits from Harvest Trust to the farm in the future.

A Fine Spring Morning, First Swallows, Ploughing Under Way, Buy British!

2011-04-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

Another lovely sunny morning. Having had several days of much needed rain, we are now enjoying good spring weather with the birds singing and trees & flowers bursting forth. The hedge-banks & verges around the farm are starred with constellations of golden celandines and clusters of violets are to be found on sunny banks.
The whitethorn is opening into its lovely froth and catkins are dancing in the hedges.
Yesterday evening the Farmer & I were out on the yard and saw the first swallows arrive. They are early this year by a few days. Everything seems to be coming early this year; bumble bees have been lumbering through the gardens for several weeks now and of course the daffodils were in flower in the middle of February.
During the afternoon I also saw the first butterfly, a Tortoiseshell, flittering across the sun-warmed stone wall of one of our old courtyard buildings.

The Farmer & I have have been struggling through rich bubbling head-colds this last week though they are now in retreat, thank goodness, though the chesty coughs are lingering in a most annoying manner.

Elder Son has been able to start on some of the spring field work and was ploughing yesterday ready for re-seeding a pasture. There is anaother field waiting to go under the plough and then the tasks of harrowing, seeding & rolling will have to be done. I hope the weather holds fine until the job is finished.

The Farmer attended a meeting with OMSCO (www.omsco.co.uk) last night for an update on how the organic milk market is doing. It seems that sadly, the market in the UK for organic milk is still dropping, though the sales on the continent are growing rapidly. This means that our good Welsh organic milk is being exported rather than consumed here in the UK and travelling great numbers of food miles. Apparently once the milk has crossed the channel it is en route for another 18 hours! Meanwhile, continental yoghourt is being transported to the supermarket shelves in the UK. So much for 'buying local' which has been the slogan for the past couple of years. Its all down to the consumer...buy British, buy Local !

Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience Repeat

2011-03-31T00:41:00.000-07:00

Well, March is certainly going out like a lion or more like a whole pride of roaring, growling lions rampaging round our chimney-pots and eaves & blustering through the tree-tops. My wonderful displays of daffodils have suffered badly and also hyacinths with their top heavy heads have toppled over and snapped their stems. However, in compensation for the damage in the gardens I can bring the broken-stemmed flowers into the house and have vast golden sheaves of daffodils dotted about in vases which brighten up rooms on this grey day beautifully.

The programme filmed here in January, ' Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience' is being repeated on BBC2 tonight at 10.00, in case you weren't able to see it on its first broadcast on BBC Wales at the beginning of the month, or would even like to see it again(!).

Cows out to Grass, Nightie & Wellies; Not a Good Look, Beasts to Slaughter

2011-03-28T02:37:00.000-07:00

This morning the dairy cows went out to grass for the first time and they were so happy! They are early going out this year, normally they do not get to graze fresh grass until about 10th April but with the extremely early spring that we have been having it seemed the right thing to do.
While the cows were out in the fields early this morning & the Farmer & Elder Son were finishing off milking, I was abruptly woken from my slumbers by the telephone ringing. On answering it I heard that Younger Son who was on his way to work had encountered a cow on the lane. I had to let the Farmer know immediately...so in my long white nightie & wellies (!) I dashed outside to pass on the information but there was no sign of either the Farmer or Elder Son. After much calling and ringing of our wonderful bell (which probably woke the entire valley!) I had no alternative but to leap into the 4x4, still in my nightie and tear off down the drive in the hope that I would find the errant bovine and possibly dissuade her from going off on a ramble this fine spring morning. However, I came across the Farmer & Elder Son down at our neighbours fields having just successfully coralled the wandering cow. They were hugely amused at the sight of me in my night attire & gumboots driving to the rescue! At least the neighbours didn't see me !

Yesterday we did our duty & filled in the Census questionnnaire...how dull & boring was that! Can't think of anything else to say about it really, though I suppose it is a good thing that we don't all have to travel back to the place of our birth!

A much more interesting thing yesterday was when the Famer & I took two of our beef animals to a small village on the A40 to to be loaded onto a large cattle lorry to be taken to Shrewsbury for slaughter. We both hate loading the poor beasts into lorries for their final journey and today a lorry is coming to take another batch and again we will do it with unease. However, we are farmers & food producers and the cattle are kept to become beef and we have to be realistic. We are not sentimental about our livestock but do hate the fact that they have to endure long journeys in lorries to slaughterhouses so far away. Due to the closure of so many small local abattoirs we have very little choice when it come to the commercial side of farming.

Birch Sap Wine, More Filming; Countryside Alliance Foundation

2011-03-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

Last evening I accompanied the Farmer down to one of our bottom fields to collect his harvest of birch sap. The previous day he had tied some bottles over the cut ends of a couple of low branches on the birch trees and by the following evening there was about a litre of sap & from all the bottles together there was sufficient quantity to start off a brew of birch sap wine.
Birch sap is one of the easiest wine making ingredients to gather. It just pours out of the trees at this time of year when the tree is cut. We have also seen the sap dripping from a sycamore tree where a branch had been removed but it is not suitable for wine making.

Birch Sap Wine
1 gallon birch sap
2lbs cane sugar
2 oranges or lemons, sliced
1 pkt. wine yeast
1 Campden tablet

Warm but do not boil the sap to dissolve the naturally occuring sugars in it. Pour the sap over the squeezed halves & juice of the oranges or lemons.
When cooled to 55 degrees F. add the yeast and proced with the normal wine-making process.

This recipe comes from one of the Farmer's favourite books, 'The Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible' . The title says a lot about the book & the Farmer, I think!

We have spent the morning filming with Rachel Evans, the director of the Countryside Alliance in Wales. She has a project to make a series of short films about farming and food production.
She came to Penyrallt to shoot scenes around the farm and then to interview the Farmer & me about various issues and topics.
We spoke about food labelling, the importance of getting school children onto farms to learn about the countryside & food, the TB problem, foxes, the crazy amount of paperwork we have to deal with, the closure of small local abattoirs and many other issues that beset the lives of us in the countryside.
We first met Rachel through the Countryside Alliance Foundation when we volunteered to host a school visit arranged by the Foundation. It was one of the best visits we have had...100 children over 2 days from a very deprived school in Carmarthen. None of the children ever been on a farm before and they had such a lovely day...just to seeing them running in a field of grass was wonderful and if they went away with nothing more than that experience it would have been enough to justify bringing them to the farm.

'British Dairying' & Small Dairy Herds, St. Patrick's Day, A Ghost in the Cottage, Lambing Time

2011-03-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

I doubt that many readers of this blog ever see a publication called 'British Dairying'. Our copy of the March issue arrived this morning and the Farmer read it over breakfast with his usual interest. It is after all, the journal that keeps us up to date with what is happening in our industry.
One of the regular columnists reflected on the withdrawal of the Nocton 'super' dairy planning application saying that the decision was 'bad news for the UK dairy industry'. He felt that the campaign against the huge dairy was misplaced and that animal welfare campaigners should turn their attention to the 3,000 small dairy producers, (those like us who milk fewer than 30 cows) who he claims have 'possibly the worst welfare standards in the country.'
This is an outrageous slur on the integrity of small farms and our attitude to the welfare of our animals.
The Farmer & I are so angry at this comment. We invite anyone at any time to visit this farm and to see for themselves the standard of care that we give our hard -working dairy cows. If we did not look after them properly they would not give the milk...it is in our own interests to ensure that the welfare of our cows is of the highest standard. The size of herd has nothing to do with welfare standards.
As dairy farmers we have enough to cope with without journalists showing contempt for those of us at the smaller end of the scale who continue to milk cows. We all, whether we milk 30 or 300+ cows, have annual inspections by the County Council to check dairy hygiene, Farm Assurance & because we farm organically, the Soil Association, to make sure that the welfare standards are met...nothing should go unseen under this much scrutiny.

A few facts about UK dairy farming;
In 2002 there were 19,000 dairy farmers in Britain, by 2011 there are 11,000.
The UK is the 3rd largest milk producer in Europe & 9th in the world.
There are 1.9 million dairy cows in the UK & 17,000 dairy farms.
The average dairy farm in UK is bigger than the average dairy farm in Europe.

There was very good article in The Telegraph yesterday (16th March) entitled 'Why the life of the milk man has gone sour.'

It is St. Patrick's Day. My maternal grand-father was Irish and I can remember as a very small child, the post-man delivering small packages from the great-uncles & aunts in Portadown to us in Wales, which contained bunches of shamrock tucked into boxes lines with damp cotton wool. The shamrock was pinned to our coat lapels as we went off proudly to school. One year there was even a large fruit cake covered in green marzipan with little pink flowers iced on it.
The word 'shamrock' comes from the Irish 'seamrog' meaning 'clover' and it refers to a whole variety of clovers & trefoils.St. Patrick is said to have used the leaf to explain the three-in-one of the the Holy Trinity, but this saying was not heard before the 18th century.

I had a very interesting conversation with one of our guests in the cottage who have been staying with us for a couple of days in which she told me that we had a ghost. It seems that both nights she had seen the shadowy figure of a man with long curly hair in the bedroom. She said he seemed very pleased to see people in the building and looked more as though he was the owner of the farm than a farmworker. She asked him politely to go away as they needed their space back and he just disappeared. Apparently he was accompanied by a couple of other figures who were less clear.
This is the first time anyone has reported a sighting to me.
One would have expected the ghosts to be of a more porcine nature seeing as how the cottage was once a piggery! Maybe the mysterious man with long hair lived long before the piggery was built in the 19th century, more than likely I think.

Lambing is continuing albeit rather slowly...the Farmer says he's waiting for an explosion of lambs any time now. He says the ewes are huge and he's sure one of them might well produce 3 or 4 lambs. Multiple births of more than 3 make a lot of extra work and the lambs are usually so tiny that getting them to suck a teat on bottle is difficult. But we persevere with them and do all we can to give them a chance of life.

