The weather continues to be kind to us, warmer than the last couple of years and definitely not as wet as last year. This has allowed us to get well ahead with getting ready for winter, it has also helped that we have had some great volunteers giving us a hand. They have helped us…
Read moreCategory: In the garden
Improving the soil with manures
The transformation of waste is perhaps the oldest pre-occupation of man. man being the chosen alloy, he must be reconnected—via shit, at all cost Patti Smith, “25th Floor” from the album “Easter”, 1978 And so it is here on our smallholding. A huge amount of our time seems to be being spent collecting, storing, turning…
Read moreDucklings – here’s peeping at you!
We got our first ducklings today. Fifteen of them, just ten days old, and very excited about all the new things they’ve encountered today! We’ve got them living in a large cage until the chickens get used to them, then they will have a cosy house to live in. We also want them to get a…
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May update
April was quite a good month weather wise and by the end of it we were in shorts and tee-shirts but May up to now has been quite wet. The extension is coming on, we are doing it in two stages. Most of the building work has been completed on stage one, unfortunately our friend…
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Gathering bees in May
It has long been an ambition of ours to eventually keep bees, but we hadn’t quite anticipated that it would be this year! We’ve spent winter swotting up on bee keeping with two books we got from a friend; Collins Beekeeper’s Bible and The Complete & Easy Guide to Beekeeping. The Collins one has been…
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Friends, family and first volunteer of 2016
The beginning of March was a bit hectic, we really wanted to get the central table in the kitchen finished before our first guests arrived. This involved a few late nights but we managed to get it finished two days before they arrived. March has seen a few visitors come and go, our first arrivals…
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What to make with a whole pig
We butchered our first pig on Monday. It was a monumental task, and we learned loads during the whole process. This is our attempt to document what we set out to achieve, how that went and what we learned from it, so we can remember for the next time as it will be a whole…
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The Non-vegetarian Smallholder
We’re killing our first pig today. Having raised him from a small piglet, back in May, today is the day we complete the reason why we got him. It seems to me to be fairly natural, especially as this is our first, to take a few moments to consider whether this is the right things…
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