The Llanrwst Show 2017

Saturday saw us up and about early, bleary eyed from a 6am alarm call, sorting out the chickens, feeding and walking the dogs ... and me frantically making a second batch of scones as my first came out like cheesy Frisbees.

Then it was a question of packing up all my carefully prepared choices from the polytunnel and veggie patch the day before and setting off for the show.  Llanrwst is only a couple of miles along the road so it didn't take us long to get there, we did drive through two rain showers on our way though so that made us a bit concerned.

Last years show was virtually a washout with horrendous heavy rain and gale force winds, we did not want an action replay of that for the organisers to cope with.  This years show just HAD to be a success to try and recoup some of the enormous expense it must cost to put on a show of this size.

My offerings were staged alongside lots of other peoples in the Horticulture and Homecraft marquee, and there was a lot of good natured banter as we all titivated our vegetables and arranged dahlias and flowers to within an inch of their lives, and then we set off for home.

Judging in the tent was from 10am until 1pm so we thought it better to be at home getting on with jobs and then come back to have a good look round the show in the afternoon.

We got back at about 2ish and made our way straight to the tent to see what the results were.  To be honest I had not expected too much this year as the quality of the exhibits we had watched being unpacked earlier had been very high.  But there in the egg class ...

... were our eggs with a Third place card.

In this class unlike John's at Trelawnyd the eggs have to be matching, and raw. 

The judges are looking for super freshness, ie. the two layers of white being very distinct and the yolk bright and well domed.  At Trelawnyd they have to be freshly cooked and displayed with the yolk central when the judge cuts into them.

I felt vindicated for doing a second batch of scones as the new ones got me a Second place :-)

I didn't enter a Scotch Egg ... but I thought I'd put this photo in ... just in case John comes over for a visit to this post.  It's always good to see a man drool   ;-)

Moving along the table I spied that my Blackberry Whisky had got a Second.

So in the Homecraft section I got two Seconds and a Third  :-)

At the other side of the tent were the veggie and flower classes.

I got a first for '5 Tomatoes with Calyx'

A First for my Salad basket (must contain one lettuce and 2 others).

A Second in the Open Section for '5 Tomatoes with calyx'.

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you there are only four tomatoes on the winning plate!!  Somebody pinched one of the winners tomatoes .... it wasn't me honest!!  Seemingly the Judge conferred with the organisers and was told that there were definitely five tomatoes at the start of the day!!

A Second for my Truss of Tomatoes.

I was gutted that a lovely bright red, fully ripe tomato fell off the truss as I was putting it into the bag at home, that would most likely have made it the winner.  I did debate sticking it back on with superglue .... but honesty won over  ;-)

I got a Second for my pair of marrows.

A First for my jug of 'six freshly cut herbs'.

A Second for my Courgette, in the 'Any Other Vegetable Not on the Schedule' class.

And as the only entry in the Five French Marigolds class .... I got a First here too.

I used to feel a bit funny getting a winners card if I was the only entry, but it was explained to me that even if you are the only entry, the item entered has to fulfill all competition criteria and 'be a good example of it's type'.

So a total of four Firsts and four Seconds.

And £25.50 in prize money  :-)

Before coming home we had a good look around the Show, chatted to friends and neighbours ...

... and drank cider and drooled over tractors

Well that was mostly Alan not me, although I did join in with the cider bit  ;-)

A good day was had by all despite the occasional shower of rain, and next year we will be back, with more vegetables, more alcoholic beverages and hopefully some wooden items from Alan's brand new workshop ... he has been challenged to bring home a winners card all of his own.

Sue xx

Eggs and Followers

We got a cute little egg the other day, one of the girls obviously not in the mood for a full sized version.  They are no good for eating as there is usually only white in such little eggs, the hens body simply hasn't released the part that develops into the yolk but usually something goes through her system picking up the white, the shell and the bloom on it's way out .  

It's not really going to be eaten or for sale, but I popped it briefly into a box to compare it to the others  :-)

I'm off out now to pick up my creosote brush and get stuck in with Lovely Hubby to finishing off the workshop cladding.  It needs to be finished this weekend due to the colder, wetter weather and also due to the fact that I'm sick to the back teeth of the smell of the creosote.