Ethics in Organic Farming, Stone Walls

2011-03-11T05:28:00.000-08:00

As complete contrast to the hilarity at the beginning of the week thanks to the Rhod Gibert programme, yesterday the Farmer & I attended a workshop on Ethics. One would think that such a subject would be incredibly dull & boring but it wasn't at all, it was fascinating and stimulated a lot of very lively debate & discussion.
The workshop entitled 'Ethics; a toolkit for Welsh organic businesses' had been put on by the Organic Centre Wales as part of its BOBL initiative (Better Organic Business Links). We were part of a small group of farmers & growers & representatives from the Soil Association, OCW & Calon Wen and the speaker Dr. Tom MacMillan from the Food Ethics Council.
What we were discussing was the role of Ethics in organic farming and the need for understanding the values & principles by which people make decisions in their lives with particular regards to consumerism. There are ethical consumers who go out of their way to buy the 'right thing' which means taking into account how fairly the people who made the product were treated, whether it harmed animals and a number of other issues.
Some interesting statistics from the the IGD (Institute for Grocery Distibution) show that 15% of UK shoppers are 'ethical evangelists' & a further 64% are part-time or aspiring ethical consumers. This is in contrast to just few years ago. Now the 21% of people who have no interest in shopping ethically have become the new niche market.
The 'ethical market' has grown to £6 billion p.a but is still only 3.4% of all food service sales.
When it comes to marketing it has been found that shoppers are willing to pay more for regional products than by making choices on welfare or a fair price for farmers.
Ethics has become a business strategy and value based decision making is all pervasive. The public trusts retail businesses to be ethical and they have a responsibility to be so as do farmers and other food producers.
The question that has to be asked is 'Would your customers still eat your food or buy your product if they knew where it came from?' If you are not sure about the answer there is something wrong. Ethics is a huge subject but in simple terms the application of the principles of respect for welfare, autonomy and fairness helps with ethical decision making.
It emerged during the discussions that ethics & sustainability in food production & marketing is becoming more important than organic (about which there is still great ignorance & confusion) and that value for money has become values for money.
http://www.organiccentrewales.org.uk/
http://www.foodethicscouncil.org/

Sorry if all that is bit earnest, but is so interesting and important.

Having baked a cake, written blog & cooked lunch I am now off to gather more stones to continue the wall building that is going on around the house and its purlieus (nice word, not often used!). I and my trusty wheel-barrow will trawl up the drive for any stray small boulders that have been pushed to one side by tractors and will now have a useful life in a wall.
Inevitably Robert Frost's 'Mending Wall' come's to mind, though the walls we are building at the moment are not to keep anyone out, but it is a great poem.

Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience, Rebuilding Stone Gate-posts, First Lamb

2011-03-08T02:26:00.000-08:00

The Rhod Gilbert Work Experience programme on farming went out last night and it was so good. We were very pleased with it and I have been getting very enthusiatic responses to it from a goodly number of people. It was extremely funny & entertaining but also at moments quite thought-provoking. I'm thinking of the sequences shot in the market & at the abattoir where Rhod was clearly moved by the slaughter of the cattle but was able to appreciate the efficiency with which the animals are dispatched. As he said to us on his return from the abattoir he was now an 'educated meat-eater'.
Molly our sheep-dog, was of course the real star of the show and up-staged Rhod brilliantly by absolutely refusing to work for him. I had watched that sequence being filmed and found it hilarious then but with good editing it was even funnier.
Having been filmed in January in cold & very wet weather (and it was so dark!) the programme did not hold back on the muck and dirt of winter farming conditions and Rhod got good mileage out of the quantities of muck etc. produced by cows, especially when they are somewhat rattled by having a stranger (4 strangers including the film crew) in the milking parlour!! I can assure you that milking is not usually as messy as that!
So, our most recent foray into television has been very rewarding and good fun & I trust that 'the public' enjoyed it as much as we did.
For those of you in England who cannot receive BBC Wales, the programme can be seen on BBC iplayer (go to BBC Wales TV on iplayer, 2nd page).

Yesterday was busy as with this gorgeous weather we are able to get on with odd jobs that have been waiting for dry days.. The Farmer & I spent the afternoon starting to rebuild the tumbled down stone gateposts at the top of the steps that lead from our front garden down to yard. These steps were built for a Welsh feature film that was shot here some 18 years ago, 'Tan ar y Comin' and they looked so good and fitted in so well with the look of the place that we kept them. The posts were dry-stone built and have just fallen down, partly due to Poppy, one of the labradors using them as a look-out post above her kennel. They are being rebuilt with cement bonding and will are already looking so much better. We could only do half the finished height yesterday so I'm hoping we'll get them finished off today. While the Farmer does tha actual building work I collect sotnes from various places around the farm to supplement the original ones . I spent much time scrabbling through tangles of ivy & bramble to get the stones out & then wheeling a barrow of rocks around to the yard. Gosh, but I do have fun!!

The first lamb was born today, so Spring has sprung! The Farmer went to bring the ewes in this evening anf found a single little lamb had been born, hopefully the first of many over the next few weeks. It is perfect lambing weather, nice & dry...lets hope it stays dry for a good while yet. Lambs don't like wet weather, nor does the shepherd or the shepherdess!

There's a Mouse in the House, Frogspawn, Calon Teifi Transition Cafe, Rhod Gilbert

2011-03-06T03:17:00.000-08:00

I was sitting here in the office attending to the usual tedious email stuff when I heard a very small scrabbling sound and on looking round I espied a small brown house mouse (not wearing a striped petticoat) making its way in a fairly leisurely manner across the doorway and then disppearing from view into a gap behind the skirting board where presumably somewhere in the depths of our thick stone walls it had a family waiting for its return. (I was brought up on a healthy, if anthropomorphic, diet of Beatrix Potter.)
We are quite accustomed to sharing the house with various lodgers, bats & birds in the eaves and indeed the occasional mouse but rarely do they make their presence known quite so blatently. I fear we shall have to set a trap, not having any cats on the farm. Perhaps it is time we introduced a feline element to our lives.

It is another gorgeous morning...I have hung washing out for the first time this year.

We are still waiting for lambs to start arriving but meanwhile the boys are busy spreading slurry on the fields while the weather is so good and the tractors will not make a terrible mess of the ground..

This past week I have found frogspawn in the ponds and indeed in the fields where a careless frog has just laid the spawn in great jellied clumps on the grass. Whenever we do find it like that we pick it up and deposit it in the ponds so that the tadpoles will have some chance of survival.

Yesterday the Farmer & I attended the Calon Teifi transition cafe (http://www.calonteifi.org.uk/) in our local village hall. We have not been to the cafe for months and it was good to catch-up with various people and to meet some new members. The main discussion was concerning food and its preservation. Many people weree interested in bottling fruit and in making cider which the Farmer & I do anyway, but we would be more than happy to share our experinces with those who are interested.

The programme that was filmed here in January, 'The Rhod Gilbert Work Experience' is to be broadcast tomorrow evening (7th March) at 10.35pm on BBC One Wales if anyone is interested in watching. If you cannot get BBC Wales then it should be available on BBC Iplayer, I think.

Sad Derelict Farms, Welsh Referendum

2011-03-04T05:31:00.000-08:00

Another wondrous sunny morning with frost gleaming on the fields and the birds singing.
Yesterday the Farmer sold a calf to to a farmer living a few miles away and this morning I accompanied him to deliver the said calf to its new home. The Farmer wanted me to see the farm as it had a range of very old buildings and the original house. The current tenant lives in newer house on the track down to the old yard. The old house & buildings were once beautiful having been the home farm for an estate.and the remnants of their faded looks were very sad to see with their broken windows and the filthy yard. It always a pity when people don't see the value of their old buildings and just allow them to fall into such a wasteful state of disrepair. The house was south facing and had such charm but was not loved and was now just used as a place to dump rubbish and somewhere for the feral cats to hide out. Very sad.

Last evening we went to our local polling station to cast our vote in the referendum on whether the Welsh Assembly should have law-making powers independent of Westminster. Apparently the turnout was good here. Although the result is not yet known it appears that the 'yes' vote will carry the day.

St. David's Day Daffodils

2011-03-01T02:55:00.000-08:00

St. David's Day and we have daffodils in flower...not many but enough to look the part on the the day!
Dewi Sant was a 6th century monk, the son of a prince of Ceredigion. Before Dewi's birth his father had a dream in which an angel told to go down to the river Teifi where he would discover three treasures that would foretell the life of his as yet unborn son; a stag, a salmon and a swarm of bees. In the lore of the sacred creatures of the Celtic animal kingdom these three animals bring the gifts of spiritual power, wisdom & sweetness.

'Gwnewch y pethau bychain.'

'Do the little things'.

One of the sayings of Saint David when he had become a bishop.

St. David's Cathedral is one of the great places to visit in Wales. The tiny 'city' is full of history and on a beautiful headland with a magnificent coastline of rugged towering cliffs & hidden coves and beaches. The Farmer & I take days off to go down there whenever we can.

It is a glorious sunny clear morning with just a slight chill in the air. The birds are singing enthusiastically and a flight of Canada geese just winged its way across to one of the ponds where they are now standing looking at their elegant reflections in the water.

Work on the farm is as busy as ever. Elder Son is muck-spreading so a large tractor and spreader goes across the yard every 15 minutes or so to & from the slurry pit to the fields.
Lambing is due to start any day now and the Farmer is keeping a close eye on the ewes. They are enjoying the sunshine and sit placidly under an oak tree in thier field. Hopefully by this time next week we shall have a number of lambs in the field with them.

Sour Dough Bread Making Course at Mair's Bakehouse

2011-02-27T02:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended a bread making course run by our good friend R. of Mair's Bakehouse (http://www.mairsbakehouse.co.uk/).
R. has the most wonderful wood-fired bread oven in which he bakes the most delicious organic bread much of which is sour-dough.
I and 5 others met in the bakery at 9.30am to learn about making sour dough. It is a curious method of making bread without yeast. Instead of using yeast, a 'leaven' of fermented wheat & water is used. It produces a loaf of bread that is highly digestible and which keeps well.
We spent the first part of the morning mixing up our doughs and then they were left to prove in plastic boxes for a couple of hours. When the dough had proved sufficiently we were shown how to knead & shape the dough correctly using only one hand using the fingers and ball of the thumb. R. can knead two lumps of dough, one in each hand with a speed and dexterity that is very impressive. We were all a little less dextrous! The dough was then put into special baskets to prove again.

The best part of the day was at about 4.30pm when we put our loaves to bake in the oven. The oven is beautiful; it is 7' deep and a 'peel' is used to put the bread into the oven which had been fired up the day before and we were using the residual heat from the baking session done that night. The heat coming from the oven as one put ones loaves in was intense. The bread was cooked in about 25-30 minutes.

The smell when we took out our loaves again using the peel, was mouth-watering.
The racks of freshly baked loaves were a very satisfying sight at the end of an extremely interesting day.

