Dotty, Flora, but.....goats? Never! But then......

We used to keep goats, but then we didn't. The reason? Because the behaviour of the goats stretched Lester's patience beyond a point where he could no longer cope with them.

 All the other animals 'fit' here so are part of the team.

Yes, they do have their 'off' days, but we do as well.

But those goats!!!! They were never on anyone's team except their own individual ones.

It was the fighting for dominance which was worst, which made being around them not a good experience. 'Never again', Lester said, ' we are never going to keep goats again!'

That was at the beginning of the year.

 

But I felt that we were not done with goats, but did kept quiet about saying so.

I thought that if we had a couple of young goats, and then trained them up to our ways of doing things, that perhaps we would not have so much trouble with them.

That the goats that we had were all mature animals, set in their ways so less willing to be part of our team, that if they were trained from very young that they would fit in more here.

 

We have two calves. They will have to be separated from Bonny and Lissie soon otherwise there is no point in keeping cows because the calves will be milking their mum's udders dry, leaving no milk for us. At the moment Lester is milking Lissie, but only getting a couple of litres of milk from her per day. While this keeps us going in the kitchen, this is not enough to make cheese or butter with.

 

Last time we had a calf, we had the goats as well, so the goats kept the calf company during the day, sleeping in a pen beside his mum at night.

He has tried to put the older calf out in the side field for the day, but it was not a good feeling seeing her run around by herself, so she is now staying with the others for the day.

Which is why Lester muttered something about having a go at keeping goats again.

Just two, plus of course a male, which makes three.

I think that perhaps this will happen.

- we shall have goat milk again which means I can make goat cheese

- they will keep the fields clear of thistles, and eat the brambles away from the fences

- they will keep any future calves company when they have to spend time away from their mums

Next year, then, .....perhaps......

 

 

Meanwhile Lester has ploughed up a section of veg plot number 1 which had succumbed to a heavy load of weeds........he hopes to plough it so we can put some green manure in, such as mustard or clover, which will grow over winter to be then ploughed back into the earth next spring.

Veg plot number 2 will be ploughed up by the two adult Tamworth pigs once the self sown butternut squashes have been harvested.

 

Not done much myself out in the veg plots, as things have got busy indoors, notably the break down of the food preservation conveyor belt, the problem being that we are tiling the middle hallway, which is the space in between the back kitchen and the front kitchen,

this is what has broken the production line!

 

The meat I got out of the freezer and was supposed to be canning, hasn't been...

(I mentioned this in the last blog)

 

 

but it did get to being roasted, but then it went into the fridge, and then day by day  it went into our tummies, thus providing us with our meals for the week, which was a blessing because otherwise it would have been cheese sandwiches all week.

As I have said, the food production line is at a halt.

So no canning jars of pork from these two pieces of meat!

 

As for the bacon I started,

 

...this had a thick layer of fat, like the bacon I made a couple of weeks ago. Although the cure went right through all of the meat, I did think that there was too much fat on each slice of bacon, so this time I have taken the thickest parts of the fat off. That will be turned into lard.

 

So this is the piece of meat, and I used the same cure as I did last time, which was 500grams of salt, 500grams of brown sugar, 25 grams of black peppercorns, and a few bay leaves. But this time I ground the peppercorns and bay leaves in my spice mill before adding them to the salt and sugar. It is likely that I shall stay with this recipe in the future, because the last lot of bacon I made with the recipe turned out wonderfully well.

And the smell of peppercorns, bay leaf, sugar and salt.....wow, but it was nice.

 

This is the last day of the cure now, so the meat will be washed tomorrow and then left to sit in the fridge for five days before I slice it into rashers which will then be frozen.

I suppose bits of the production line are still operational!

 

At the beginning of the week I was given some bags of rhubarb...

 

out of which I have canned eight jars, with some left to make a crumble. Didn't want to put them into the freezer because I am supposed to be getting the freezers emptied out, and at least now they are canned they are also cooked.