A massive thank you to all those of you who joined in with the fun of getting my Follower numbers up, and congratulations to John on getting his to over the magic number of 1000, he's currently standing at 1001.  Sue who's also in the game is now at 419.  It's been a bit of blogging buddy fun.  Thank you.

I was only aiming for 800 so I was really pleased to shoot past that number ..... it's just that now 900 is only 18 away .... so any more of you that haven't joined in please feel free to do so  ;-)

Sue xx

Eggs .... and a Right Royal Hoo Ha

When we went away the other weekend the eggs that the chickens laid were obviously left in the egg boxes all day, meaning they were walked on by the hens over and over, moved around and generally kept at varying temperatures as we had three broodies at the time.  So we don't sell any of these eggs.  Usually when I am here I go over to the henhouse at least three times during each day, to collect eggs and check on the chickens.

When the eggs have been left for a day or more like this, we bring them into the house and we give them a wash to clean them up a bit  (something you shouldn't do unless absolutely necessary with eggs that you sell) this also enables us to have a good look at them all for cracks or chips.  Then I put them in a bowl for us to use over the next couple of weeks.  Well we've just used the last one, I thought it would be interesting to see how we used them so I kept a bit of paper and made perfunctory notes each time we took some out of the bowl.

It turned out over the last three weeks we have had:  2 hard boiled, 12 fried, 4 scrambled, 3 soft boiled and 3 were fed back to the chickens scrambled, as one of them had a slimy bit in it ... and this is the reason we wouldn't want to sell them.  Better for us to find that than someone who has paid for the eggs.

And what's the right royal hoo ha I hear you asking ... well yesterday someone from the Linda McCartney Facebook page put this picture on with the innocent words:

 ' Scrambled, poached or fried - we just can’t decide! What are you having for breakfast this#MeatFreeMonday? #InspiredByLinda '

It caused a real storm with readers saying that if Linda had been alive she would be a vegan by now, how dare they support the egg industry and include eggs in their products etc etc.  Now this would have been no problem but as the day progressed things just got nastier and nastier.  I bet whoever it was in the Linda McCartney offices that put this up is keeping a very low profile today!!

And yes, I was there in the thread answering queries, putting some folk right on their ridiculous claims and generally trying to tell it like it is.  I don't eat eggs bought from shops anymore, and few bought in items that contain eggs (with of course the exception of my mayonnaise habit), but I would not dream of attacking anyone who does either verbally or in print.  I know that most vegans are very good, caring and compassionate people but the few who start spouting outright lies to get a point across get the rest a very bad name.

Sue xx

Signs of Spring, Chickens and Eggs

 Pekin egg, Skyline egg, Light Sussex egg.

One of the surest signs for me that Spring is truly on the way is the first Pekin egg of the year.

Poppy and Daisy

My Lavender Pekin bantams Poppy, Daisy, (and hopefully this year Jill) and Back Pekin bantam Ebony only lay their eggs during Spring and into Summer,  it's natures way of ensuring the chicks hatched from any fertilised eggs would stand a good chance of survival, and they stop laying towards the end of Summer when the tiny chicks they produce would suffer from colder weather.  

So in their opinion twenty one days from last Tuesday which would be 9th March would be the ideal time for a baby bird to be hatched.  Spring is almost here.

Pekin egg and Light Sussex eggs for size comparison purposes

Of course I could also go by the snowdrops that are nearing the end of their blooming or the many daffodils that have sprung up all around our land and along the roadside between here and Llandudno ... but they have all been tricked by the un-seasonally warm weather we have been having ... you can't trick a chicken whose laying patterns (when not artificially altered by electric lights and being kept indoors) are purely triggered by the length of the days they live through.

Ebony, with her last little brood of chicks.

Sue xx

Hens and Eggs

The days are getting longer.  Slowly but surely we have more daylight hours and the first ones to notice this and to react to the change are always the chickens and suddenly slowly but surely the egg numbers start to creep up.

Jack starts crowing a little earlier, the girls are eager to leave the confines of the henhouse even in the half light of the early morning.  They root and scratch in the wet earth eager to get the early worms and bugs that are around before the day starts to lighten up too much.