The organic flours we were using were of two types.
The wholemeal flour came from the lovely recently renovated 17th century water-mill at Llanrhystud, near Aberystwyth, Felin Ganol (http://www.felinganol.co.uk/) & the white flour came from Maud Foster Mill in Lincolnshire.

A dairy farmer somewhere........

2011-02-23T05:30:00.000-08:00

A dairy farmer somewhere in your neighborhood tonight is milking and feeding cows to provide food for the nation while you are watching television. In the minute it takes you to read this, farmers all over the world are using their "free time", and ALWAYS investing their own money, for your world's food supply. Re-post if you are a farmer, love a farmer or appreciate our farmers.

Younger Son had this posted on his Facebook page and I felt it just says it all!

First daffodils, New Zealand Earthquake, 'Seven Basic Plots' by Christopher Booker

2011-02-22T01:48:00.000-08:00

I saw the first daffodils in flower yesterday when I went down to the village. The first of the daffodils here on the farm should be open by the end of the week I think. This is going to be a much earlier spring than last year, everything seems to be well forward. The snowdrops are in a greater profusion than last spring and we did not have daffies out for St. David's Day which we certainly will this year. In the gardens there are several primroses in flower already and the seemingly lifeless twigs of various shrubs are showing signs of buds and tiny green leaf tips are apearing.

After the horrific news from New Zealand this morning of a big eathquake again hitting Christchurch we are very concerned for family members and friends out there. One elderly relative lives only a couple of miles from the cathedral which has collapsed and we are just waiting to hear any news of that part of the city.

The Farmer & I are off to our county town today, for the first time in months. The Farmer has to pay a visit to the DEFRA offices to deal with yet more of the paperwork mountain that we have to ascend , never reaching the top! I will take the opportunity to visit a bookshop (even it is only one of the awful chain-store ones!). Amazon is great but every now & then it is nice to handle books and look through them before purchasing.
I am reading a fascinating tome at the moment, 'The Seven Basic Plots' by Christopher Booker. It is an analysis of why there seems to be only a small number of basic plots that are found throughout the world. These seven plots can be found in ancient myths & legends, fairy tales, plays, novels, soap operas & movies.
The recurring themes are the essence of storytelling and therefore applicable to all cultures and lives. The themes are The Quest, Rags to Riches, Overcoming the Monster, Voyage & Return, Comedy, Tragedy and lastly Rebirth. It is a long read but so interesting. I recommend it hugely

Misty Morning, Birdlife Around the Farm

2011-02-12T01:53:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of the week the Farmer & I had the chance of a day away from the farm thanks to a dental appointment in Lampeter and so we wended our way up the coast to Aberaeron before heading inland to Lampeter. The pretty painted house of Aberaeron were being battered by strong winds and standing at the sea wall beyond the relative calm of the harbour, was extremely blowy and the sea was raging and roaring in a very satisfactory manner.
In complete contrast, today has dawned with clear blue skies, a heavy mist in the valley which promises a fine day and birds singing merrily.
As I walked the dogs to the far side of the farm we rose above the mist and were treated to the beautiful sight of skeleton outlines of some of our great oak trees silhouetted like black lace against the pearlescence of the swirling mists.
In an oak tree a couple of days ago I heard, then saw three lesser spotted woodpeckers with their vivid scarlet flashes,squabbling over territory, or wives, in an early display of spring madness. We rarely see woodpeckers, though we hear them yammering away quite often in the summer. There is too much activity around the yard and the house & cottage for many of the birds to come close, though we are fortunate to have a large oak tree near the house which is inhabited by tree-creepers, nuthatches, thrushes, robins, blackbirds & blue-tits. The hedges around the garden are always full of argumentative hedge-sparrows and blue-tits.
Yesterday the first skein of Canada geese that we've seen this year flew over the yard making their beautiful haunting call. A second skein then appeared and joined the first so there were about a dozen birds or so. They then swirled around our two nearest ponds for a while before heading off up the valley.

After the miserable rain of yesterday it is lovely to have a dry sunny morning and I am now off to tidy up the farmshop as it has been rather neglected over the winter months.

Marmalade Making

2011-02-10T06:18:00.000-08:00

Over the last couple of days the kitchen has been a source of great olfactory pleasure as the Farmer has been making marmalade. He makes it each year as then he can have it the way he likes it which is with huge chunks of peel. I rarely eat it and prefer it very fine, so I'm quite happy that he should take it upon himself to be marmalade-maker- in-chief.

The shelves of jams, chutneys, and other preserves in my larder have become somewhat depleted lately and as the Farmer has set the ball rolling with the marmalade sessions I can see I shall have to do my bit and make some more jam. It will mean delving to the bottom of the deep freeze for the bags of plums, & currants that I know are lurking there.

The work in the cottage is finally finished, at last. These jobs always take so much longer than anticipated and then the clearing up seems to take twice as long as the main work itself! And some small but vital item will be found to be forgotten or mislaid and then everything is turned upside down again only to find that the said item, a loo brush or the box of clothes pegs, sitting innocently in its proper place anyway.

There are distinct signs of spring ..I found a lone primrose in flower the other day and the snowdrops are appearing everywhere. The daffodils are shooting up a rate of knots and my wonderful witchhazel is in full flower. The birds are practising, already singing in in the early mornings preparing for the great expolosion of the Dawn Chorus in few weeks time.

First Snowdrops, The Winds Do Blow, Spring Cleaning

2011-02-05T01:24:00.000-08:00

A vile wet,windy morning with lowering grey skies but spirits are lifted by finding the first snowdrops bravely showing their sweet nodding heads in the undergrowth along the drive.

The winds these past couple of days have been fearsome though we are fortunate not to have had any damage other than branches blown off trees and the odd unexplained crashing noises at night which can't have been anything serious as we have not found anything broken or fallen off a roof. The only thing I have found that indicates just how strong some of the gusts have been is a very heavy stone plant pot with a well established conifer in it toppled over outside the cottage. However, we are not having as much serious blowing as other parts of the country. If we weren't just so busy at the moment I would love to go over to the coast to watch the sea crashing and roaring.

Today I hope to get the work on the cottage bathroom finished. I have done most of the painting and I now have to clean the rest of the place out. The dust from pulling the ceiling down is everywhere and I am going to wash all the china etc., clean windows, vacuum furniture, wash floors and then put a fresh coat of linseed oil on them and then leave the whole place to settle down to its new spring cleanliness before our next guests arrive at the end of the week. So, I am now off to be Mrs Mop!

1st February - Ice Moon, Imbolc, St Brigit's Day, Death of a Dairy Cow

2011-02-01T06:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was bitterly cold with a very hard frost, today it is warm & damp, but the sun is shining; a good start to February.
One of the old names for the month of February was Snow or Ice Moon; are we going to be having more cold weather with sparkling frosty mornings?
The 1st February is Bride's Day or Imbolc in the ancient Celtic calendar and this then with the arrival of Christianity became St. Brigit's Day though the celebration was later moved to 2nd February, Candlemas Day dedicated to the Virgin Mary which was marked by candlelit processions.

A Scottish proverb;

'If Candlemas is bright and clear,

there'll be two winters in the year.'

Imbolc may refer to the first milk of the year as the ewes give birth to their lambs.

An Irish blessing;

May you be under Brigit's mantle!'

Brigit's Day was traditionally a time of purification and house cleaning! Also the time to burn any Christmas greenery that lingers.

February has also been known as the Wolf month or Faoilleach in Gaelic and 'a marbh mhios' the dead month. Despite the it being cold & dreary the signs of spring are are beginning to appear.
Our neighbour has his first lambs and snowdrops are showing their silvery shoots through the grass in the orchard.

Yesterday the Farmer had the sad & unpleasant business of having to despatch one of our oldest cows. She was one of our first pedigree Ayrshires, born in 1996 and had reached a good age for hard-working dairy cow. She had been getting weaker by the day and had been badly bullied by the rest the rest of the herd, as is the natural order of things. The Farmer & Elder Son had done what they could for her over the past week or so but a decision had to be made. Because she was a 'downer' we were not able to send her to market which would have been a real cruelty anyway, nor could she be loaded onto a lorry to go to the abattoir. So a quick end was brought about with a rifle and we paid to have her taken away in the knacker lorry to be incinerated up near Liverpool. A wasteful end to a useful life. The whole carcase is incinerated which is such a waste . Why can't the skin be removed for tanning and the meat go into dog food as it always used to be? I'm sure the politicians and the scientists have come up with good reasons why not, but it still seems the most terrible waste.

On a more cheerful note the work on the cottage bathroom is almost completed and it is looking really good, I'm very pleased with it.

Gleeful Frosty Morning, Bathroom Progresses, Gorgeous Grand-daughter, 'Red Sky at Night' by Jane Struthers

2011-01-28T04:29:00.000-08:00

Blue skies on a lovely sunny frosty morning which made the dogs bounce with glee. Why do they so enjoy clear crisp days? Maybe they are just as pleased to see the sunshine as we are.

Work continues on the cottage bathroom but the end is in sight. The new bath, wash-basin & loo are now installed and the tiling will be done today. Best of all I am now going to have a broom cupboard ( the simplest things give the greatest pleasure!) so now I am able to hide away the vacuum cleaner, brushes, cleaning materials etc. without having to cart them across the yard everyday changeover day. I shall get the painting finished tomorrow I hope and then we wait for our first guests to arrive in week or so's time.

Our sweet grand-daughter comes on a pace. Her name is Lili & she is now 9 days old and as all good babies should just eats & sleeps for the most part. Having more recently dealt with labrador puppies (our litter of 13 last summer) than babies, one is struck by how very similar baby creatures are when they are very new...warm and snuffly and sweet smelling (mostly) & hungry.

I was recently given a copy of a lovely book, 'Red Sky at Night; The Book of Lost Countryside Wisdom' by Jane Struthers. It is a fascinating collection of facts, tips, lists of useful things like saints days or collective nouns ( did you know that one has a hedge of herons & a rafter of turkeys?), recipes and general interesting stuff. There are instructions on how one should wear thermal underwear in the snow, how to make rice pudding, star gazing, local traditions & customs from all over Britain, tree identification & moth-proofing. It is nothing if not varied in its subject matter and it has the most lovely illustrations. A perfect dipping-into book.

Valley of Fog & Frost, Renovations Continue

2011-01-23T05:45:00.000-08:00

We have had a succession of very misty foggy mornings with some quite severe frosts. Frost is great as it means we don't have to contend with mud everywhere. The grass yard in front of the farmhouse has been wrecked after the cows got out and trampled and charged all over it on very wet day, churning up mud and making divots like pot-holes...a real mess.

