A beautiful weekend - hanging garlic, sowing seeds and stores

Saturday and Sunday, 19th and 20th August 

Saturday morning saw Rodney and I spend some time in the shed, getting some winter seeds sown in the hope to add plenty to the Winter Pantry.  I'll sow more than needed and any that come good are a bonus!  

 

I got an order from Real Seeds who I love.  I'm going to sow some things direct and some in trays.

Saturday afternoon was spent running around.  We had a trip to Durham Hens and talked to the chap about new stock, ideally Rhode Island Red dual purpose birds.  He's going to call us on his next hatch.  

Then we headed over to pick up some scaffolding boards from the chap who get them from and collected 10.  This meant Steven could get on with Stores.  He really amazes me at how quickly he gets these things done.

Whist he was busy doing things that he didn't need me for, I got round to plaiting and hanging the garlic.  It's looking beautiful.  I'm already thinking about where to plant next year's crop, which will be planted this year.  I'm not sure how long the garlic here will last us, hopefully until the Wild Garlic appears in the Spring.

 

Checking in on Stores progress and being a pair of hands when needed, I grabbed a photo showing the first board being laid.  Steven sanded them down and was a covered in dust.  Thankfully he was sensible enough to wear a mask!

 

 

It's all coming together beautifully.  Next up will be the shelves.

Slowly but surely with Stores

Wednesday 16th August

Stores

Despite the intense desire to procrastinate with regards to painting of Stores (it's only the top half after all!), Steven and I teamed up and painted the ceiling and the top half of the walls where the cupboards had been.  The bottom section will be hidden so we're saving paint and not completing that ;) 

 

It will need another coat which should be fairly quick as the painful part is done.  If you've never painted breeze blocks before, it is a royal pain in the @$$ due to the unevenness of it and the holes in the block. 

Today, Thursday, we will do the last coat and then I think Steven is able to start building the frame for the sink and shelves/workbench.

After painting, we went to check the wasp situation and thankfully, after getting rid of the last few with a fire in the bin, it seems the problem is resolved so I am looking forward to getting out there and harvesting some potatoes as it is looking like blight may be hitting.  To be honest, I'm amazed we've missed it so far with the crazy weather we've had.

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!