Todays 'art' (ok, creativity would be a better word)

Here are some of the creative things I did today. Today was a day off, so don't worry, I won't be doing this amount of posting every day!

Bread dough ready to rise

Ready to knead again

Drawing our new buddha
(also our only buddha)

Buddha on the first page of my art journal.
I plan to work in this journal every day

Cat enjoying the sunshine

Vince's hat nearly finished

Conservatory plants enjoying the sunshine

Allotment pumpkins
in a lovely old bowl someone gave me recently

Bread out of the oven

Cranachan with raspberries from the allotment

Ok, so some of these are more like appreciation than actually being creative, but hey, there are no blog category police!

The Lovely Larder

I'm inspired by some strange things. I spend too much time reading blogs, but earlier this year I was inspired to look at my larder with fresh eyes. I am fortunate to live in a house old enough to have a proper larder. I've been  collecting jars for some time now (you don't think I'd go and buy a set of jars do you?) This is what my larder looks like, I took these a while ago, and I don't think I tidied it up much. That's home made vinegar on the bottom left, top picture.

Thanks to
Lynne    (a fellow stitcher, musician, journaler and cook)
at 'Textile Treasury' for this appreciation of the simple things in life.
I'm not organised enough to do menu plans tho' that's a bit too much.

Apples and wine

   

About a week ago I took this photo of the last of my apples. I usually reckon to have apples to cook with right through to March and sometimes April. I've still got a few of these left.

I have a bit of a passion for apples (amongst other things?!) Here in Devon they grow on trees, orchards full of them, all over the place, just dropping on roads and into grass and mostly rotting away. A lot of people seem to think that you need some special kind of apples to cook with, and that windfalls won't keep, and probably lots of other apple myths and fallacies.

Every autumn I collect as many apples as I can. Ideally I pick them off the trees, because yes, they do store better than damaged apples. But if windfalls are all I can get then that's what I collect. I collect sackfuls. Not like a few carrier bags full, but big potato/animal feed sackfuls, and I lay them out in single layers in as many shallow boxes or trays as I can find, preferably ones that will stack. Now that I have a larder I keep them in there, when I didn't I kept them in an unheated shed, covered them in frosty weather and tried hard to keep the mice and rats away from them! I check over them about once a month, pick out rotten ones and throw them to the birds. I also try to keep apples from different trees separate, so that I learn which ones keep best, and then next year I can use up the non keepers first. 

Towards the end of winter I cook and freeze some, but through the summer there no need for apples because there is always rhubarb then all the other wonderful soft fruits from the allotment.

And this summer I thought I'd try making wine (because I don't have enough hobbies?!)
My aunt has just moved house and downsized and cleared out lots of lovely old things, including two demo-johns and these amazing glass airlocks. They were pretty grubby and I spent some time cleaning them out with a wide variety of objects. They are NOT easy things to clean!

Glass airlock

Aren't they beautiful enough to make you want to make some wine? 

I can just hear the gentle blooping now!.........

Making pastys

 Vince was getting bored of cheese sandwiches for lunch, and I have a freezer full of meat that needs eating. I've been vegetarian on and off over the years, but as it's factory farming I disapprove of I'm happy to eat home grown or local organic meat. As I'm not rearing any animals at the moment I've started buying a meat box once a month from a local organic farm. The last box we had had some 'skirt' in it, which my research told me was the traditional pasty meat filling. (I'm tempted to do a 'skirt' joke here, but I won't!)
We like a lot of veg in our pasties so I chopped up carrot, onion, swede and potato and stirred in salt, pepper and some paprika.

Pasty ingredients

All chopped up
(a bit of leftover red cabbage sneaked in there..)

 Home made wholemeal pastry (might have been half and half actually)

Yum

I'm really pleased with them. That bowlful of filling made tons, so there are lots in the freezer, definitely a nice change from cheese sandwiches. I might make some cheese and veg ones sometime.
I love cooking. I particularly love cooking with what I've got, rather than looking at a recipe and going out to buy ingredients, partly because the shops are three miles away.