And talking of mess the cottage bathroom is now a little less messy than it was as we've got the re-plastering stage of the renovation and once that is finished there will be just tiling the floor and around the bath and woodwork to be done and then I set to with my trusty paint brush. Fortunately the changes that have been done do mean there is actually less wall to paint now which is good.

January is always a very busy month somehow. We always seem to find work in the cottage to be done before our first guests start arriving and on the farm the Farmer & the boys are kept busy till lunch-time with feeding, bedding the cattle, checking the sheep and cleaning yards & sheds each day. Once that work is done there is hedge-trimming to be finished before February,work on the new shed to be completed and general maintenance. Living on a old farm with fine 19th century stone buildings that are still in use there is always something to be found to do whether it is just replacing a slipped slate on a roof or checking gutters and drains, particularly the latter if it is a very wet month.
Although the weather has been so cold this winter and we are having regular frosts at present there are signs in the garden of life stirring. I have found a number of daffodil bulbs putting up tentative green spears both inthe gardens and along our drive. The snowdrops should be sending their green & white striped shoots throught the grass before too long though I found no sign of them when I looked ten days ago. I must go and check them again. Tight tiny little buds are appearing on plants and shrubs and I hope we do not get a blast of bitter weather that will burn them all off before spring.

Our new addition to the family came home with her mother yesterday and she is the sweetest little poppet. We are all besotted!

In Which We Become Grandparents...Hurrah!

2011-01-20T06:33:00.000-08:00

A beautiful silver morning for very special announcement.
The Farmer & I became Grand-parents last night with the birth of a little girl to Elder Son & KT. We are thrilled.
The baby was born by C. section at 11.15pm and weighed in at 7lbs 8oz...a goodly size for a girl baby I think. I had huge boy babies so anything under 9lbs+ seems tiny! No name for her has been decided upon yet.
We are looking forward to them coming home in the next day or so. This will be the first girl child born to Penyrallt for over 50 years. All very exciting!

While we've been waiting for the baby to come this week we have started on a major re-fit of the bathroom in the holiday cottage. I had only wanted to change the bath-taps but have now got a small room that looks as though a bomb has hit it...no ceiling, tiles ripped off the walls, bath in a new position and an awful lot of mess! However, our trusty friend S. who is doing much of the work with the Farmer, will make a fab job of it and I know I will be very pleased with the end result once all the plumbing and rebuilding of cupboards etc. is done & I have redecorated it. Its just the messiness of a work in progress is always somewhat daunting & I did want only the taps changing!

Rhod Gilbert Down On The Farm

2011-01-14T03:31:00.000-08:00

We've had a film crew here for the past 3 days recording a programme for the next series of 'The Rhod Gilbert Work Experience' for the BBC and what fun we've all had.
Rhod himself was great, very easy and willing to have a go at anything and the 3 crew members were considerate and charming and they were all very good company. Rhod & the crew stayed here on the farm in the cottage & farmhouse which was good as it meant they were able to continue filming in the evenings and after supper, going out to see the cattle in the sheds at night, which is always a lovely thing to do, very calm & warm with contented sleepy cows lying quietly chewing the cud and making happy little groaning noises.
The brief was that once Rhod was kitted out in proper farmer's gear, wellies & boiler suit, having arrived in smart townie inappropriate clothing, he be taught a variety of farming skills. He then had to get on with things in his own.
Well....he learnt to drive tractor (a much bigger one than in the pictures here!) reasonably competently but could not master reversing a trailer no matter how hard he tried (I can't do it either!) and he milked the cows, and attempted to work with Molly the sheepdog causing much hilarity & learned the important skill of plucking pheasants.
The Farmer & he did all the daily chores together, feeding cattle, bedding down etc. and then some essential job such as repairing fencing.
On the second day we all went to Carmarthen market for Rhod to
to see a cattle auction and to auction a cow to a crowd of somewhat bemused farmers.
I spent much of my time cooking vast meals (but no award winning mince-pies!) which were received with much appreciation and having occasionally to do my bit to the camera (!) such as having the results of my culinary efforts filmed when the table was set for meals.
As always with filming everything takes an age to do with every shot & angle being done twice or more & dialogue having to be repeated which makes spontaneous ad-libbing quite hard, but the whole three days went very well & happily for everyone.
The end result is be broadcast in March, I will let you know when !

More Frost, New Year Tidying Up

2011-01-09T01:56:00.000-08:00

A frosty morning but clear skies after the greyness of the past few days. we had a fall of snow on Wednesday night but it had all gone by Friday which was a day of miserable cold rain.
Walking the dogs this morning was lovely, with the landscape silvered and silent broken only by the crowing of a neighbour's cockerel which rang out clearly across the valley
Yesterday was reasonably bright and the Farmer & Younger Son were off beating again with the dogs and came home later than usual having had a good day with lots of good food at the end of it.

This time last year we were gearing up for lambing and the sheep were in. This year we are not lambing until March so the daily work load is a little easier not having to take the ewes out to the field or having to feed them in the poly-tunnel.
Work is continuing on the new shed which has almost reached completion and it will soon be filled up with machinery, straw and calf pens I think.

The house is now back to normal having taken down the Christmas tree on Twelfth Night and cleared away all signs of the festive season.
The start of a new year is a good time for a general clear out of the mountains of paper that accumulate in the office and on the kitchen table (which to seems to be an extension of the office!) and so I spent an afternoon armed with a bin bag going though 'stuff'. Do we really need to keep back numbers of the 'Farmer's Weekly' for the past year & the little scraps of paper with anonymous telephone numbers or cryptic messages about machine parts scribbled on them? But then one comes across another tatty bit of paper with a long lost address on it or a recipe torn out of 'The Field' for doing something interesting with game birds and windfall apples, so they are kept to form the base of the 2011 mountain of 'useful' bits of paper and it was ever thus.

We have a busy week ahead of us with a tv. film crew arriving for three days to film a project that should be very interesting & fun (I will keep you posted) as well as the usual round of farming and family life. I just hope we do not have horrible weather for the filming, it just makes everything more difficult, contending with a morass of mud & soggy kit.

1st Birthday of Blog, Shed Building, Holiday Cottage Promotion

2011-01-04T04:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Birthday Blog!

Well, I've kept it going for a whole year and I hope dear readers, that you have had as much pleasure from reading it as I have in writing it.

I have spent the morning preparing the cottage for new guests. The delightful couple who were here for New Year departed very promptly this morning when it was very gloomy and grey. Apparently the darkness this morning was due to partial eclipse of the sun that was taking place. It was so overcast & cloudy here that we did not see anything of it other than it being darker than usual at about 8 o'clock.

The Farmer & Elder Son are busy today putting roofing sheets on a large shed that they have built which will hold straw & machinery. We can never have enough sheds I am always being told, but we are now running out of suitable sites. This latest shed is actually a roof being put over what has been a silage clamp for the last 20 years or so.

With the start of a new year I have been spending a lot of time 'tweaking' my advertising for the holiday cottage & hopefully, making it appear so attractive that lots of lovely people will want to come & stay with us. January is the busiest time for internet browsing of holiday accommodation and one has to be ahead of the game as much as is possible. I am not a hard-headed business woman, I do rather just muddle through, but one gains a certain amount of 'savvy' after doing the thing for as long as we have and there is huge competition out there so I do my best to make sure my website & entries on other websites are up to date and looking good.
http://www.penyrallt.co.uk/

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T03:58:00.000-08:00

2011 has dawned grey & damp. To think that only a week ago we were struggling in sub-zero temperatures and now it is so mild that the thermal layers have been shed and the landscape is once again shades of green & brown.
The Farmer & I drove to Brecon yesterday for a family gathering and went over the top of the mountains above Llandovery past Llyn Brianne reservoir. There was still quite lot of patchy snow up there and small lakes and a finger of the reservoir itself were still frozen over. It was beautiful.

With the thaw the water situation on the farm has eased and the general daily routine has returned to normal. The boys are spending the first day of the new year taking slurry out onto the fields...no days off for farmers when when there has been such bad weather to contend with for so long, nor are Bank Holidays recognised; the cows still have to be milked and animals fed and bedded.

Wishing everyone a very good New Year.

Minus 14 degrees, No Water, No Rayburn & Festive Lunch To Cook - Merry Christmas!

2010-12-26T05:25:00.000-08:00

Boxing Day.
Well, Christmas Day dawned at -14 degrees C. and we were greeted with almost our entire water supply frozen solid and the Rayburn in the kitchen having gone out.
We did have water here in the house but only cold and the milking parlour, dairy & cattle shed were without water as were Elder Son's cottage and the holiday cottage (fortunately empty at present).
The Farmer set to and performed major surgery on the Rayburn threee times before it was going again and and outside the boys struggled to thaw pipes and troughs.
Trying to cook Chrismas lunch in a cold kitchen with the internal parts of the Rayburn scattered across the floor and reeking of household oil & men-folk tramping in & out for kettles of hot water is certainly challenging.
I do have a gas cooker as well as the Rayburn but having intended to use both as per usual and then finding that it was not to be, I ended up trotting across to Elder Son's cottage and asking KT to cook the roasting vegetables in her oven while I battled on with the gas cooker. The Turkey of course, took up sole residency in the one oven left to me, the Christmas pudding steamed away to itself on the top and I juggled with saucepans on the remaining three gas burners, making bread sauce, red-currant sauce (an excellent substitute, having been unable to find the cranberries in the deep-freeze), gravy, boiling potatoes, steaming vegetables & boiling kettles for thawing out procedures outside. It was a miracle that lunch was only an hour late!!!

Today it is a little less cold but there is still a battle to get water to the livestock and for tractors to start. Elder Son has gone to a neighbour to help feed his stock as none of his tractors will start.
The Farmer has spent the morning filling tankers with water from under the ice on the ponds as there is no other way of getting water to the cattle troughs. It is a constant struggle to keep one jump ahead of the freezing conditions. The streams & rivers have iced over and as soon as any water is exposed to the air it freezes around the pipes & taps. Still, as the Farmer says it is not as bad as 1601...the Thames has not yet frozen solid!

Merry Christmas One & All...Nadolig Llawen

2010-12-24T02:12:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve and what a busy day ahead. The most important thing to be done today is the Christmas tree...its something of a family tradition that the tree comes into the house on Christmas Eve and is taken out again on Twelfth Night. I love decorating the tree and re-discovering all the old and precious ornaments, some of them dating back to the childhood of the Farmer's grandmother at the end of the 19th century, and of course the newer ones from the childhoods of our boys. Father Christmas always brought them a tree decoration and so we have quite a large collection of pretty things.

