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Self-Sufficiency in Style

april 2003 diary

 

 

Spring Stream
Animals dominate as the season of new birth gets into full spring.

Warmwell, the sow, has a litter of piglets. 

Sleepy at first, this one made a break for freedom.

It climbed on its mother's back and fell over the restraining fender.

Luckily, we spotted it, distracted Warmwell and lifted the piglet back.

Never, touch a piglet in sight or sound of its mother. Sows can move faster than you can and they don't like anyone touching their youngsters.

Back inside!

One, two three - all present.

 The lambs are quickly on their feet.

This ewe is looking after triplets.

The smallholding has become untidy after all the building work in recent years.

Spring seems a good time to start tidying up a little.

The last remnants of a huge wood pile. It was actually pointless storing this out of doors, the wood rotted and became useless for taking indoors.

It had accumulated over several seasons and had become en eyesore.

Wood for burning indoors needs to be stored under cover in this climate.

Unsightly heap.

The muckheap is an irresistible attraction for the cockerel.

The muckheap is enormous at this time of year. It seems to dominate the smallholding.

A cow indoors over winter and cleaned out daily produces vast quantities of wet straw and muck.

However, time reduces the size dramatically, until a yellow heap ten feet tall becomes a low dense hill of fine fertile compost.

 

The muckheap becomes a valuable compost heap.

 

An old henhouse is the subject of debate.

We inherited an old poultry house when we bought Hangman's Cottage. It sits there waiting renovation.

Not this year we suspect, so it will remain an eyesore for a little longer.

Clearing up has less attraction than dreaming.

The garden is doing well. 

We are now in the "hungry gap" when fresh produce is at a premium. The only items are brassicas, especially cabbages - and leeks.

...but if you look very carefully, the shoots of the Asparagus are just showing.

We will be eating platefuls within a couple of weeks, with our own butter, melted over the top.

A real epicurean delight, once the preserve of the rich.

the first vegetable.

the first "fruit."

Rhubarb has always been a crop for the cottage garden.

The first picking has already reached the kitchen.

Rhubarb pie last night!

The heated greenhouse is becoming crowded with seeds and plants.

As every seed catalogue says so often "plant out when all danger of frost is past."

The plants and seed are either those that will be grown indoors for the whole time or those that will be killed by a late frost.

Waiting room.

In wet weather the ground would be too sodden for this job.

Around the middle of the month, the weather was dry enough to continue work clearing up.

The fallen trees in the water meadow can be dragged off the fence using the pick-up.

The chainsaw is essential to cut the oaks and ash into smaller pieces for either burning or logs.

How did they manage in the old days?

The Chainsaw - A dangerous tool.

Pick-ups have many uses.

The smaller branches are carted away for burning.
It was shortly after, that the completely unexpected happened.

As we were returning up the main drive, a light aircraft skimmed the top of the house - and landed in the arable  field opposite - not a normal event.

We thought, not unreasonably, that they had crash landed and followed at full speed with the truck. Visions of burning cockpits... branches fell off the back... Mrs P reminding me that I was not exactly in prime condition for any heroics.

It was OK. Our new neighbours had some friends with an aeroplane it would seem - and they decided to just drop in.

I just wish they had gone a little higher...we had the indignity of clearing the branches from the lane feeling rather foolish.

The only record of a panic.

The swallows, that have just arrived back from Africa, are the only ones allowed that near the chimney pot.
Anyway, we finish with some useful logs for next winter's fire.

There are enough trees on the property for us to be self-sufficient in heating fuel.

The ash, a tree, that likes the wetter parts, oddly enough, is the one that can be burnt without seasoning.

The swallows are not the only birds to make an appearance.

Mr and Mrs Duck take a look around the walled garden, before heading for the pond.

Then one of the highlights of the year. 

The first asparagus from the new bed.

Steamed, covered in cottage cheese and wrapped in Suffolk ham - just a little rocket to add a tang.

At the end of the month, we move into real Spring. 

Giving the animals breakfast becomes a pleasure rather than a chore and the walled garden begins to feel warm and inviting.

Warmwell, the sow, takes on the job of coach for an after breakfast game of football.
The dog joins the chickens for breakfast in a sunlit orchard.

The sheep attend roll-call enticed by just a little feed. The grass is actually now rich enough without extra feed.
Gladys, the Guernsey, is being a little spoilt as she is pregnant and rain was expected last night.

She spent the night in the cow shed and was fed there before being taken on a halter to graze for the day.

Oddly, a cow shed is called a "nettus" (or neat house) in just this small part of Norfolk and Suffolk. The term is still used by the older farmers - and by some of my grandsons born and raised here.

A tiny, almost lost reminder,  that we are at the heart of the Danelaw. The part of England once ruled from Denmark.

English or Danish law, almost every day we receive a fresh pack of new laws designed to force smallholders off the land under the guise of animal welfare, but really designed to allow  "factory farmers" to evade regulation.

We are now forbidden to keep a single pig - the sad end of the tradition of the "cottager's pig."

This morning a many paged booklet telling us the law on looking after a cow - and the penalties if we transgress in any way.

England groans under the kind of tyranny, that we send our troops to far away lands to fight to remove.

But, because we are English too, we will fight on. We know there are better ways than rule by crooks.

First fruits and fighting talk

  at Hangman's Cottage, just to the south of Misery Corner.

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