 

I have also just about managed to get all of the tomatoes stored now, mostly through dehydrating them. I should have also had at least five canned jars of crushed tomatoes for the larder, but alack and alas, I was tardy with getting this done even though I had prepped the tomato juice ready for canning. But the stop light was on this part of the food production line, so the pigs ate the juice (cooked with pasta) instead.

 

....Bonny waiting for her calf to be led out of the barn by Lester....

 



 

Dotty on the left, and Flora on the right, both getting ready to chase the chicken out of the field, but waiting until I disappear, because standing beside me as I take this photo are the two big black dogs which they are most reluctant to have anything to do with.

 

 

I have managed to be reasonably productive these last few days, although not as productive as I normally am. This will continue until the end of next week, or until I can walk through the middle kitchen to get to the back kitchen.  To have to go out through the half barn doors, and then walk across the courtyard to get into the back door when it is dry and sunny is alright, but when it is raining and I have three dogs trailing behind me who are all damp and muddy, well, it is a bit wearing on the nerves. Not to worry, it is only for a few days more and then the production line can be up to full speed again.

 

Went down to Tarbes today to get the radiators for the Rayburn Wood Stove Project....it looks possible that we might be having that working this winter.

 

Bye for now,

 

Vx

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting on the front door step.....

Sitting by the front door, spinning. I often wonder about the people who have lived in the house over the years, especially those of long ago, and wonder what they would make of our rescue of it from a ruin. I don't feel that anywhere else in the house, just on the front door step. 

I put the remnants of the last fleece I was spinning on the compost pile because there were only a few handfuls of fleece left to spin, and they were being difficult and unhelpful as I tried to create a yarn from it, so out it went. And this is the next fleece I am spinning. It has its mucky bits, probably from under the parts that were on the lower half of the animal. Some people sort out the best of the fibres from the not so good, but I don't, I spin everything.

This fleece was stored in a dustbin bag, but even so it has stayed full of puff and fluffiness. I have noticed when fleece is washed that it seems to flatten during the drying process, so I prefer to wash the wool after it has been spun. I also like the feeling of being close to the sheep that the fleece used to be protecting from the elements, and I also like the soft smell of the sheep still lingering upon it. 

And the magic of seeing a twist of yard coming out of the fibres of the fleece. No matter how much I spin, it still fills me with awe,,,,

The Dye Project:

The production line of producing dye to colour the spun wool seems to have come to a halt, mostly because over the weekend I went through a bad patch of feeling overwhelmed by the work we are looking towards doing in the future.  Must have been the full moon which brought that on, because once the eclipse of Monday morning was done I felt a lot better!

As for the dye.....

I am still processing the sloes I picked last week. I had a look in the pot just now, and wow, the aroma of sweetness that came out of the now fermenting sloes was gorgeous, and well worth sniffing at every so often for the rest of the day. They are not supposed to be fermenting, but I don't suppose it will make any difference to the dye. The colour is beautiful.....deep purple to  a raspberry red when it is watered down slightly. 

In the kitchen......

I continue to dehydrate the riper tomatoes, thinking that that is the quickest way to get them into storage. A lot of the tomatoes are rotting now, but I have been cooking them up for the pigs. The chickens were getting them, but we have decided that if the chickens are 'free range' chickens then they need to go out and about to find their food, and not stop hanging about in the courtyard waiting to be fed, or getting the bedding in the cow barn all mucked up, or harass us when we try to do jobs outside.  They also get bored, especially the cockerels, who then start harassing the hens or squabbling amongst themselves. And  they leave poo everywhere for us to step into. They are fed morning and evening. The rest of the time they are out and about. 

But they are not allowed in the veg plot. I have just planted six rows of broad beans, two rows of winter lettuce, and several rows of garlic. They will surely find them, of that I have no doubt! So I have barricaded the entrance to the veg plot in the hopes that they will not go in there.

The last batch of meat I cooked up, which was chevre (goat) produced two meals for us, plus five jars of meat, plus lots of bits and pieces for the dogs, plus bones for them as well. 

The jars in the photo are much fuller of meat than what they look..... I think the canning process must pressurize the meat down to what looks like half the contents in the jars! 