As well decorating the tree I have to ice the Christmas cake which I try to get done while listening to the Nine Lessons & Carols from Kings College, tho' almost inevitably it is interupted by various things cropping up. There is the stuffing for the turkey and trifles to be made and last minute wrapping of presents to done. I know that a number of people are due to call here today so there will be constant supply of hot fresh coffee to on the go and mince pies.

With the cold weather everything outside is very difficult. Each morning all the water pipes & troughs for the livestock are having to be thawed out which takes a long time. A neighbour has just rung to say that they have no water at all and could the Farmer go down to help sort it out (which of course he will, but after he's dealt with the problems here).

The ponds are frozen with a cap of ice about 6"-8" thick and the dogs run around on the ice skidding & sliding with joy. Each day we have the wonderful sight of laughing labradors leaping about in the snow.

Wishing Everyone A Very Merry Christmas

Nadolig Llawen

'The Weather Outside is Frightful.....', Emergency Milk Tanks, Favourite Christmas Reading

2010-12-19T02:34:00.000-08:00

Early morning across our snow-bound valley...pretty spectaucular, eh what!
We are indeed snow-bound...the Farmer decided to walk to the shoot yesterday morning across the fields having taken the 4x4 out to end of of our lane and having seen the state of the main road with lorries slewed at odd angle across it and foolish car drivers struggling to get up the hill, it seemed the only sensible thing to do. I had walked out with the dogs to exercise them before going beating and was then left to drive the car back up the lane (in low box) and the only time I slid (even in 4 wheel drive) was turning in to park on the yard.
The main concern today is getting a load of cattle cake delivered which we have been waiting for since Thursday. It has to come up from the West Country but we've had a message to say it is in Wales and so should get to us sometime, however, whether the lorry will get up the lane is the big question. If it can't do it then it will be a matter of shovelling 4 tonnes of cake into bags and bringing it up with tractors! What a joyful prospect!
The milk tanker came on Friday night okay but tonight will be another matter. We have though been told by our milk buying company that unlike last winter, we can use a portable emergency milk tank and take it out ourselves with a tractor to end of the road. All dairy farms used to have these emergency tanks and they were invaluable, then it was decided by the powers that be that they were unhygienic and dangerous for the lorry drivers to empty being up on trailers so their use was banned. Last winter when so many farms could not have their milk collected much milk was lost but this time common sense has prevailed and the old tank can be brought out of mothballs. It will of course be thoroughly cleaned and sterilised and our particular tanker driver has assured the Farmer that he will collect our milk from the end of the road if we can get it there.

It is very, very cold here today and the snow is crunching underfoot and the skies are grey and full, I think we are supposed to have more snow tomorrow which may put paid to the half-plan of meeting family members in Llandeilo to hand over turkeys & pressies. We will see.

This is the first Christmas in almost 20 years that I have not got the cottage booked out. I think the weather has made people think twice about venturing too far from home over the festive season, however, that said I have got people arriving for New Year...if they can get here that is.

It is a day for sitting by the fire reading some favourite Christmassy, snowy books, having been busy cooking and baking for the last few days, so this afternoon I shall settle down witth 'Wind in the Willows', 'The Children of Green Knowe', 'Lanterns Across the Snow' by Susan Hill & The Faber Book of Christmas. That is the plan but I may well be asked, in the nicest posssible way, to go out and shovel cattle cake!!

Winter Work, Good Books, Rampant Rams

2010-12-14T02:00:00.000-08:00

Even a fence post & barbed wire can look beautiful with a coating of hoar frost!

Despite the run up to Christmas beginning to gather pace, things are quite quiet here, though busy, but its a routine sort of busy-ness. Elder Son is off hedge-trimming while he can get onto the land with frozen fields, Younger Son is off each morning working on a tree-felling job & the Farmer is also working with chain-saws today thinning out out a conifer plantation on the farm. Again, while the fields are frozen and hard, work with tractors & winches becomes posssible that is normally only done in the summer.
So while all the men-folk are off being manly I keep warm in the house with cooking, ironing, Christmas preparations & grabbing the odd moment to read some very good books.

K.T. has just lent me 'The Winter Ghosts' by Kate Mosse...wonderful! A clever & poignant ghost story linking the distress of the grief & guilt of the 1914-18 War with the horrors of the torment of the Cathars in France in the 14th century. It is not a long book but totally gripping.
As bit of light relief I have also been reading a couple of the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries by Carola Dunn. Good whodunnits set in the '20's with a delightfully nosy society flapper and a solidly attractive Inspector from the Met. as their leading characters in a series of good old-fashioned murder mysteries. Good stuff on cold winter evenings by the fire.
For even lighter relief 'Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks; The Essential Alan Coren' has been unbeatable. It is laugh-out-loud stuff and so clever and off the wall. I loved hearing Alan Coren on the radio but as we rarely buy national ( or local for that matter!) newspapers I did not see his regular column in The Times, but have now discovered what we missed. Glorious eccentricity.

We had a small & fortunately short-lived, unpleasantness yesterday when our two rams were brought into the yard to remove them from the flock of ewes, who are now hopefully all in lamb. The rams who have been happily living together in the main flock since October, once separated from their harem decided to kill each other! They have incredibly hard skulls and just run at each other with their heads lowered and inflict an astonishing amount of damage. They were quickly separated & removed to other parts of the yard but an amount of blood had been spilled. They now just roar at each other balefully from behind their respective fences. Murderous sheep...the power of instinct and the survival of the fittest & all that stuff!

Thaw & More Frost, Free-range Turkeys

2010-12-12T02:27:00.000-08:00

After two days of thaw we have silvered roofs & fields again with another frost having come overnight. However,we no longer have the glassy sheets of ice outside the house & across the yards that we have had to negotiate so gingerly for the past week, which is great relief. The Farmer fell twice but without any damage and vehicles were having difficulties getting in or out as our steep driveway had some bad patches of black ice. The milk tanker driver was very pleased when Elder Son had put a goodly quantity of grit on the drive so he was able to collect the milk without too much trouble.

We have been rearing our usual small number of turkeys for Christmas and they spend their short but happy lives roaming around the yards & buildings. They had found their way up to the children's old climbing frame the other day where there was a patch of warm sunshine and sat there for a long while gobbling gently to each other before heading back to their more usual haunts down on the yard. They are truly free-range and as a result of the freedom they have they taste wonderful... or should it be wanderful!
They are such ugly creatures I find, with their naked vulture-like heads & necks & strange swivelling eyes. The cock birds are spectacularly hideous with their blue wattles and aggressive fanning out of feathers when alarmed and the way they seem to hiss & spit is very intimidating. We have a friend with a couple of pet turkeys and I find them quite scary!

Rainbows & Ice,Peacocks, Homemade Mincemeat, Local Arts,

2010-12-05T02:22:00.000-08:00

This morning we are having such peculiar weather...this wonderful rainbow appeared arching across the farm in extraordinarily strong colour and I was walking across fields white & crisp with frost in a fine drizzle. There are still sheets of ice everywhere and icicles hanging in the streams. We have not had the excitement of snow sadly, just treacherous ice and deep cold. Yesterday the yards were like sheets of glass and this morning the Farmer was to take our cattle trailer to help a neighbour move house but the car dooors were frozen solid so instead of going at 9 o'clock it has been postponed until later this morning when things have 'warmed' up a bit and he can get into the car!
From this same neighbour the Farmer has acquired a pair of peacocks, which he brought home yesterday in a cage . They are called Charlie & Hettie and because peacocks apparently have a strong sense of home they are to be kept under high security for 3 months to reduce the risk of them them making a break for it and heading back across the valley & also to keep them safe from Mr Fox. The Farmer has always wanted peacocks and he will win them over by hand feeding them, hopefully. I'm not sure how we are going to cope with haunting scream that peacocks make...people have told us that it can be fairly persistent and therefore intensely annoying.
'Who said, 'Peacock Pie'?
The old King to the sparrow:'
(Walter de la Mare; The Song of the Mad Prince)

Yesterday which was horrid, very cold & damp, I spent making & bottling a large quantity of mincemeat that I had set on the go the day before, and baking while the Farmer & Younger Son were off beating with the dogs. Making mincemeat is one of the Christmas preparations that I really enjoy and I make enough of it to see me through the year not just the festive season. it is very useful stuff, not just for mincemeat pies, but it it makes a lovely pudding with sponge on top and a good spoonful in a cake mixture makes a good moist fruit cake.

Homemade Mincemeat
4lbs. apples cored but not peeled, chopped small
8oz. suet
2lbs. mixed dried fruit & candied peel
12 oz. dark brown sugar
Grated zest & juice of 2 lemons & 2 oranges
4 tspns. mixed spice
1/2 tspn. ground cinnamon
A little ground cloves
A little grated nutmeg
6 tblspns. brandy
(I double everything & sometimes add a couple of tblspns. of ground almonds)
Mix everything together well except the brandy,in a large bowl and leave overnight covered with a clean cloth.
The next day cover the bowl loosely with tin foil and put in oven for 3 hours
(Gas 1/4, 225 degrees F, 120 degrees C or the bottom oven of the Rayburn).
When it is taken from the oven the suet will have melted and the whole thing will be swimming in fat... this is how it should be.
As it cools stir occasionally.
When quite cold add the brandy & pack into clean jars, cover with wax discs seal.
It will keep indefinitely in cool dark place

We are always interested in local artists & craftspeople and try to support them when we can afford to (!) and recently a friend has set up a new online business selling work by graduate students from the local art college where she lectures. The original designer pieces produced are wonderful and S. is keen that the young artists should be given a shop window for their talents. Look at http://www.suzipark.co.uk/ and see what remarkable and lovely things are being made here in Carmarthenshire.

