Twixmas 😝
I will be honest, in the run up to Christmas we didn’t do much apart from the necessary, we went out for breakfast a few times and went shopping mid week while it was quiet, all things we never usually do so it was quite a nice gentle stroll up to the big day. We had Christmas Day at Charlie and Maccas along with Sam, Luke, Mia, Shelley, Martin, Josh and Florence so that was fabulous, the other days were quiet and we did a lot of sitting about lol.
After Boxing Day we decided we had sat around long enough lol and so dismantled the greenhouse, there is no going back now. To be honest I don’t know how it was still up it was so rotten, we cleared, cleaned, threw out and burnt everything until there was just an empty space. Next we decided that the ash tree had to come down, I had a wobble about this as I had watched Dame Judi Dench on trees just the evening before and finding out a lot more about trees than I already knew, I was in two minds. Obviously a tree that size is a great carbon sink but I have planted a good few more recently so hopefully that will help, an Ash tree, if you didn’t know is a most revered tree both spiritually and practically, it was used to make bow and arrows, oars, so an important wood. It is dense and low in moisture so it burns very well and was considered the ultimate firewood and to that end it was in the past only used for Kings and Queens, or the lords of the manor, if you were a mere peasant you had to make do with something that smoked a whole lot more!
Bearing all that in mind I was determined not to waste any of it, so the larger stuff will be logs for the Rayburn, the smaller stuff will be kindling and the bits and pieces were all shredded to put down a pathway in the orchard that had got a bit too muddy. The other ash tree will be pollarded but not cut down entirely and again the wood will all be used, if I can manage to save the right type of branch I would quite like to make a rambling stick with it.
We had the first frosty morning in weeks, it’s has been until now unseasonably mild, not that I’m complaining as it hasn’t rained either so it’s not a muddy mess everywhere. It amazes me how each season through the years can be entirely different to the same ones in previous years, that’s a temperate climate for you I guess, you never know what you are going to get!
One of our favourite programmes at the minute is Escape to the Chateau with Angel and Dick Strawbridge, between the two of them there is not much that they can’t achieve. I love watching it, the recycling, repurposing is impressive enough but when you see the end results it’s just amazing and very inspirational. One of the resources in their vast garden is eucalyptus which I also happen to have and so for New Years Day dinner which I was cooking for the family I gathered a bunch of it and put it in a vase, it looked fab even if I do say so myself lol.
Cruella de Vil seems to have disappeared, she was eating and using the toilet tray fine now suddenly, not, she may return, after all she knows she can get a meal here and sometimes feral cats do go for days at a time ☹️ Molly is still hogging the boot room, honestly she hardly ever leaves, I think I will have to give her some marching orders soon, every time I try to get out the door I’m falling over her or stepping on her, roll on warmer weather when she can find a sunny spot outside to sleep all day in.
As the temps dropped I had a go at making the cashmere gloves, it was a trial and error attempt, it erred more on the side of error it has to be said 😝 It seems like a simple enough task but I guess you need to know a bit about knitting and how it all holds together, which I don’t! I have learnt some valuable lessons though and I will give it another go using different techniques I think and see how that turns out. I just need to find something to do with the rest of the jumper now I have cut half the arms off 😜 And I will use the ones I made though I don’t think the stitching will last very long, I will see how warm they keep my hands and go from there.
With a little bit of extra time to think things over I have been able to hone my thoughts to exactly which direction I want to take the produce gardening in. Definitely for me it’s forest gardening, I feel more comfortable with the idea than permaculture as a whole although they obviously both integrate with each other but the way I see it the whole permaculture thing is promoted on a higher level than I am prepared to study lol whereas forest gardening seems like a simple, more natural approach which sits very comfortably with me, my aim this year will be to try and fit this into every area I can, however I can, I think that should work.
It’s Wednesday 2nd Jan 2019 and we have spent the afternoon working outside, taking down more branches from trees that are shutting out light from the place the greenhouse will go and also the polytunnels. We have a line of hazelnut trees and have pollarded a couple of those in strategic places to let the sunlight flood the tunnels when the time is right. It’s back breaking work but quite cathartic and I really enjoy being outdoors as long as it’s not raining and I am busy enough to keep warm. We now have another big pile of logs which will need seasoning 😀 it all adds to the free heating/hot water and cooking for next winter 😀 We have tidied up as we go with each tree, normally John gets a bit trigger happy with the chainsaw and it all comes down at once then you just have a colossal pile to sort out. As I say to him, anyone can make a mess it’s the clearing up that takes the time but I finally got him to see that doing it this way is a lot less soul destroying lol.
Second error of the day happened when I tried to make some mayonnaise, it split so I used it like a dressing instead, I have tried to make it once before when it also split so I may give that one a miss in future and stick to Heinz!
John went for his over 50s MOT today 🤣 it’s amazing how someone who eats quite a lot of ‘crap’ can have blood pressure that is on the button and is slightly underweight! Flipping unbelievable, mine is on Friday and I know this will not be the case for me even though I try really hard to eat fairly well, there is no justice 🙄
My brother gave me some chestnuts that he had bought and wouldn’t get round to using, now when I say some, what I really mean is about 10kgs 😝 he likes a bargain does Kev lol, anyhow apart from roasting them you can make a chestnut purée which can be used for all sorts of cooking (chocolate and chestnut cake will be a definite) as well as spreading, sweet chestnut spread. I also intend to make the delicacy Marron glacé which are preserved chestnuts, they take about four days to do so not as long as glacé cherries thank goodness. I looked at the sacks and decided to pass one sack to Shelley as a challenge to find something to do with them. They can be boiled then frozen for use at a later date which I may well do with half of them.
Well I did do some of the chestnuts but I should have left more time as I was trying to multitask 😜 I made the purée, it’s not really my thing so I probably won’t try it again but I will have a go at the glacé when I get a minute, it’s the peeling them that takes a fair amount of time.
Sunday 6th Jan: The boys we’re here from Wales to do a bit of rabbiting this morning, they caught 7 so were happy with that, we set out the framework for the base of the greenhouse and then went off for breakfast and did a bit at Johns Mms house on the way home.
Last night I put the wildlife camera in the tack room just to make sure that it was Cruella de Vil that is eating the cat food, yep she is definitely still around although we never see her, to be honest that’s my kind of cat 😝
Tomorrow John goes back to work so everything is back to normality, not sure if I am looking forward to it or not, we have had a pleasant month with no time constraints, coming and going more or less as we please and either getting things done or not it was entirely up to us, now everything will be squeezed in around Johns work again lol.
frieslandfarm (flowers) 