Following a tree: June

Here is the birch tree I have been following in it's full Summer attire. It rises close to our boundary. I like it's weeping habit which nearly reaches the ground. It will remain much the same until in late Summer the leaves become pale and then start to turn to yellow. In the meantime, it provides an attractive back drop and a shady spot for when the sheep are moved into this field. 

Herb stand

During the Winter I made a herb stand from bits of wood left over from another project. The herbs had been clustered in pots in a corner of the patio but I thought something more functional right by the house would be a good idea. 

When I looked at flower stands for sale they frequently had what I considered was a fundamental design fault. This was that the shelving overlapped one another too much. The problem with this is that when you water the plants the surplus water will drip onto the plants below. This is especially problematic for herbs, at least of Mediterranean origin (that is most of the ones we use), as they do not like being over watered or having their leaves splashed. Making my own stand for herbs avoided this issue. 

The herbs we use most are fairly bog standard but using fresh herbs where you can does make a difference in the kitchen. In the picture there is sage (including a fancy tricolor variety), thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary and lemon verbena. The latter is used to add extra lemon flavour cakes. 

Even if not used for cooking, rubbing your fingers along them to capture their scent is satisfying enough in itself. Lemon verbena is my favourite for this.

Release for the ducks

Over the Autumn and Winter I carried out a number of small construction jobs, one of which was to build a duck pond and extend the duck enclosure. These are pekin ducks which we keep for their eggs, but they are also nice to have around too. 

But avian flu meant that the pond and new run have lain unused for since last Autumn. Suffolk, along with Norfolk and Essex, as well as parts of East Lincolnshire, East Yorkshire and the West Country have had a housing order in place over and above a range of national biosecurity measures. Confining ducks has been a particular challenge. 

However, it was announced at last that from Thursday 15th the housing order has been lifted so we were able to release the ducks to enjoy their new set up and relative freedom. A great relief all round, especially in view of the warm weather we have been having.

Like many who keep a few ducks for their produce rather than soley for ornamental reasons we made do with a children's plastic sandpit for a pool - big enough for a quick dip and to get their heads under water but not really ideal. Ducks can be quite messy and the sandpit pond muddied up very quickly requiring it to be emptied and re-filled every day.  

The new pond is 8' x 8'. I made it into a raised pond partly so I did not have to dig a big hole and find somewhere to deposit the spoil, but also because I am working on the theory that being raised there is less chance of soil being drawn into the pond as the ducks go in and out. Time will tell. Being raised I used some pallets to create a ramp and platform up to the pond and another ramp in the pond to make it easy for the ducks to clamber out.

A big challenge for us at present is the continuing record-breaking dry spell. We have had no rain for many weeks now. But for the ducks it shouldn't be a problem.

Agnus Dei

We had a total of 11 lambs this year, 3 ram lambs and 8 ewe lambs. The ewes this year were mostly first time mums but by and large took to the experience very well. Three births needed some assistance for successful delivery. The ewes are all proving to be good, attentive mothers. The lambs, along with their mothers, are enjoying being on grass out in the sun and each afternnon we enjoy watching them frolic together in the way lambs do.

The two photos below were taken at the same time.

Following a tree: April

Alas, March sped by and I missed posting a photo of the silver birch tree. It was in its catkin stage too. Never mind, here is April and fresh green leaves are on display helped along no doubt by the mild sunny daytime weather. 

We have had no rain since February, and it is apparently the driest Spring since 1962. The grass is slow to grow and it is problematic for farmers sowing their Spring crops which need the rain for the seeds to germinate. The birch tree seems happy enough at the moment though.

Lambing 2025 commences

The first lamb has been slow to arrive this year. The theoretical start date was 6th March but the ram seems to have been slow to get going. As it happens it was yesterday, Sunday 16th, that we had our first delivery. It was 6:30 in the morning just before I start the morning tasks feeding and watering the livestock. I managed to complete all I needed to do, pen up and check all was well with the newborn lamb and its mother, assist Janet to get set up for the morning following her hip replacement surgery and I still got to 9am Mass in time. 

About mid-day twins arrived from another ewe. She had difficulty with the first one and I had to intervene to deliver it. She was a first time mum and her cervix was a bit tight and the birth was not progressing. I also had to do all the usual things you might have seen on farming programmes to get the lamb to take its first breath. The seccond of the twins was unproblematic. Mum is very attentive to her newborns which is always reassuring. In the photogragh the lamb (a ewe lamb) is stained with meconium which is a typical sign of a difficult delivery.

Another set of twins today (so far - I'll check again at midnight). It looks like the delayed start by the ram means that the lambs are all arriving in quick succession. 

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Following a tree: February

This photo was taken on the last day of February. I am a little late posting February's record of the willow tree becasue it has been a bit busy of late: Janet has just had a new hip installed. 