Snowy Roads, Frozen Water Supply

2010-11-30T05:47:00.000-08:00

This was the start of our journey to Dorset on Friday! Having driven to Lampeter for dental appointments, with no sign of snow or bad weather until we were nearly at the town, we encountered a full blown snow storm. After leaving the dentist an hour later we decided to continue to Brecon through the snow and were in small queue of traffic all the way travelling at a steady 12 miles per hour... we must have been mad, but we have never been caught by snow when off the farm before and were all set for three days away, so we risked it. In fact there was very little risk involved & if need be we could have stayed in Brecon with family if necessary, but it it not come to that.
It was lovely driving across countrry as we could see the countryside tranforming itself before our very eyes and everyone was driving very sensibly, though we were glad of our 4x4! Once we got to the A40 the road conditions were a little better and by the time we reached Brecon there was very liitle snow just heavy frost. From Brecon onwards we encountered almost no snow and the further south we went the better it got though it was terribly cold.
Once we reached the New Forest there was just a light sprinkling of frost though the temperature was very low. Three days spent with my sister & her family passed very pleasantly with long walks on bittterly cold beaches and lovely meals in warm places and the Farmer & I set off to return to Wales yesterday. We saw snow on the Cotswolds but really there was just heavy frosts in most places and when we reached Carmarthenshire there was light snow on the higher ground.
The farm is in the grip of freezing ice & the boys have been thawing water pipes & troughs & the water supply to house froze, but everything is now under control...we just have to keep warm, so fires are lit early in the day and we have donned long-johns, vests, several top layers & sheepskin boots. Whether we will get any more snow here is not known, the couple of weather websites I look at tell me different things so we shall just have to wait & see what happens.

Super-Dairy Controversy,

2010-11-25T02:46:00.000-08:00

A cold & frosty morning with the roofs glittering in the sunshine and the the dogs bouncing with joy in the clear air.

There has been a lot of media coverage lately on the controversial 'super dairy' planning application submitted by a group of dairy farmers in Lincolnshire. Having cut their proposed cow numbers from just over 8000 cows to 3770 they feel they may have a better chance of gaining their planning permission. However, they have said that once they get planning for the lower number and the unit is up & running they will return to their original proposal. (See Farmer's Weekly, 18th November).
There are many large & very efficient dairy farms already in the country some milking over 2000 cows and they have high standards of animal welfare, but I am not convinced this is the way forward. As small producers (and we are very small!) we can produce good quality milk with high standards of animal welfare and a smaller carbon footprint than the much larger dairy farms. (For the Five Freedoms for animal welfare see http://www.fawc.org.uk/) The ideal herd size is probably about 100-150 cows which enables the cows to live in more natural social order and to graze in fields. Thousands of cows cannot be put out to graze, therefore all their feed must be transported by convoys of lorries & tractors increasing the traffic on the surrounding roads. Ultimately it will prove to be unsustainable. The cheapest way to feed cows is to let them graze grass.
Without getting too fluffy about it all, the consumer would rather buy milk from cows that have been grazing grass in the open air than from cows kept in sheds, no matter how comfortable, clean & well fed they are. I understand that some of the major supermarkets have said they will not buy milk from a 'super dairy'.

Colostrum, Local Cheese Makers & Home-grown Foods

2010-11-19T01:46:00.000-08:00

After several days of torrential rain it is now dry and sunny though the mess left by the volume of water running everywhere is awful...but it is as nothing compared with those poor people in Cornwall!
The drainage work done earlier in the year seems to be working and we no longer have water running through the cattle sheds, thank goodness and the cattle are warm & dry.

We had a heifer calf born yesterday to a cow with very little milk, so the Farmer has had to spend time feeding it with colostrum (the first milk produced after calving which is vital to the survival of the calf) with a bottle. We always keep a supply of colostrum in the freezer in case of situations like this. After thawing the colostrum is heated gently before being fed to calf; it has to be allowed to thaw naturally or in a bath of warm water, not in the micro-wave oven as whatever happens to it with micro-waves destroys its nutritional value & curdles it.

Talking of curdled milk, we have a number of very succesful cheesemakers here in the Teifi Valley and they have recently joined forces to draw attention to their excellent award winning products. We buy their cheeses regularly and always recommend them to visitors. The Teifi Valley Cheese Producers have a new website, http://www.teifivalleycheeseproducers.com/ which gives all the background information on the various makers and the very different cheeses they produce.The one we particularly enjoy is made by Caws Cenarth (caws is Welsh for cheese) and is a Brie type called Perl Wen. They also produce a wonderful soft blue cheese, Perl Las. We gave some Perl Wen to some French friends who were very impressed saying it was better than Brie!!!
One of the best meals we can put on the table consists of entirely home-grown or locally produced food, Mair's Bakehouse bread, Caws Cenarth cheese, home-made tomato chutney, soup made with home-grown leeks, potatoes & stock from our own animals & home-brewed cider...what could be better?
http://www.mairs.bakehouse.co.uk/, http://www.cawscenarth.co.uk/

Milk Tanker Driver Retires,

2010-11-16T02:20:00.000-08:00

Another sparkling frosty morning with the sun gleaming through the trees as I walked the dogs across the top fields and back along the drive. Lovely.

When Elder Son & the Farmer went down to the dairy this morning they found a card from our long-standing milk-tanker driver informing us that he was retiring and that as 'working a night collection doesn't give me the chance to meet my farmers, I should like to say 'Thank you' for your support & cooperation over the years'. We were rather touched that he should have written cards to 'his' farmers wishing us all farewell. Dilwyn has always been one of the best drivers, coming in carefully & quietly onto the yard and in the terrible weather last January he never missed a collection from us (see blog postings January 2010) despite the difficulties of getting here. I hope he has a long & happy retirement starting next week.

Yesterday the Farmer & Elder Son spent the day hedge-laying. It is a very old hedge running down the side of the steep lane that was once the only access to the farm and has needed attending to for some time. It is now looking very neat if rather sparse having had so much trash removed, but come the spring it will recover & thicken out once more. Meanwhile there is a huge mass of trimmings in the field waiting for the right conditions for a bonfire.

Weaning Calves, Moving Cattle, Mud & Good Shoes

2010-11-13T01:39:00.000-08:00

On Thursday the Farmer brought all our Traditional Hereford cattle into the yard to wean the calves as their mothers are due to calve in January so need time without the previous generation. Weaning of cattle is always a a noisy business with calves bellowing for their mothers & the mothers bellowing back at them so, harsh as it may seem we have to take the mothers as far away from the young ones as possible. This involves walking them through several fields to a outlying pasture well away from the main part of the farm. Once the cows are in their new grazing they settle down quite quickly, but the calves who are being kept near the farm buildings & the house continue to call for quite along while, especially throught the night which disturbs us all.

The same day it was decided to move a flock of sheep and number of dry cows onto some new grazing and this involved the Farmer, Younger Son & myself & Molly the sheepdog (also two labradors who are completely useless for moving any kind of livestock other than pheasants!).
The animals took a lot of persuading to go where we wanted them and it got to the stage where I wasn't sure whether the Farmer was whistling & shouting instructions to me or Molly...but she is quicker to run round the back of a flock of sheep than me, I can't force animals to move just by glaring at them & I certainly won't drop to my tummy on wet grass when being told to 'Lie down!' or 'Stay'!

Last night the Farmer & I met up with some friends for a meal at a recently opened restaurant, near Aberporth, Yr Hen Ysgol, The Old Schoolhouse Steakhouse where we had one of the best meals in years. Beautifully cooked food, generous helpings & excellent service in a very pleasant former schoolroom that had been converted into a stylish & comfortable restaurant.
The main problem I have with going out for the evening especially in winter, is footwear. Having got myself into 'tidy' clothes with nice shoes I then have to pick my way by torch-light, across to the car without gathering too much mud on the said nice shoes. Of course I could just wear wellies and change in the car but that is too obvious a solution, though I suppose I could have 'going-out wellies' which would cut out the need for good shoes...one can get such pretty wellies nowadays...but the car is also our farm vehicle and has its own accumulation of mud and grunge, so its a no win situation really.

General Busy-ness, Green Tomato Chutney

2010-11-10T02:00:00.000-08:00

We woke to frost this morning and walking the dogs was lovely in the sparkling sunshine, however it is now clouding over and seems to be turning into a dull grey day.
The Farmer & Younger Son have gone off with large tractors & serious logging equipment to process a neighbour's mountain of firewood (http://www.larkhilltipis.co.uk/) & Elder Son has departed on his tractor for a days hedge-trimming on a nearby farm, so I have a day all to myself.
I've already dealt with emails and cottage booking requests, ironed bedlinen & made up the beds in the holiday cottage for guests arriving on Friday and I shall make a batch of green tomato chutney (see below) later this morning and then continue with various sewing projects that need to be finished before I get completely fed-up them. What a busy little bee I am!

I was amazed to find some daffodil shoots appearing in the pots in the garden this week. I hope they don't get burned off by some fearsome icy blasts later on. Talking with a friend yesterday we commented on how few sloes there are this year...last year the crop was wonderful & large quantities of sloe gin were made but this year there will none. The holly berries are bright & plentiful; its pity there is no use for them, other than feeding the birds, of course, and there are many rose hips gleaming in the hedges. It has been a good season for fungi, but we are just not knowledgeable enough to harvest them.

Green Tomato Chutney
4lbs green tomatoes
1lb apples
1/2 stoned or stoneless raisins
1lb brown sugar
11/4lb shallots (I've used leeks & onions)
8-10 chillies
1/2oz dried whole ginger
1 pint vinegar

Cut up all the tomatoes, peel & chop the apples & shallots.
Bruise the ginger & chillies & tie in muslin bag.
Place all the ingredients in a preserving pan, bring to the boil and simmer until the chutney has the desired consistency.
Remove the bag of spices and bottle the chutney,
Yield about 71/4lb.

This recipe comes from a marvellous book that is my preserving bible, Home Preservation of Fruit & Vegetables, Bulletin 21 produced by the now defunct Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food. Old copies might be found on Ebay or http://www.abebooks.co.uk/.

Back Online, OMSCo, Birds in Autumn Landscape

2010-11-07T04:07:00.000-08:00

After nearly a week of appalling phone connections & almost no internet we now seem to be linked to the outside world again...touch wood, fingers crossed etc. The telephone engineer came out and twiddled with various little bits of wire and certainly the phone line was much clearer, but I think the problem arises when it rains, which as we are in saturated West Wales may prove an ongoing difficulty. However, this morning it is glorious after a night of torrential downpours so the technology is working well...so far.

Yesterday the Farmer, Younger Son & two very excited labradors went off to spend the day beating. They had a lovely time and came home mid-afternoon with a brace of pheasants. Apparently the dogs behaved beautifully and worked very well prompting some flattering comments from the other beaters & the guns.

During the week the Farmer & I attended a meeeting with OMSCo (http://www.omsco.co.uk/) for a update on how the organic milk market is doing. UK sales of organic milk are still too low & much of the milk is still being exported to the continent, though ironically, it is then coming back into the UK as milk powder. It is all quite mad.