The longer daylight hours instantly means their body clocks alter and they start producing eggs again.  Last week I was pleased to find the first of the blue eggs appearing in the next boxes.  All through the Winter we have been getting a steady three eggs each day from the newest Welsh girls, but the hens that moved with us from Southern England, for the second year running, stopped laying as soon as the days shortened, the Skylines that lay the blue eggs included.

It's amazing the difference this 250 mile shift has made to their body clocks, I would never have thought of it before the move.  In a couple of months we will invest in four more local birds to keep our numbers up and make sure that we have a continued supply of eggs, for us, for family and for friends.

  But for now we are very happy that egg numbers are up to around six a day, which means the chickens are completely self financing as this means we earn enough to cover all their feed and bedding costs and still have free eggs for ourselves.

Sue xx

Shucks .... and Possibilities

In the comments on yesterday's blog post Barbara asked ' ...  what was the judging criteria for the hard boiled egg?!' 

It's the strangest  thing I've ever done, hard boil an egg lay it on a plate of shredded lettuce and leave it for someone to judge.  I don't know the criteria for sure, maybe John can comment with some more information, but I'm guessing a good quality egg, cooked to perfection, with the yolk dead central in the white.  That would be what I would look for anyway.

Mine wasn't quite there, once it was cut open by the judge, the yolk was almost at the bottom of the egg .... I've a thought on how to rectify that for next year :-)

But it's weird, the night before the flower show I suddenly woke up, I don't know what time it was but it was still dark, and thought to myself 'what a shame we haven't had a double yolker for ages'.  Then  I went straight back to sleep.

And yes, you guessed it ...... this morning I went over to the henhouse and there lying in amongst the other eggs was the one on the right, a guaranteed double yolker .... shucks!!

Then later on this morning these arrived .... my next set of Tesco money off coupons.  I noticed the date on using them up by isn't until the end of August 2017.  It's got me thinking again, well the coupons and something Lovely Hubby said to me the other day about us 'eating for free' next year.  

I have all the free seeds that have been accumulating this year through my magazine subscription.  This months magazine arrived the other day with three more packets of free seeds, three kinds of herbs this time.

So with free food to grow, maybe I should save up any usable vouchers and coupons for next year and see if Lovely Hubby's challenge to me of us eating for free would be possible.  I'll dwell on it for a while.

It's a Challenge that needs thinking about .... I've loads of time anyway, there's no need to rush into anything  ;-)

Sue xx

Todays Harvest... and a Days Food

After shocking most of you with the top picture on yesterday's blog post I thought I better show you all how we really eat.  Yes, we have some of the crisps, nibbles and even the occasional chocolate bar, usually dark and homemade, but from time to time the odd bought one slips in, but by and large we eat direct from the polytunnel, which is where all of the above food, except the peas which grow just outside the doors, come from.

The Spinach is harvested every few days, washed, spun dry and then laid on kitchen paper and stored in a stayfresh bag in the drawer in the fridge.  This forms the basis of my Nutriblast each and every morning.  A lovely healthy start to the day and one that stands me in good stead in case it all goes downhill from there.  But it rarely does. 

Lunch, as indeed does most meals, usually features some form of Courgette, here I was frying them with some garlic and radish as a topping to some our our gorgeous crunchy lettuce leaves.  Simple but so tasty, and all I needed that particular day after being on my knees weeding the polytunnel for a few hours.

The  courgette plants are producing well, and up to now I've been eating enough to keep up with the supply but  soon there will be more than we can eat on a daily basis and it's then that I can start harvesting, chopping and freezing so that when the plants die back we can carry on eating this lovely vegetable for as long as possible.

My tea is usually salady .... and occasionally fish based.  

Here I had salmon on some homemade coleslaw with half a homegrown cucumber, another plant I'm just about keeping up with.  (Cucumbers and courgettes are also going into my morning Nutriblast.)

If I'm peckish at supper time, I'll have something simple.  A quick scrambled egg with some freshly picked tomatoes is good for supper or breakfast, and is always a lot more filling than it looks.

So despair yea not, I have not returned to the 'darkside' and started eating processed and packaged foods.  Most of what we eat has no food miles, it comes from mere yards away and is produced with my own fair hands.

You didn't really think any differently ..... did you?

Sue xx

Chickens, Eggs .... and my most unusual Giveaway Ever

The birds are building up to being in full lay now, I actually have a couple of dozen eggs in the fridge, the first time this year.  (Yes, Mum I'll bring you some tomorrow.)  For once supply is keeping up with demand and it feels good.

