Healthy Breakfasts

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Our strawberries are wonderful we are adding them to desserts and breakfasts and enjoying every single one.  Any that are left over each day get popped into the freezer, and at the end of Strawberry season I will make another batch of Strawberry Conserve to make the flavour of Summer last even longer.

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I was sent this wonderful info-graphic a couple of days ago and thought you might like a peek.  It shows just how much more we are growing for ourselves in this country now, I bet the figures are even higher actually.  I hope the link works it's a brilliant graphic.

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A Brilliant  Info-Graphic -  NO LONGER AVAILABLE  sorry!!

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Sue xx

Houses, Smells and Extragant Spending!!

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Alice, Little Lucy and Fern enjoying a salad of mixed weeds while we get on with the work.
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On Saturday while the sun was shining we decided to assemble the new little broody house.  After Alice's chicks were attacked by the other girls because she kept forgetting about them and leaving them to their own devices for too long, we decided that in future all sitting 'broodies' would move into their own little run.  Hopefully this will help them bond better with their chicks, so we set to putting it together, or rather Lovely Hubby did while I cleaned out the other girls house and flitted about with the camera from time to time.

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Going together very well.

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LH mysteriously vanishes to fetch some more screws.

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 Meanwhile progress is closely examined by Caldwell and Iris.

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Back on the job and the little house is assembled.

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Ta Da......finished.

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Isabel safely installed in her new des res with her seven little eggs.

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This gorgeous and useful little house was bought from one of our favourite suppliers Flyte So Fancy, they're great for anything you could possibly imagine for your chickens..

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Meanwhile on the rest of the farm the aroma in the air is....how shall I say....BL***Y AWFUL!!  Our landlord has got in what looks like the Everest of treated sewage to spread on his fields.  All last week trucks and tractors were moving and spreading the offending 'stuff' and now that it has rained and the sun has been on it in between showers the smell has reached a level that cannot be described.  Well it can.....it smells like an enormous gas leak!!  Now before you all panic and urge me to check for leaks, just a reminder we live in the middle of nowhere and do not have access to any gas, which is what LH had to do when I first came down the other morning and said 'I'm worried I can smell gas'!!

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Update on the £100 Challange.

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This week, as admitted yesterday, we managed to spend a whole £6.50 of our cash on two items at the Farmers Market, a loaf and a Tear and Share bread.  The moral of the story....a hungry man and woman and their cash are soon parted when yummy temptation is put in front of them!!  We did, however not visit a supermarket even once.

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This means we have £93.50 of our budget remaining, this week I will need to buy some milk so I will have to dash into said  'bad place' wearing my blinkers so I am not tempted by anything else!!

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Sue xx

Sold out!!

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We're just back from the Farmers Market and once again we  completely sold out of eggs, in fact we had a pre-order, so our fingers were firmly crossed that when we got home the girls would have laid us another dozen, we're dropping them off later this afternoon.

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It was a lovely buzzy morning with lots of chat, and many customers asking for advice on our products, and how to use them and also how to do things for themselves.  Sometimes I am amazed at the amount I have learnt in the last three years and only when the information is coming out of my mouth do I actually realise just how far we have come.

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Now it's time to unpack the car and count the pennies.  I tried to be very restrained but I managed to spend £6.50 out of our £100 Challenge Budget.  One purchase was lovely big farmhouse loaf that Lovely Hubby decided he had to have, and I bought a gorgeous Tomato and Garlic tear and share handmade by a lovely young girl who had a little one off stall raising money for a Himalayan Trek with her school.  We will have half tonight and then put the other half into the freezer for another day as it's HUGE!!

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As it's a drizzly and rather yucky day we are spending the afternoon on housework and paperwork....sometimes you just have to get these out of the way!

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Sue xx



Onions, Bees and finally......little piggies!

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The first onion harvest drying in the sunshine.
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 Firstly, thank you for all the brilliant tips on the Kohl Rabi.  I must admit as soon as I read the words 'coleslaw' you had me hooked.  It was going to be a kohl rabi, carrot and onion coleslaw, but just when I was going to nip out to the poly tunnel to get some carrots the heavens opened and as the chickens and pigs ran for cover I thought 'sod that for a game of soldiers' (real Manchester talk there!!), and the coleslalw was reduced to just kohl rabi , finely sliced red onions and a good dollop of mayonaise....and it was gorgeous.  We tried the kohl rabi just sliced on it's own to experience the true flavour too and it's lovely.  I'm a convert, thank goodness I have some more coming on in the cucumber bed.  I'm going to get some more seedlings in to before it's too late.  Next I am going to try one of Shaheen's ideas, maybe the veggie burgers first and then it will just have to be the cheesy coleslaw suggested by Ted and Bunny.

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 A quick action shot taken yesterday while I was harvesting the onions from their tyre.  In the next two tyres we have Borage, grown for it's glorious flowers and leaves.  The flowers can be tossed into salads, or candied and used to decorate cakes, so both edible and beautiful and the leaves can be used to make an infused tea that is excellent for the kidneys.  Bees LOVE this plant and the honey you get if they are your own bees is divine.  When you have Borage growing in the garden the bees leave you alone to get on with the gardening preferring instead to feast on the delicately flavoured nectar.  They were visiting and visiting all the time I was working on the tryes yesterday so I decided to get some pictures.