Autumn is well under way and temperatures do seem to be dropping a little. It has been so mild lately and of course, very wet. From the office window I have been watching blackbirds feeding on the great crop of cotoneaaster berries and there are many blue tits & sparrows around and there are odd glimpses of wrens.
There have been murmurations (such a wonderful collective noun) of starlings flighting their dramatic sweeps across the skies to land in the fields and this morning a buzzard took off over my head as I was out with the dogs, only to be mobbed by a couple of aggressive crows. Everywhere I walk now apart from being very squelchy, is covered by a carpet of fallen rusten leaves which unfortunatley are too soggy to be kicked through making that wonderful autumnal rustle and sigh.

Twin Calves, Work Experience Student, Christmas Cakes & Puddings.

2010-10-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

This week we had a pair of twin calves born. Fortunately they were both bull calves and will be reared for beef. It is always a disappointment if twins are born and they are of both genders. About 80% of the female calves of a mixed set of twins are infertile and are known as freemartins. To have had a pair of bull calves is good.

Over the past week Elder Son has had help with the morning milkings from M. the 16yr. old daughter of some friends, who is hoping to become a vet. She needed to gain some experience with dairy cows having already done some work experience with our local vet's practice seeing general farm work. She was delivered to the farm each morning at 6 o'clock, thanks to her very obliging mother(!) and joined E.S. in the parlour and then helped with the routine work with the cattle during the morning. She seemed to get on very well and E.S. was very encouraging and pleased with her enthusiam and interest. I hope she enjoyed her time here and felt it had been worthwhile.

We are having a day of torrential downpours interspersed with brief glimpses of watery sunshine. The Farmer has retreated to his workshop to make a batch of tuning handles for our local Welsh harp makers and I have prepared the start of the Christmas cake mixture, in my lovely warm kitchen. I have always made the Christmas cakes & puddings during October half-term but the boys feel they are much too grown-up to come and stir the mixtures and a make a wish nowadays!

Llanerchaeron Apple Week & Cyw on S4C, Dog Memorials

2010-10-29T07:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the Farmer & I went up to Llanechaeron, the National Trust House near Aberaeron, to take part in the filming of a children's television programme for S4C. The programme, Cyw, has a character called Rapsgaliwn, who goes around showing various processes & methods covering a large variety of subjects. Yesterday it was how apples are made into juice.
We arrived at Llanerchaeron with all the apple pulping & juicing equipment which we set up in one of the glasshouses near the lovely orchards and the Farmer duly made apple juice and the process was filmed with Rapsgaliwn explaining to his two child co-presenters what was going on. The programme will be going out sometime in February.

It has been Apple Week at Llanechaeron and there was the most wonderful display of of over 40 varieties of apples, all grown in the gardens on the estate, including a number of old Welsh varieties.. Many of them were very old, some dating back to the 17th century such as Catshead (1600's) & Devonshire Quarrenden (1676). They have such lovely names, Orleans Reinette (1776), Cambusnethean Pippin (1750) & Roemary Russett (1831) and the variations in colour, shape and uses is amazing. The smell as one walked into the Apple Room was overpowering and just delicious.

Whilst the Farmer was occupied with the film crew, I went for a wander around the gardens and found the huge lake in the woods that has been reinstated only in the last three years or so. It was looking glorious with vast beech trees all in golden livery and a flotilla of mallards dotted about on the water patrolling their territory around the two islands. There is a also a well established heronry on the islands.

As I walked along the path around the lake I came across a small headstone tucked into the side of the path under a large beech tree.
it had inscribed uopn it the following;

Vic

26, June 1919

Aged 13 years

Vic must have been a much loved & faithful dog, a companion to one of the Ponsonby-Lewes's of the time.
I had half expected to find other dog memorials but Vic was clearly the only one that merited such a remembrance.
We have a large standing stone here at Penyrallt, known as the Dog Stone which marks the grave of one of our dear sheepdogs, Ted and is a memorial to all our many dogs over the years, though it does not have their names carved on it...if any of us had the necessary skills it would have an impressive list carved uopn it. It is surprising how many dogs one family can have over a quarter of a century.

First Frost, Unexpected Returning Traveller, Holiday Cottage in Winter.

2010-10-25T02:40:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke to the first real frost and even with the glorious sunshine it is lingering. It seems very early in the season to have such a hard frost. The leaves on the trees are falling now and everywhere one goes around the farm there is a constant faint sussurationof dry leaves landing on the ground. In some places around the farm one can stand in clump of trees and be surrounded by a snow of falling leaves.

The last few days have been much taken up with Younger Son's travel plans and their going awry.
On Friday he left for New Zealand and yesterday (Sunday) he arrived back home having got as far as Shanghai! In Shanghai a problem was picked up regarding his visa and the New Zealand authorities would not allow him to travel any further, so the Chinese authorities put him on a plane to Hong Kong where he spent a night in a hotel and then flew back to Heathrow.
It was very strange & unnerving experience for him, being surrounded by Chinese airport officials and watching the two friends he was travelling with get on the plane to Christchurch. They of course, had no idea why he was not with them and spent the rest of their journey wondering what on earth can have happened. All very scary and bizarre. However, it is all sorted out now, thank goodness.
So YS is now home for the winter, his first in 3 years! He has had 6 summers in a row, so a Welsh winter is going to be bit of a shock! He has not experienced real cold for such along time, but it does mean he will be able to go out with his dog on the shoots, an activity that he has missed.

It is half-term week now and I have guests in the holiday cottage and several more to come over the next few weeks. We have have had a very good year with the cottage and lots of delightful people enjoying & discovering West Wales. Bookings are already coming for 2011 which is great, including faithful returnees.
we are finding that winter breaks are becoming more popular. After all, what could be better than seeing gorgeous countryside in autumn colours & sparkling frost and then relaxing by a roaring log fire?!

Last Rose of Summer, First Shoot of Winter

2010-10-23T05:15:00.000-07:00

Although it nearly the end of October & the weather has become distinctly cooler we still have a few late roses around the garden. These paticular flowers are on an old 'American Pillar' that was transplanted earlier in the year and has done very well at the foot of a large ash tree & has flowered consistently since the beginning of the summer.

Yesterday the Farmer & I took Younger Son up to Ludlow on the first stage of his return trip to New Zealand. The father of his friend J. with whom he was travelling was to take the boys on up to Heathrow. This is the 4th time that they have gone out to NZ and are now very casual & blase about the whole thing, though the 27 hour flight is still gruelling despite going Premium Economy (they say it is worth every extra penny for the extra leg room, both being 6'4", and decent food!) rather than 'cattle class'.

It is of course summer in New Zealand now, while here we are definitely getting colder and today it is absolutely chucking down with rain. The Farmer went off this morning with YS's gun dog Poppy for the first shoot of the season. They will be tired, drenched and cold but happy, when they get home having spent the day beating through thickets of brambles in the woods.

Returning to New Zealand, Apple Juicing, Winter Arrives

2010-10-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we bade farewell to our Kiwi visitor. She has been with us for 4 months and had really become part of the family. We were all very sad to see her go & I think she was sorry to leave us. She has had a marvellous summer...so different to life in Timaru & no earthquakes to worry about.
Apparently this last week or so there has been another large tremor in Christchurch and also in the areas south of the city. The Kiwi said her parent's house has shifted & doors no longer open easily and everything has dropped of the walls. Since the first big earthquake in Christchurch over a month ago there have been well over 1200 (!) minor quakes monitored, but the latest ones are getting stronger it seems. Christchurch airport was closed at the beginning of the week, so we hope that S. will be able to get home without too much difficulty.

On Tuesday, a number of members of the local Transition Group came to the farm with their crops of apples to be juiced.

The Farmer has been juicing most of our apple crop with a very efficient pulping machine and juicer. He bottles the juice in small plastic milk bottles and then freezes them. Ideally we would like to pasteurise the juice which would then save on the expense of having to run freezers, although at present we are able to store the apple juice in freezers that also contain meat.

The bringers of apples certainly brought plenty of fruit & of several

different varieties. The variation of flavours was very interesting. Our own apples produce quite a sharp but pleasant juice, though unfortunately we don't know what the varieties are, just that they are very old trees, probably a good 100 years or more in age.

Tomorrow we take Younger Son up to Ludlow to meet his friend J. with whom he is travelling back to New Zealand for a 4th stint working on Canterbury Plain. J.'s father will drive the boys to Heathrow. This year they will both be working for the same agricultural contractor and no doubt will have a good time driving huge machinery for long hours earning lots of money through a hot NZ summer again. I hope the earthquakes do not cause problems.

With YS & the Kiwi returning to New Zealand for the summer, winter is beginning to creep into our lives in Wales; we had the first frost this week, very light but frost nonetheless and the leaves are coming off the trees and forming drifts of copper & gold in every corner of the yard and around the house. I've started my regular replenishments of the log supply in the porch as I'm lighting fires every afternoon now...my wheelbarrow & I have a very deep & meaningful relationship!

The swallows left duruing the week the Farmer & I were away...there was one family still flying around the buildings when we left presumably waiting until their last brood was grown & ready for their long journey to Africa. They probably had reared three broods over the summer. We seemed to have had many more swallows this year for some unknown reason. Let's hope that most if not all manage to return next April.

Vale of Clettwr Hunt Meet, 'Mycelium Running' by P. Stamets, Organic Milk Rap from Yeo Valley Organics

2010-10-14T02:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning Younger Son, the Kiwi & I went out to the meet of our local hunt, the Vale of Clettwr, at a pub up the road. The Kiwi has of course, never seen anything like it before and it is a wonderful sight with the Master & the huntsmen in their pink coats and the horses and riders all spruced up and and ready to go. One of our neighbours was there with his little grand-daughter ( see picture) on the smallest pony I've ever seen. She was so excited to be there. There was field of about 20 riders and maybe 20-30 couple of hounds.
As the meet was so close to Penyrallt they came over our land by lunch time and our dogs who were all tied up, were very frustrated by seeing the hounds come through the yard closely followed by the horses. A couple of the hounds lingered around and had to be collected later in the day. Hounds are great...fairly brainless but very sweet natured. In the past I have walked hound & beagle puppies for the local packs and they are great fun.

