Keeping Warm, Odd Jobs, Simple Foods

This weekend we were both full of colds, so we spent our time having leisurely breakfasts, with lots of hot drinks.

We fetched wood into the house to keep the log burner going.  Using wood from our woodland means that we have a continual source of free fuel, we just have to do a bit more woodland management later on this year.  Now that the building work is completed on the house we will have much more time to gradually work our way through the woods, clearing space around new saplings and making sure that a new generation of trees will be available to keep us in this lovely free fuel.

 Some jobs were done but they were only bits and bobs of things and the everyday chores such as cleaning out the henhouse and filling feeders etc.

But mostly we ate simple foods and curled up in front of the television when we weren't at the cinema.  We went twice this weekend, using our already purchased year long passes means the more we go, the better value they will be.  All in all a very lazy weekend for us ... we should have more of them it did us both the world of good!!

Sue xx

Sheep .... and The Yorkshire Shepherdess

We had fourteen of Will's sheep on our paddock since Christmas, he had had to move them from waterlogged fields and our grass was lush enough, considering the time of year, to give them a good feed for three weeks.

It means they have to get used to the dogs, for this is our field and just because the sheep are in doesn't mean we stop using it.  I'm always careful with the dogs obviously, especially for the first few days, but now they are used to the sheep appearing every few months and have learnt to keep their distance.  

Rosy is made to walk by my side until I know she has sussed out the situation, Mavis is obviously on her extended lead and Suky, well Suky wouldn't harm a fly ... if she's in a field with sheep she wants to be a sheep, if she's in a field with cows she wants to be a cow.  She stands and watches them and copies what they are doing if it's eating grass, she eats grass, if one of them has a wee ... she has a wee, you get the idea ... totally funny to watch.  She gets most upset because they just won't let her join the gang.   She stands with her tail sadly droopy until one of them looks straight at her and then she wags it, as if to say 'I'm a happy doggy look, can I play with you', when they look away or stare her out the tails droops again!!

This particular group of sheep are last years lambs and don't have much experience to draw on, so they were determined not to be near us or the dogs.  As we made our way round the paddock they would keep ahead of us and make for the far top corner and stand there as a tightly pressed group until we had passed by.  Once we were making our way back towards the gate only then would they split into their pairs and singles and get back to the business of the day, which with sheep is always just eating the grass.

After three weeks in the paddock the grass was completely grazed right down and then they were moved into our end triangular field, as it's much smaller I doubt they will be here for much longer, there's about a week's grazing in there if they're lucky.

And talking of sheep ... I've just finished reading the book that Lovely Hubby got for Christmas, it's a brilliant read, highly recommended.  I felt a bit guilty reading his present before he did but he's engrossed in a book about a man that makes numerous things out of a single Beech tree .... I don't think I'll be borrowing that one!!

Sue xx

In the Net Tunnel This January

It's a bit desolate in the Net Tunnel at the moment, the pathway is still waiting to be covered in membrane and a layer of bark chippings, we've used all our supply for now though but we've been promised some more by the guys that cut tree branches down as they grow too near the electricity wires in the area.  I should have weeded it but I've damned if I'm going to go out in the rain to weed a path :-/

There are of course some edibles in there, mostly the cabbages.  I've been simply picking a couple of outer leaves of each one whenever we need some for the many pots of soup that I've made recently.  It keeps each plant growing and hearting up nicely.

The garlic on this side is looking a little bit weedy, but it is growing albeit very slowly.

The garlic on the other side is stronger and more upright, yes we have A LOT of garlic growing!!

Something has eaten it's way through the netting, I don't know what but nothing has been eaten inside the net tunnel, just a bit nibbling by some slugs, so whatever wriggled it's way through the net didn't like what it found inside.  I'll have to have a little sewing session here before the hole gets any bigger.

Although the promised snow didn't land on our fields overnight, it is on the hills opposite and now the black clouds have rolled back in and the rain has started to fall again after a day of clear skies and sunshine.  The dogs have the right idea and at every opportunity take to their beds and snuggle down in the warmth of the kitchen. 