The lighter and longer days suit chickens and help their little bodies to get back into a natural laying rhythm, not for me the commercial egg producers trick of keeping a light on in the hen-house and making the poor little birds lay day in day out throughout the Winter.  Going with nature rather than fighting against it or pushing it to it's boundaries, is what keeps hens happy, healthy and alive for much longer.

The blue eggs are laid by this lovely trio,  Ethel, Dolly and Enid who's names were picked by Blog readers in what must have been my most unusual Giveaway ever.  

See HERE for what it was  :-)

The third blue egg is almost green in colour as you can see from this photo, but I didn't find one when I collected the ones in the top picture yesterday.

And something rather special is going on at the moment, and yes it is always special to me no matter how many times it is re-enacted.  

Poppy and Caldwell II seen together in this photo are parents-to-be.  Little Poppy laid a clutch of twelve eggs over the course of the last few weeks and started sitting on them a few days ago.  Well she laid fourteen actually but I took two of them away as she is only small and for her to try and keep any more than a dozen eggs warm would have been too much of a struggle.

So in a couple of weeks we should have some new little chicks, the first to be born in Wales.  Welsh Lavender Pekin Bantam cross Mille Fleurs, and rather magnificently they are due on my birthday which is when I got my first ever Lavender Pekin bantams in 2010 and Poppy along with her sister Daisy are the last two descendants of the original family.

How wonderful is that :-)

Sue xx

Free Range Egg

As I mentioned last week Angel, the 'double rescue' Hyline hen has been escaping over the fence to lay her eggs.  I had thought she was only giving us one or two eggs a week, but now after a bit of monitoring, it turns out she's giving us five or six .... that's right five or six eggs a week and she's our oldest bird.  The weak shelled egg I though was hers is in fact Amber's.

 

And to think she came to us like THIS on my birthday last year.

 

I disturbed her yesterday, as you can see in the top picture she was snoozing in her pile of leaves, she sat there while I let the dogs out and was still there when I dashed back in for the camera and reappeared at the door.

 

" Well obviously you can't expect me to move mid lay!! "

 

And then she was off leaving in her wake the most perfect egg.

 

 

Not bad for an old girl .....

 

 

... especially when you compare it to yesterdays other eggs.  It's the third largest.

 

When we took her in last year we didn't expect to get any more than the odd egg every now and then, she looked so old and worn out but she's been absolutely wonderful and in fact is one of the real characters of the flock.

 

My special Angel :-)

 

Sue xx

 

Keeping up with the veggies ......

 

It's that time of year again, when us growers spend it seems all our time trying to keep up with the veggies. 

 

We turn our back for a moment and there is yet another Courgette that has decided it wanted to be a Marrow all along.  Recipes are all around in Blogland for things to do with the vast number of courgettes, we are eating them everyday at the moment, and will continue to do so while the plants are throwing so many at us.  There is at least two in every one of our jugs of juices, whether the recipe says courgette or not we add them simply to use them up. 

 

Last night after drinking juices containing courgette all day we had oven roasted courgette, onions and tomatoes with garlic and chilli oil for tea, it was absolutely yummy.  Mind you since we've been juicing ALL food tastes so much better, we can pick out individual flavours in a medley of items, it's as though our taste buds are super charged.

 

 

The pea pods fill with peas before our very eyes in the Tin Bath and drink up every bit of water we give them.  It's been a bumper crop this year after the disappointment of last.

 

 

The cucumber plants have just started giving us a cucumber a day, and they taste absolutely gorgeous.  You simply cannot beat a homegrown cucumber fresh off the plant with the lightest sprinkle of salt and black pepper.

 

We are not getting as many eggs at the moment, four of the girls have gone broody and are determined to sit on absolutely nothing.  I go over to Chicken World whenever I am passing and fling open all available doors and flaps on the henhouse to try and cool them down and make nesting as unappealing as possible.  Then I forcibly evict them and set them down next to the feeders or drinkers to try and distract them, but usually as soon as my back is turned there is a little line of hens going back up the ramp to once again take their places in the empty nest boxes.

 

It's a good job we have so many vegetables to eat and that we can do without our usual larger quantity of eggs.

 

Sue xx