Yesterday was a glorious sunny warm autumnal day, today it is grey & overcast. It has been a very good season for fungi. We have found fly agarics the size of dinner plates, and there have been ink caps coming up on the lawns and magnificent tiers of bracket fungi appearing on tree stumps. While the Farmer & I were in Shropshire we found an extraordinary range of fungi when walking, which we were not knowledgeable enough to identify.
The Farmer has been reading an fascinating book called 'Mycelium Running' by Paul Stamets.Its sub-title is 'How Mushrooms can Save the World' and its 'a manual for the mycological rescue of the planet'. Basically it explains that the mycelium recycle carbon, nitrogen,& other essential elements as they break down the plant & animal debris, thus creating new soil. It has also been discovered that mycelium can digest & decompose toxic wastes & pollutants. The importance of mushrooms in the great scheme of things is clearly explained & quite amazing.

How many of you have seen the new Yeo Valley Organics TV advert? Isn't it great?! Even the Farmer who is normally very snide about most advertising campaigns thought it was good fun, so it must have something!! As our milk goes to Yeo Valley we take a keen interest in what they do, especially if it helps spread the message about the benefits of organic milk & if that message can be put across in such a fun way then its even better.
http://www.yeovalleyorganics.co.uk/

Powis Castle, Wroxeter and other Salopian Glories.

2010-10-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

'Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.'
The Farmer & I have returned from our holiday in Shropshire which was both cultural & relaxing. As well as doing an enormous amount of reading, we had an excellent time visiting the wondrous gardens at Powis Castle, the extraordinary Roman ruins at Wroxeter and delicious bookshops, antique shops & galleries in Ludlow, Bishop's Castle & Much Wenlock.

Powis Castle was just beautiful and the gardens are to die for...we both now hanker after 400year old yew hedges that reach about 30ft in height. (We have the space so maybe we should plant them for our great, great, great grand-children.) The yews were magnificent and the other lovely thing there was the orchards of apple & pear trees set about beautifully clipped lawns and the woods with an amazing selection of shrubs growing in amongst the trees...hydrangeas look superb in such a setting.

We stayed in a very comfortable cottage near Churchstoke and were close to a hillfort that sat high above the village on a rocky outcrop. We climbed up there one late afternoon and it was worth the very steep scramble. The views across the Marches were stupendous.
The Roman ruins at Wroxeter, or Virconium, were fascinating and somewhat bizarre. The ruins are vast and are all that remains of a municipal bath-house that was in the centre of a small township. The Romans I find strange anyway, and their need to build these huge baths on the edge of the empire, in what was a very isolated outpost & settlement is just weird.
We also visted the Acton Scott Farm Museum which was lovely. It is a breathtaking sight to walk into old stables and see each stall containing a magnificent Shire horse gleaming & brushed & ready for work. The stables here at Penyrallt must have been much the same a 100 years ago. Sadly, all that remains now are the cobbled floors and the backs of the stalls where the hay troughs had been.
The Farmer had a lovely nostalgic time at Acton Scott looking at all the old machinery and remembering his father talking about how they worked and quizzing the staff on various technicalities.

Having been home now for a couple of days life is back to normal, with the Sons both still working on silage carting for neighbours and selling some beef cattle. They had routine TB testing of the cattle last week while we were away, and everything is clear, hence being able to sell some stock today.
The weather is gorgeous so we got a lot of work done in the gardens yesterday (while dreaming of Powis).
A neighbour has given us a quantity of large shrubs that he has removed from his own garden, so we spent a long time deciding how to place them to best effect and planning the next stage of landscaping for next spring.

Close Encounters of a Bovine Kind

2010-09-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

This picture shows children from a local primary school having a close encounter with one of our cows which they found quite thrilling. This particular cow has been rather a pet of the Elder Son and so is quite happy to be near people. The children ( & the teachers) loved it, of course.
This school visit has been planned for weeks but had been cancelled at the last minute last week because of the weather. Today we were so lucky...the rain held off until children were leaving on the bus.

As well as entertaining 40 plus children today, there was the worry of a cow which had collapsed in the parlour today. She had a trapped nerve after calving and one leg just gave way during milking. She fell in a most inconvenient corner of the milking-parlour and it took 5 of us an hour to get her out and into a field. We had to use pulleys and straps and various contraptions to get her moved and all without injuring her in any way. Howver, after much pulling and shoving we managed to get the poor thing out of the parlour and she is now out in a field recovering and with her calf. She will be fine.

The Famer's Godson & girl-friend left on Monday after a jolly camping in the orchard. They seemed to have good time going to visit the CAT at Machynlleth and various interesting people & places round about. It was lovely to have them here and I'm sure they will be back.
Younger Son & the Kiwi returned on Monday evening after their trip to North Wales which extended into a quick run up to Ayrshire! It was a varied trip around Britain, visiting York, Hadrian's Wall, Biggar and Cumbria...a very full six days!!! The Kiwi has certainly seen chunks of the UK that she did not know existed!

I have been busy these last three days getting my re-decoration of the holiday cottage finished, which as usual turned into a bigger job then originally planned, but it is all looking rather good. The sense of urgency is due to the fact that I have guests arriving on Sunday & the Farmer & I are going away for a week, leaving on Saturday. Yes, we are giving ourselves a well earned week away from the phone, the computer & the farm. But the cottage needed sprucing up after a very busy summer...its amazing how shabby it can get & a quick (!) coat of paint just brightens everything up.
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Autumn Approaches, Bottling Fruit & Cider Making, New Home for Last Puppy,

2010-09-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

Whilst the countryside is still looking green & leafy, autumn is definitely on its way. Drifts of crisp brown leaves are already beginning to gather along the drive falling from the beech trees, the squirrels have attacked the hazel nuts and left the shells lying empty with their green frilly ruffs beneath the hedges and the blackberries are glowing in the hedgerows. There is a definite chill in the evenings now & that subtle & indefinable scent of autumn on the air.
Whilst out with the dogs yesterday there was a fine equninoxal wind blustering around the treetops and a couple of rooks were floating around in the sky and being tossed about now & then by a surprise current of air making them look like flapping black hankerchiefs.

The Farmer gathered a great quantity of elderberries yesterday for wine making and I picked some blackberries for freezing. We've already had many meals with bramble & apple crumbles and so now I'm saving some for the winter. We have bottled apples, tomatoes and made tomato & basil sauce which, as an experiment we have also bottled in Kilner jars. I can't think of any reason why it should not be as good a way of preserving the sauce as any other.

After the great apple juicing sessions earlier in the week, there has now been a great cider pressing session with the Godson helping out most enthusiastically. He is very keen on home-made brews of various kinds so he & the Farmer are having a lovely time fiddling around with air-locks & demi-johns & discussing yeasts and pectins & percentage volumes of alchohol. It all gets a bit beyond me...& I don't drink any of the stuff anyway!

The last puppy went to its new home yesterday. Some very nice people from Monmouthshire came to collect her and of course she was adorable and made them think she was really, really pleased to see them and needed to go home with them as 9 week old puppies do, treacherous little dears that they are.
I am quite satisfied that all the puppies have gone to genuine homes where they will be loved and given a good dogs life...they all had such happy childhoods here. (Sorry to be anthropomorphic, but they did!)

New Look Website, Last Lab Puppy,

2010-09-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

After a lot of work over the past few months, my new look website is now live, http://www.penyrallt.co.uk/ and I'm very pleased with it. My friend M. who is in clever enough to do the necessary techy stuff, has done a great job I think, and has made Penyrallt look an attractive proposition for a Welsh holiday, I hope.

We are now down to one lone black puppy. Yesterday evening a family drove down from Bolton (!) to take the other one back to be an adored companion.
I am continually amazed at how far people will travel to acquire a puppy.
This last little one we will not keep, though we were tempted, but we do have four dogs here already and really don't need another one the moment. A good home will turn up for her in due course, I know.

The Farmer went off this morning to buy some ewe lambs from a neighbour. They are fine organic lambs and from a very well managed flock, so they , hopefully, will do us well over the next few years.

Yesterday the Farmer's godson arrived from Devon with his girlfriend, to camp in the orchard for a few days. As he arrived, Younger Son & the Kiwi went off to North Wales for a few days, so I've exchanged one giant 22yr old for another and the consumption of cake has nearly got me beat. It is rare that my tins are completely empty, but it happened this week. What is it with men & cake?!!!

Home-Pressed Apple Juice, Llanerchaeron, Ethical Trading, Last 2 Lab. Puppies

2010-09-21T11:35:00.000-07:00

The Farmer has been harvesting our apple crop in the last few days. The ancient trees in our old orchard have produced as well as ever, though the apples of this particular tree are not good keepers, so the Farmer has contrived an apple press and is juicing them all, bottling the juice and then freezing it. We then have fresh apple juice all throught winter and delicious it is too.

At the weekend the Farmer & I attended a open day event at Llanerchaeron, the National Trust house near Aberaeron, where we had been asked to man a stand on behalf of FACE, the organisation for Farming & Countryside Education. We were there to talk to the public about visiting farms with school groups and how accessible many farms are now to the public and to encourage people to make the connections between food & farming. That all sounds a bit earnest but its just a matter of engaging people in conversation, at which the Farmer is very good.
We had our stand in a rather draughty pole barn along side a man making horn-handled walking sticks, a pen of Angora goats and some Llanwenog sheep.
There were displays of bee-keeping & saddlery, a wonderful plant stall where I purchased some very healthy looking box plants and the most inspirational walled gardens to wander around, with very old espaliered apple trees, box-edged vegetable and herb plots and fish ponds, all to be found through faded creaking doors in high walls that just ask to be opened and the horticultural treasures to be revealed.

Yesterday we attended a meeting with representatives of the Soil Association, OMScO & Yeo Valley Organics to discuss Ethical Trading. An interesting debate ensued as ethical trading is as much a part of organic production as the non-use of pesticides (there is a Soil Association Ethical Trading standard) and needs to made as visible to the consumer as Fairtrade has become. Like Fairtrade, ethical trading reaches right along the production line from the farmer/grower to the retailer. Everyone, from the farmer to the consumer should benefit from ethical trading whether they farm or shop organically and it is further reassurance to the consumer that their food has been produced sustainably.

We are now down to just 2 puppies...2 dear little black bitches who are so naughty and so endearing.
Their siblings have all gone off without a backward glance to their new homes with their adoring new families and I'm sure are giving them huge fun.
Homes will turn up for these remaining two I'm sure, in the next few days, though the Farmer has been heard to say that if they don't it's okay, we'll just keep them on and train them, though I must admit the prospect of 4 Labradors around the place is fairly daunting!