The tree looks much the same as in January but close up the leaf buds are swelling and I expect leaves will start to shoot very soon. They are already evident in the hawathorn hedge.

Winter 2025/6

The logs have all been hand split because my hydraulic log splitter with a 7 tonne splitting force has broken down on me. I have been splitting the logs a bit at a time; it helps me warm up on cold mornings. 

These logs are from one of the fallen poplar trees which came down in a storm last Winter. I built a new wood store nearer to the house to help accommodate the extra wood supply. It measures 12'x4'x4'. I have another store with logs I have been using up this Winter.

Fruit I won't be growing

For her birthday recently, our duaghters bought Janet a hamper of exotic fruits. They reminded her of 'home' and some grew in her parent's garden or were commonplace in the market. Not all of the fruit come China and South East Asia but many of them were very familiar. In particular lychees, dragon fruit, star fruit, guarva, mangoes (of which there were several different types in the hamper), mangosteen and rambutan. The latter are particulalry tasty. They are the red, hairy looking fruits in the front. I we enjoyed it very much!

Keeping the breed going

Two more litters of British Saddleback piglets in November, eight from one sow and 10 from another. Most have now moved on to new homes. Numbers for the majority of traditional British pig breeds (of which there are ten recognised breeds) have declined further according to the recent end of year census of pedigree pigs, putting them at risk. As most breeders are small scale like us, the general cost of living and costs of animals feeds in particular are putting some people off keeping rare or minority breeds. 

Once a breed is 'lost' it is lost for ever and its presence in livestock diversity. Also lost is its contribution to the overall gene pool. Traditional breeds sometimes still have the potential to contribute specific breed characterisics in the further develpment of comercial stock which originated from traditional breeds in the first place.

Anyway, here is our latest contribution to keeping the British Saddleback breed going.

   

Sourdough

For a good part of our childhood we were used to eating fresh, homemade bread. Our mother, even though she was mother to ten children and worked three nights a week as a nurse, among other things, was a very fine cook and still made time to bake her own bread. Even in her latter years, going to see her for dinner, there would often be warm, freshly made wholemeal bread rolls to go with a first course, calmly factored into the elaborate preparations for the main course and dessert.

At quite a young age I was able to discern the inferiority of 'shop bought' bread, primarily its cloying texture and neutral flavour. Later I came to understand the deletrious impact of industrially produced bread (the so-called Chorleywood process) - virtually any bread bought from a supermarket, however misleadingly it might be described on the wrapping. Current bread manufacturing processes result in a product that is so devoid of nutritional value that legislation prescribes that it is fortified with minerals and vitamins. 

 

Janet is quite an expert at baking and bread making, especially sourdough in various forms. Her current sourdough starter, regularly fed and a constant feature within the refrigerator, originates from six years ago, passed on to her from a smallholding friend. 

Making sourdough involves a process that requires a lot of attention, spread over two days. Over the years Janet has made, and continues to make, fine-tuned adjustments for a consistently satisfying outcome. Janet is fascinated and enjoys the subtle intracacies which can affect the results. She has a routine of generally baking a loaf every other day. The result is that we are blessed with enjoying good quality sourdough every day. Here are some recent examples:-

Not everyone has the time nor inclination to bake their own bread. A busy home life, demanding jobs, a natural propensity for convenience and not being that fussed about bread in anycase: some or all of these factors might be reasons for not doing so. Although, breadmakers have mitigated the inconenience of breadmaking to some extent.

At the same time, if you don't or cannot make your own bread, buying 'real bread' is significantly more expensive compared to a standard supermarket loaf. It is perfectly understandable why people not only choose to buy cheaper bread but might have little option to in order to make ends meet. 

It also has to be said that sourdough, like muesili for breakfast or serving salad in a wooden bowl, has become a disparaging trope of a middle class life-style. I hasten to add that our family growing up was relatively poor - we qualified for free school meals, for example. I might also add that long before Alpen first appeared on supermarket shelves our Swiss mother used to make her own mix of oats, milk and dried and fresh fruit which we called ‘Swiss porridge’.

Following a tree: January

Prompted by bloggers Sue and Ang (and others) I would rather like to emulate them by 'following a tree'. I have chosen a mature silver birch tree that grows on the boundary of our smallholding. The photo below was taken on my mobile phone around 11am this morning. This was after a night of -5 degrees centigrade. It is quite a wintery scene. The sky has clouded over in place of the clear, bright blue sky we have had in the last few days.

 I like the weeping tendency of the birch. The bark on its branches is dark, almost black, and leaves a delicate tracery effect against the sky. The hawthorn hedge is about 7 feet high and gives an indication of the size of the birch tree.