So in total, I now have meat meals for eleven days, which is a good start.

And a raid in the freezer produced this large chunk of belly of pork, so that is going to be made into bacon. I have just made a quiche with some of the last lot of bacon I made, and it tasted really nice. After my first disappointment with making DIY bacon, I am now really pleased at what can be produced. 

And the next meat to be canned: two legs of pork. 

They have been slow cooked with seasonings, and now are being roasted, so another roast dinner for us, then into the canning jars the meat will go. 

It does feel like a production line of food processing at the moment, but I am getting used to the work it involves. I know I have said this before, but it does give a secure feeling knowing that no matter what happens we shall not go hungry. 

Off to get the pork legs out of the oven, and carry on with getting lunch done.

It is a bit of a trek to do this though, because I am banned from using the hallway in the centre of the house because work is being done on them today. So it is out of the door of the half barn, turn right, walk across the courtyard to the tall barn, turn right, walk through that barn (chasing any chickens out who might be thinking of getting into the cow pens), then the middle barn, turn right into the back kitchen. To get to the front kitchen takes a bit longer because I have to retrace my steps back to the half barn, walk through that, turn left. 

I counted 150 steps each way, which is not good if you have forgotten something you need which is in the kitchen other to where you are. 

Not to worry, in a few days the tiles will go down, and the space will be finished, apart from being painted. 

I can smell the meat cooking, so best go and rescue it.

Bye for now,

Vx

The lit candle, grubby yarn, and a happy cow.....

 

I like to get up early, between 5.30 am to 6.30 am.

I love the quiet of the morning, when the day is waiting to wake up and I am too.

To nudge me into wakefulness I go straight into the sitting room, light a candle, say a few words to the Universe, such as 'Please help me get the best out of this day', or some such depending on the mood of the moment.

 

The little candle alcove is between the door and the bookcase, and in front of it sits my spinning wheel. So to continue to help ease myself into the day I sit and spin for 10 minutes, or perhaps longer if I have a mind not to want to tackle the day any time soon.

 

 

I am working on what is supposed to be a white fleece. It is really mucky and short haired, so I have to concentrate really hard to keep the yarn flowing evenly off the fleece. If my mind wanders then the yarn keeps breaking, making this fleece good training for concentration.

 

I didn't do anything with the dye pot today. Needed some more canning lids as had the meat I cooked yesterday to get into the canner. Went to my local supermarket and they didn't have any, just a big gap where they should have been. I have the sense of an era passing. That this supermarket chain does not want to give shelf space to DIY food processing equipment. Times are changing even down here in the south west lands of France. But at least the SuperU supermarket down the road still stocks canning equipment, for the moment. I think I must source these lids online, and buy in quite a stock of them because canning can't be done without them as they seal the jars down tight.

 

Righty ho, .... and the veg plot jungle:

 

 

..... and buried in amongst this lot of green madness should be a row of bush beans.....

 

 



 

..... and there were! They are in the small bowl, the other beans are from the climbing beans.

 

And what better activity to do on a lovely sunny day, but sit and shell those climbing beans.

 

 

Not a huge harvest, but better than none. They will be put into canning jars later on.

 

 

Lester prepping a small patch of the veg plot with his 'falling apart' rotovator. Normally we would do a retreat from the veg plot once the harvests are in, leaving the space to go its own way over the winter. But this year I thought we should have a go at growing winter veg, and be 'all year round' veg plot gardeners, rather than 'fair weather' gardeners.

 

First 'proper' cabbage we have grown since we got here (7 years). Normally they either have succumbed to lack of water, or have been eaten into oblivion by caterpillars or slugs, or have gone past their best and rotted. But not this one!

 

And .... "Bonny, would you like to share a leaf of the cabbage with me?"

 

 

"No.........."

 

 

" Lissie, perhaps you would to share a leaf with me?"

 

"Oh yezzzz pleaseeeee"

 



 

Another priceless moment.

 

Time to end the day now,

Bye for now,

 

Vx