For me it's time for a cup of coffee and a spot of blog hopping :-)

Keep warm.

Sue xx

Next Cupboard Please

Once you start something it's hard to stop, and after the cupboard tidying of the other day I continued on the baking tray drawer.  Everything was hoiked out and the drawer wiped out.

The difference with this one was that not one single thing is not in use ..... alright I don't make gingerbread men that often ... but I do make them  :-)

After piling the baking trays and tins out on the worktop I stopped for a minute to admire them.  It has taken me years to acquire this lovely lot.  I would have given my eye teeth for them back in the day when I baked for my two boys, back then I had to manage with cheap tins bought from discount stores that made us jump out of our skins when they warped with a loud bang in the oven, often flinging fish fingers or chicken nuggets off with the ferocity of the buckling metal.

Now I love my tins, yes I do have some older and more battered, much loved ones that reside in the drawer above this one, which will be tidied next, but this drawerful of matchy, matchy tins, scrubbed well after each use and looked after tell me something important .... that I have moved forward to a good place in my life.  Where paying off debts and living within our means meant we could afford to invest in the very backbone of what we are doing, and having the right tins, quality tins, mean making our own food from scratch is just that little easier and satisfying.

I only went in the drawer for this tin .... see how one thing leads to another with me ;-)

Sue xx

Thank You, and Your Reward ....

First I just have to say THANK YOU for the amazing outpouring of support on yesterdays post, I am truly humbled .... and your reward ..... me getting straight back to normal and showing you the inside of my empty cupboard :-)

Nothing gets me down for long, and when you hit rock bottom the only way is up ... and if on the way you can clear out a cupboard and have a good sort out well so much the better.  I think I only let the constant drip, drip drip get to me because I have been pretty poorly all through the Christmas break and beyond with a stonking cough/cold/general yuckiness and I just hadn't given myself time to just rest.  I guess cleaning out the cupboards isn't resting, as my Mum will tell me, buts it's achieving something and that's as good for me.

So after a few months of slinging things in the cupboard willy nilly I decided enough was enough and that it was time to bring order to the chaos of my own making.  So I hoiked everything out, played that annoying game of putting little containers inside bigger ones (I hated tidying up the stacking pots when my boys were little and quickly taught them to do it themselves), wiped out the cupboard and got everything back in nice and tidily.

Well that was the top shelf done!!

(Oh .. if you're wondering what that long silver thing is, it's the insulation around the flue pipe for the Aga, which runs right through the cupboards to the vent on the outside wall.)

Then I emptied out the bottom shelf, lots of alcohol ....

... and a few other bits.

It was all put neatly back in with things I never use at the back ....

"WHAT" .... I suddenly asked myself "ARE YOU DOING"

'things you NEVER use at the back' !!

Out everything from the bottom shelf came again ...

... and the offending items were retrieved, photographed for posterity and now reside in the car boot sale box ready for later in the year.  I do love a bit of decluttering.  The ravioli maker makes ridiculously small ravioli ... far better, and easier, to use my smallest round biscuit cutter, and the Bento boxes were used by Lovely Hubby when he travelled to work from home each day to contain his lunch, not as much use when you commute weekly, and on days out we take tupperware and pack everything into a big 'cool bag'.

Back tomorrow with what I did next  :-)

Thanks again folks.

Sue xx

My Blog .... and Rat's Arses

I've purposefully taken a few days off from posting on this blog, although I have been updating the new blog to keep things up to date and accountable .... to me.  The reason for this was to have a good long think about things.

Over the last few weeks there have been an increasing number of  comments that seem to be slanted towards asking me to justify what we do, why we do it and implying that they do it better, more cost effectively and more entertainingly.

Quite frankly .... I don't give a rats arse!!