My fifth day, getting busyer

I treat myself to a late start on Sundays. I don't start work until 9 (I normally start at 8.30) there is no one around so I get on with the usual pens stuff first thing. The farmer and wife come back from moving kale fencing and I have lots of Suffolks to turn out. After Fridays successful turn out today is more difficult. The first few are easy-ish, then I make the mistake of walking out of the lambing shed with two lambs and a ewe in hot pursuit just as the farmer is feeding the not-yet-lambed ewes. Feeding time is bedlam with ewes bleating madly and fighting for a place at the trough, and usually abandoning lambs if they are more than a day old, which then leaves lambs bleating madly once the ewes have their heads in the troughs. My ewe, who has only been out of the lambing pens a few days, runs of towards the feeding ewes and completely forgets about her lambs. I put one lamb down and herd her back to it with some difficulty. I then try and herd her and the lamb up the drive, away from the still bleating/feeding ewes. She doesn't want to go that way and hurtles past me and off again in the wrong direction. I put the other lamb down and go after her. She dives down into a sheep race the other side of the pens. The farmer is now on the case with me, we get her back with her lambs who are by now just tottering about bleating at anything that moves and might be a mother. She goes a short way down the track and then dives back past both of us at top speed and down the race again. Things are not going well. We herd her back along the track and eventually the farmer grabs her and we bodily drag her along the track, put the lambs with her and shut a gate. She is almost half way to the field gate which is only about 200 yards from the shed and I am exhausted and it's only 10 o'clock. I think I've learnt another lesson about turning out ewes. Don't do it at feeding time! I have one more to turn out. She's very well behaved, and once I've walked past the difficult one (shutting the gate first) the difficult one finally heads towards the field with the moral support of another sheep.
Back to doing pens. Earlier this morning I'd noticed a ewe with a bloody bottom looking unhappy. I'm told she's been smelling really bad and they think she has dead lambs inside her. The farmers wife is now groping around inside her and fixing ropes to the lambs head and front feet. When a ewe is about to lamb and is having problems it's possible to put an arm right inside and have a feel about for heads, feet etc. If a lamb is alive it will twitch and move. It's obvious that this one is dead from the appalling smell. The farmers wife then spends the next half an hour or more hauling with all her might in these ropes, with a foot on the ewes rump to get the dead lamb out. It's not going well, farmers wife is looking tires and stressed and there is a bit of swearing going on. Eventually she does get the lamb out, I have to move on to another shed so I didn't find out if there were two lambs in there.

This of course is the not-so-nice side of farming. At the moment I've only noticed one dead ewe lying in the farmyard, by the end of this batch of lambing there will probably be a few more, to be bundled into the bucket on the tractor and taken to the crematorium. Farmers are no longer allowed to bury dead animals, they have to pay to have them disposed of, so dead animals are a double loss. Dead lambs are bagged up and charged by the bagful.
Meanwhile, back bedding, haying and watering pens there are a couple of lambs skipping and hopping around their pen, which cheers me up. When I get to my favourite pens the sun comes out and life feels good again. I am then summoned to help herd up two lots of ewes and lambs who are being loaded up into a trailer and takes to other farms several miles away to grow some more. Sometimes I've finished pens by coffee time on a Sunday, but it's busy today, so we all go in for coffee and discuss what needs doing next. I have pens to finish still and the 'still to lamb' pens need bedding. While I'm doing this I notice that the ewe who's had the dead lamb(s) pulled out has now prolapsed, things are definitely not looking good for her.
Just as I think I might be time to go I get to move some electric fencing in a nearby kale fields with the son, so off we go across a couple of fields in the landrover, disconnect the batteries, move the fence, straighten it all up, and I pull up a couple of turnips for our supper!. Just a couple of bags of pellets in the creep feeders for the lambs and back to the farmyard. The farmer passes me on the quad and jokes about me stealing turnips (well I'm pretty sure he's joking, he's not big on jokes normally) tells me the round ones are tastier than the oblong ones and cheerily says 'see you tomorrow'.
When I've had a rest I set to chopping veg. Local potatoes, turnips from the farm (the purple oblong one is all woody inside!) and parsnips from a friend. All snuggled in amongst the nicely browned venison with water, herbs, salt and pepper, and now I can potter and play with whatever takes my fancy.

