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November 19, 2008

Chickens and walls

The chooks have finally succumbed to the short days this week - we're now getting only 2 eggs a day , instead of 3. I know we can't complain though, as some hens stop laying altogether in the winter - and that is something that may happen to ours next year when they are a bit older.

We have the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers coming in a few weeks. They are bringing a team of people to Hackney Leys to train them how to rebuild the traditional Derbyshire dry stone walls. It's part of our work restoring the site and creating habitats. Rich has been working hard to clear the area that the BTCV team will be working in.

November 16, 2008

Curly Kale

So, instead of the traditional sprout this Christmas, we'll probably be tucking into some curly kale. Whilst the sprouts were a miserable failure, the kale has been a huge success. Which is strange as, rather like my successful runner beans, it was a bit of an afterthought. A "what can I sow now that'll give us some veg for winter" moment, standing in the garden centre.

Everyone in our house eats it, which is just as well, as we have rather a lot of it!

November 14, 2008

Sprouts

My Brussels sprout plants, which were supposed to provide us with heaps of sprouts for Christmas, went all wrong.

First, the cabbage white caterpillars got hold of them. Then the pigeons pecked them. Then when the sprouts appeared they had "blown" - formed tiny little baggy cabbages, rather than nice firm sprouts.

So I have been gradually uprooting them and feeding them to the chickens. They love 'em! And the greens will help keep them healthy over the winter months.

November 13, 2008

Transition Matlock

The Transition Matlock event last night was a big success, with well over 50 people attending and forming working groups on issues such as food, transport, recycling and renewable energy.

We showed this clip from Transition Lewes, which very neatly explains the twin challenges of peak oil and climate change - check it out!

November 8, 2008

Wood

The installation of our wood burning stove will very soon be complete. Of course this means that we will need to have some wood to burn on it. We have a whole load of logs stacked up behind the shed, under a makeshift cover, but unfortunately they are not dry enough to burn.

What we really need is a woodshed - well, actually, what we really need is a barn, but that's another story. Meanwhile we'll need to get the wood we have somewhere dry. So this morning we made a woodstore, using two limestone crates freecycled from a local building site. We've stacked the logs up in them and covered it over with an old piece of plastic (leaky paddling pool) to keep off the rain. By next winter, it should be dry enough to burn!

November 7, 2008

Juice

I was in the vicinity of Argos today, so I popped in and bought a juicer for £25. At home I tried it out - you can just shove whole apples straight into it, so making juice isn't too time-consuming. My daughter tasted the result and was less than enthusiastic. "It's not as nice as the juice we had on Apple Day" she said. Hmm... Mind you there were no bits in it - maybe it's the bits that make it taste so nice?

November 5, 2008

Cider, Part 1

Last week a friend from Transition Matlock popped around with a homemade apple press which his neighbour said we could borrow. And Alan, who is installing our woodburner, turned up with a five gallon fermentation bucket. So today I chopped a couple of bucket-loads of apples, mushed them up in the food processor (in small batches, to save the motor). Then tipped them into the apple press.

Unfortunately the process stopped there. We just couldn't get the press to work: there was a whole ratchet issue that neither Rich nor I could get to grips with (literally).

It seemed a shame to give all that lovely apple pulp to the pigs, so after some hasty online research, I found instructions for making cider using the freezer. We popped the pulp into several bags and squeezed it into the freezer - not easy, given the quantity of stewed apple already taking up space. In a couple of days we'll put it in the bucket, along with some champagne yeast - optimistic, I know - and some sugar, and see what happens...