About six months ago on the shortest day (or not long after as I recall) we planted 200-odd garlic cloves. It looks like almost all of them have grown well and now it’s time to harvest. The tops are just starting to die back which is as good a sign as any they are ready.

Here’s [...]

The unsettled weather has given us a surprise batch of field mushrooms. Not to look a gift mushroom in the mouth, we promptly made a delicious mushroom risotto with our find.

We finally have our new batch of piglets. Having just arrived we’ve put them in the stables for a few days until they get used to us and learn where their food comes from. This will make them much easier to move around once they are out and about.

After a couple of escapes from the [...]

New grass day for the cows is their favourite day I’m guessing. Our girls are still putting on good weight being just on pasture this time of year. We could probably get them fatter faster if we gave them grain or palm kernel but why would you when they are perfectly evolved to eat pasture, [...]

We have been waiting for enough fine weather to cut hay for about a moth now. The grass is quite long enough to cut and with the alternating wet and hot days it is getting more ready every day. This is the view from the bottom of the airstrip (our hay paddock) down the valley.

Despite the very unsettled spring weather (or more likely because of it) we’ve had our best year ever for brassicas. It seems that a cold, long winter killed off most of the white butterflies and the last few months of weird weather has disrupted the life cycles of those that survived. We’ve seen perhaps only [...]

We are blessed with good friends and neighbours that give us food (knowing of course that we’ll reciprocate :-). This batch of preserving is red currants, rhubarb, plums and blackberries.We still have quite a bit more to process but Karen and Kelly did pretty well for an afternoon over the wood stove.

Much like the apple trees down our roadsides, there are plenty of plum trees too. This is the haul from a leisurely Sunday afternoon of scrumping with Karen, Daniel and Kelly. Look out for some plum preserving action soon.

With Niall staying for a week after New Year it seemed like a good opportunity to knock off another item on Karen’s to do list - new yards. Much like the stables, I think once these are done we’ll find a lot more uses for them than just putting horses in them now and then.To [...]

I couldn’t resist some gloating over these. The Xmas ham was pretty tasty. BBQ ham steaks? Sensational.