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!
Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Fruit I won't be growing
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
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.
Friday, 17 January 2025
Sourdough
Sunday, 12 January 2025
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.