Pruning Apple Trees

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.