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Self-Sufficiency in Style

may 2002 diary

The first elderflower

A bad back gives time for contemplating the overgrown lawn and some writing.

The swallows arrived back from Africa, spent some time wheeling about in acrobatics inspecting the eaves, before selecting the barn and cow shed for nests. The Rottweiler was fascinated.

As was the cat, when the Blue Tits took up residence in the roof alongside my study. They are less than two feet from my head as I type.

Oh dear! Muddy paws on the keyboard again as he strains to reach them through the window.

"Please open the window."

May blossom

The scent is overpowering and brings to mind a favourite poem.

It is quite impossible to raise livestock and crops in an ancient landscape without being acutely aware of the people that went before. The hawthorn was used to enclose fields before wire came into use.

Bits and pieces of history, turn up when gardening and ditching.

The land around Hangman's Cottage will have seen the Romans.

Many of the army veterans that fought Boudicca will have seen out their days in the city just to the north, and known the scent of a Norfolk spring.

The Roman Centurion's Song

Roman Occupation of Britain, A.D. 300

LEGATE, I had the news last night--my cohort ordered home

By ships to Portus Itius and thence by road to Rome.

I've marched the companies aboard, the arms are stowed below;

Now let another take my sword. Command me not to go!


I've served in Britain forty years, from Vectis to the Wall.

I have none other home than this, nor any life at all.

Last night I did not understand, but, now the hour draws near

That calls me to my native land, I feel that land is here.


Here where men say my name was made, here where my work was done;

Here where my dearest dead are laid--my wife--my wife and son;

Here where time, custom, grief and toil, age, memory, service, love,

Have rooted me in British soil. Ah, how can I remove?


For me this land, that sea, these airs, those folk and fields suffice.

What purple Southern pomp can match our changeful Northern skies,

Black with December snows unshed or pearled with August haze--

The clanging arch of steel-grey March, or June's long-lighted days?


You'll follow widening Rodanus till vine and olive lean

Aslant before the sunny breeze that sweeps Nemausus clean

To Arelate's triple gate: but let me linger on,

Here where our stiff-necked British oaks confront Euroclydon!


You'll take the old Aurelian Road through shore-descending pines

Where, blue as any peacock's neck, the Tyrrhene Ocean shines.

You'll go where laurel crowns are won, but--will you e'er forget

The scent of hawthorn in the sun, or bracken in the wet?


Let me work here for Britain's sake--at any task you will--

A marsh to drain, a road to make or native troops to drill.

Some Western camp (I know the Pict) or granite Border keep,

Mid seas of heather derelict, where our old messmates sleep.


Legate, I come to you in tears--My cohort ordered home!

I've served in Britain forty years. What should I do in Rome?

Here is my heart, my soul, my mind--the only life I know,

I cannot leave it all behind. Command me not to go!

A piece of a seventeenth century clay pipe and a Roman soldier, who wanted to retire in England, spark a new series of articles, based on our travels before settling at Hangman's Cottage.

Moving Away is the result.

Not very intellectual - and frequently back breaking!

The mother, Gladys, is a Jersey, the father an Aberdeen Angus.

Another lamb has been born, and the cow, Gladys, has produced a heifer calf. Ear tagging is a skill that has had to be learned. It is now the law.

Milking is under way again.

The cat has been using the polytunnels as scratching posts and has taken to running up the sides with claws outstretched.

He has his quieter moments tending the grape vines in the conservatory.

Time to move on.

The asparagus bed has been planted and we can now move the plastic cloches to protect the strawberry crop from the weather, the dog and the birds.

We are going to get a crop of strawberries before the tennis starts at Wimbledon.

But, at least, the work can be done over a much longer season.

An apricot waits planting.

Not so vicious.

This is a Loganberry, originally a North American variety. We know it does well on this soil. The main problem is that it is a swine to handle with fierce thorns. This is a thorn-less variety which should be easier to handle and prune.

We are using a kit, but plan to get more adventurous later. Kits are an excellent way of starting many self-sufficiency projects.

A kit is a good way to start.

Wigwams along the walls.

Although we grow few flowers, the walled garden does look remarkably attractive.

Interest and utility.

Traditional storage

Although we are sharing with the calf, we are getting two gallons a day of full cream Jersey milk.

The cream is taken off with the separator and used to replenish our supplies of butter. Some is put aside for use as cream. The balance is huge quantities of skimmed milk, a little of which we use in tea.

This should have been fed to pigs...but alas since the Swine Fever cull, we have not yet plucked up courage to replace the sow.

So we begin cheese making with the more difficult hard cheese.

The larder drips with bags hung from the hooks.

Victorian methods plus...

...modern hygienic plastic

A cheese press comes into operation.

We bandaged the first cheese and thought we would try waxing the second.

We have to wait three weeks now.

The beer may be ready about the same time, so with our own bread, butter and pickled onions , we will have all the makings of a traditional ploughman's lunch.

Two pounds of pure perfection?

The first strawberries are coming in from the garden. 

So the job for next month will be using soft fruit and cream to make our own ice-cream

A Cardoon and two Globe Artichokes, different but look very similar.

A poetic mood at

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