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I love this quote about Borage -

 'Those of our time do use the flowers in sallads to exhilerate and make the mind glad.  There be also many things made of these used everywhere for the comfort of the heart, for the driving away of sorrow and increasing the joy of the minde. The leaves and floures of Borage put into wine make men and women glad and merry and drive away all sadnesse, dulnesse and melancholy, as Dios corides and Pliny affirme. Syrup made of the floures of Borage comforteth the heart, purgeth melancholy and quieteth the phrenticke and lunaticke person. The leaves eaten raw ingender good bloud, especially in those that have been lately sicke.'   Gerard.

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Spellcheck went wild on that one!!

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And finally, at last.....some shots of the new piglets.

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 Martha has had a tough time, it's her first litter and she had thirteen in total, so a large first litter. Although the births went quite smoothly I don't think she felt well and she slept and slept, nature making her do what SHE needed.
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 After many mishaps, with the little piglets being left to their own devices slightly longer than they should have been, and some getting squished because they did not move to the safe edges of the arc when mum moved around, she has now settled down with the six that have survived, they are feeding well and seem to be very lively. 
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Martha is still resting and taking things very easy but she is learning to be a mum and all that that entails.  Hopefully the little family will now go from strength to strength.

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Off to build a Broody House now, if Lovely Hubby doesn't hit his thumb with the hammer too many times I'll try and take some photos!  Hope the sun's shining on your weekend too, have a good one.

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Sue xx

Help.....



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Help!!  I need a recipe idea for this little beauty....what is it I hear you cry..... 'Oh it's a Kohl Rabi' I say sounding all knowledgeable...but in truth it's my first ever Kohl Rabi and I cannot think of a thing to do with it....other than stand back and admire.  I have lots of little ones growing too, so I hope if I can find a yummy recipe for this giant beauty we actually like the taste of it!!

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Eating our own food is proving to be brilliant, although we did it last year, the emphasis was slightly different.  Then I would think of what we were having for tea and go and pick some veggies to go with it, this year I pick the veggies and then think what do I need to add to complete the meal (if anything).  So a subtle shift in thinking and eating but one that brings a greater sense of 'doing it ourselves'.

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Only sometimes I just can't think of what to do, hence the appeal at the top!  Sometimes you just know what to have and my favourite lunch at the moment is this.  A large hardboiled egg, chopped and mixed up with one of our lovely finely sliced spring onions  and spoonful of homemade mayonnaise and couple of freshly picked leaves straight from the polytunnel served on a couple of slices of seeded loaf, a bought one in this instance but this will be homemade too from next week, when my fresh bread runs out.

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For tea the same night we had stuffed mushrooms with a sprinkling of grated cheese.  The homegrown things in this meal were the chopped spring onions and the tomato sauce in the stuffing, (mixed with cous cous) and the large plate of salad that went with them, lettuce, mixed leaves, spring onion, and radishes.

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It's starting to feel a lot like self-sufficiency, and with that in mind we have been doing some serious thinking and talking over the past few days and there are changes brewing inthe not too distant future, I'll not say too much at present as things are in very early stages but life is about to get a lot easier and a whole lot more enjoyable.

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Sue xx

Elderflower Factory and piggie update...

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 I feel like I'm working in an Elderflower processing factory at the moment.  The gorgeously scented buckets of brewing flowerheads are everywhere, scenting the house in a lovely natural way....who needs plug in air fresheners when you have Elderflowers.

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I have managed to make 17.5 litres of Elderflower Champagne and up to now I have 10 bottles of Elderflower Cordial, we've drank the other two already!  I'll put the recipe below for the Champagne as a few people have expressed an interest in it, I can't vouch for it yet though as I have to see if it gets its fizz over the next week or two.  I've been warned about exploding bottles so I'm going to put them all in a nice safe place where I can keep an eye on them and release some pressure if necessary

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Elderflower Champagne

Approx 20 heads of Elderflower

900g Sugar

Juice and zest of two Lemons

1 tablespoon of White Wine Vinegar

14 litres of Water

Dissolve the sugar in a bowl of hot water.  Add the lemon juice, zest and vinegar, stir well.  Pour contents into a large sterilized bucket that has a tight fitting lid, add the Elderflowers, give it all a good stir and then pour over the cold water.  Stir again and then leave for 3 days.

Strain the liquid through muslin and then pour into sterilised bottles.  These should be either plastic pop bottles or the strong bottles with the metal clasp tops.  And then all you have to do is be patient, check the bottles daily for excessive build up of gas, and remember.....store them in a cool, safe place (just in case they do explode!!).

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Piggy Update

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Martha our HUGE Middle White sow has had her piglets, unfortunately she is not being a very careful Mum and has managed to squish 5 of them during the night, I've been a busy girl today trying to keep the other 7 safe. It's heart stoppingly scary watching a huge mummy pig move around while tiny hours old babies try to keep out of the way, some of them have now learnt the safe parts of the farrowing ark and are keeping out of Mums way....thank goodness.

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I'll try and get some photos tomorrow, but for now I am leaving them alone to bond and for Mum to get a good sleep, judging from the snores coming from the ark last time I nipped over she's doing just that!!

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Sue xx

Sometimes..........

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Sometimes......just sometimes, the 'Good Life' is all it's cracked up to be!!

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Sitting on the patio eating our own Strawberries dipped into sweetened Fromage Frais, drinking our own homemade Elderflower Cordial, the world briefly seemed very good!

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It's about to get even better in the next couple of months.......

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Sue xx