I started this blog back in January 2009 when we made our switch to this lifestyle.  It was never going to be a blog meant to be read by hundreds or thousands of people, it was to be my diary, my online diary.  I am quicker at typing than I am at writing, and it's much more legible for future reading!!  It could contain photos taken as we went about our journey towards self sufficiency to remind us of what we were achieving along the way, and it has worked out fine for this.

But what seems to be cropping up more and more at the moment are comments questioning the way we do things, telling me there are other better ways of doing them, letting me know in no uncertain terms that I am not doing this 'self sufficiency' thing properly.   Comments and emails have trickled in implying that I should be knitting myself a hair shirt, making myself sackcloth pants, living off homemade bread and water.  

Well that's not what we are about in any way shape or form.

We are now in our eighth year of this lifestyle, our first three years were spent trialing it out and having a go at things.  Learning to grow food, keep chickens and breed pigs, checking out the things we needed to do these things properly and cost effectively.  The next two were spent following on but in a greatly reduced way, as having decided that, yes this was the life for us, we needed to live as cheaply as possible so we could save like mad to fund buying our own house and land.

The first two years here have been about putting into action all that we had learnt, adapting it to this wet Welsh hillside and setting up a sustainable and workable system that will enable us to live as self sufficiently as possible using all that we have learnt and acquired along the way.  

So now for instance, we have a water harvesting system so we use less mains water, we have solar power for the house and workshop, it powers the Aga that warms the house and it also earns us money as we sell surplus electricity back to the National Grid.  We have a permanent Chicken World with fox proof fencing.  We have a log burner that burns the wood from our own woodland.  We have chickens that lay the eggs we eat and that will provide the meat for Lovely Hubby's carnivorous tendencies as we expand the flock with dual purpose birds instead of just laying hens.  

All this and more we have picked up along the way, as we educated ourselves through courses, books, programmes, speaking to well known and little known experts, through trial and error and through sheer hard work and determination.

There have been things that we have discounted along the way, I don't knit myself dishcloths (unless a ball of 10p cotton falls into my lap)  I use the stash of bargain cloths that I bought ages ago and that reside under the kitchen sink, I don't knit or crochet us jumpers or socks  ... knitting and crochet don't relax me they stress me out.   I hate sewing so I sold the second hand sewing machine that I tried making our own things with and instead we buy what we need and make things last.

What I am trying to say is that we know what we want to do and we know how we want to go about doing it.  Having a constant stream of comments slyly telling me that 'this is so much better' or that ' that is the way it should be done' or 'don't you do this' is draining, very draining.  I was so tempted to switch both blogs to private the other day ... the only thing that stopped me are the readers who are at the moment reading from the very beginning.  To cut off their reading would have been like snatching away a book, and if you did that to me I would murder you ;-) 

So this has been my little rant, I hope you understand where this has come from and I hope you understand that I can only be polite to inane comments and snide remarks for so long,  I will not justify what I do or what I say to anyone, after all it's my diary you are reading ...... expect some swearing if it continues.

 .... I still don't give one!!

Sue xx

Snoozing the Day Away

I've been sat here for possibly longer than I should, updating my other blog and perusing Facebook as well as checking personal and business banking and paying bills (so not all frivolous time wasting then ;-) ), and all the time I have been 'working' to the restful background sound of Suky's snores.

Now she has lost weight she snores much more quietly.  She is down from 12.2 kgs to just 9.9kg, all done slowly but surely over the last six months and monitored through Tubby Club at the vets.

Mavis loves to cuddle into any other sleeping animal and soon joined Suky on the old dog bed by the desk.  Unusually this time,  they are topping and tailing ... very cute.  I can't get over how much like Rosy Mavis now looks since her trim at the groomers.  

Her wiry top coat hid the same smooth coat as Rosy, with the same black 'freckles' showing through the white fur.  Her black patch on her right hand side is more circular than Rosy's patch, which is on her left hand side.  Taking them out one at a time people would be convinced they were one and the same dog, but together the main difference, apart from size and build is obvious .... Mavis has brown ears and forehead and Rosy has black ... and she has a black band around her tail.

My lovely girls.

Sue xx