Wasps, Lard, Pigeons & Stores

Tuesday 15th August

Another working day for Steven and I, meaning we have only the evenings to get on with things.  Steven is incredibly busy at work at the moment, with more and more being piled on him.  I do think it is time to pull a plan together to move him to working from the smallholding.  One to mull over.

Wasps!

When we were tidying up the hedges and trees at the weekend, we came across what we assumed must be a wasps nest.  Turns out there's two!  Well, two places the little critters are going in and out of anyway.  A vegetable bed and an old drum.  Their presence meant I couldn't safely tend to the vegetable garden as they were savage creatures and very unhappy to have us around their home.

After 2 failed redneck style extermination attempts and multiple stings later, we paid an exterminator to come in and do his thing.

Later on the same evening, we went out only to discover there were still wasps flying around.  I think they were on their way out though as they weren't as fast or nasty but still too many, so we reverted back to our original method and set a fire in the problem bin.

Free food - pigeons

Steven and Grace had a successful shooting session for the farmer on Sunday.  They brought home a little over 20 birds for processing.  So last night, Steven and I set about plucking them and taking the breasts off as that's really the only bit worth using.  The remainder went out to the fox as a distraction from the chickens, which it has been pestering.  Below is the set up.  Nice and simple and now we have around 40-45 strips in the freezer which will be perfect on the griddle after a long days work, or to go in game pie in the winter.

Picture perfect

In the below photo, I had to stop what I was doing to get it.  The sheep are enjoying a break from the rain and in the distance you can just make out the pigs.  It's lovely to see the pigs from the kitchen window.  

Pigs and lard

Speaking of pigs, Steven recently brought some leaf fat home.  This is the fat from around the kidneys which is supposed to be in the shape of a leaf.  It's the best fat you can get in terms of quality for baking and frying.  Back fat is another good fat but isn't as white and has a slight porky aroma.

After a few hours in the slow cooker, the fat renders in to a beautiful liquid which you strain and bottle.  Once dry it is an amazing white like below.  Unfortunately, it does make things slippery and on lifting the slow cooker out of the casing to wash it, I launched it across the room obliterating it!

 

Stores progress

Steven and I have also made a start on Stores.  Here he is securing the ceiling boards which were previously held up by the kitchen cabinets.  We need to paint this room again before he can make the frames for the scaffy boards and sink.  The idea is to continue the bar theme in to Stores and then move everything from the pantry in the house that isn't food, out to stores.  All canned items will now be stored in the pantry (which is another project!)

Lastly for this post, I wanted to share the mushrooms we have growing in the garden.  I assume they're field mushrooms but I don't know and I worry about poisoning us!