Christmas and new year firsts and inspirations

Life got busy in December as I work on a sheep farm at various times through the winter. This is a photo from a few years ago. I love it, and intend to write a lot about it one day. I've done some drafts...

Before Christmas I did my contribution to local community stuff. I painted one section of the scenery for the local panto. Apart from a very brief foray into this sort of thing several years ago I don't really have much experience at it. My task was a dusty Victorian attic. I was rather pleased with the result.

It looked even better when I'd painted cobwebs all over it, but I didn't get a photo of that.

I also made my first ever Christmas cake. I even made the marzipan with ground almonds. Much nicer than bought stuff, and dead easy. Then off we went a-visiting, cake in hand!

Pretty lights in a garden

 ..and lovely hand made decorations on a cousins Christmas tree

 and finally, back home on new years day, we went to see a mummers play. Vince has never seen one, and he still hasn't as it was too crowded! I took this photo over the heads of the crowd. They are performing again next weekend, so we may yet get to see a mummers play!

Learning lots about bread making

I recently had the luck be invited, along with a friend, to be a guinea pig on a  3 hour bread baking workshop. Now, I've made a lot of bread over the years, but I'm a bit slapdash, don't follow recipes, and anyway, I believe that there's always lots more to learn about everything.

we mixed

and kneaded
(wetter is better, I make mine too dry I decided)

mmmm, that looks good..

After it had risen we did this
(that's mine front right)

And they came out like this

And can you believe it, in between we also made these...

Pumpkin bread,
 this dough was pre mixed and risen

yum, we didn't get to eat these
as they were for a pumpkin supper that evening

And finally some soda bread
very quick to make, needs eating fast..not much problem there

We even had time for a cup of tea
And I was right, I learnt loads, and it was a lovely afternoon, with a room full of fellow bread making enthusiasts. Emma, who taught us is planning to do some more workshops. So if anyone wants to learn about bread making, or learn MORE about bread making from a very lovely person (who I've just noticed has recently won an award!), then watch this space.. (not mine, the one below)

http://www.realfoodexeter.co.uk/

Harvest Supper in the hall

Saturday evening was the village Harvest Supper. I helped by dressing up the hall with harvesty drapes, and a whole gang of people laid tables, did flower arrangements and made huge amounts of fabulous food.

Tables laden with food

Can you see my leafy cloth on the right?

Harvest Loaf

And then the puddings came out...I had to snap these shots fast before they disappeared!

And then there was entertainment.
In good village style in the form of some children playing fantastic violin music, poem readings, and some singing. Here are some barmy 'Ladies!' who 'performed'....
..........I think they borrowed the skirts?!..........I know they borrowed the guitars...

Where did they get those hairdo's?

and some not so barmy people who sang some harvesty songs..

me second from right,
(whoops that shirt doesn't go with that skirt)

At the end of the evening loads of people washed up, cleared away tables, chairs and decorations, and in no time at all it was the end of the evening.
What a lovely evening.

Cake decorating and a peg bag

This week was Vince's birthday, so I made him a cake.
It didn't go quite as planned. I realised too late that I didn't have quite enough icing sugar for the decorations. So I bulked it out with a bit of ordinary sugar. Of course the icing wouldn't go through the small nozzle I had, the bag burst and chocolate icing went everywhere. I scooped it up and scraped it into another bag and tried with the only other nozzle I have .........which is huge.
I'd love to say my five year old helped me with this, but I don't have one, and I just wondered if I'd be eligible for the "worst icing done by a grownup" award?

I stuck candles all round the edges and I'm pleased to report that he loved it!

Moving swiftly on, today I made myself a peg bag. So here are the in progress shots, this is like a 'tutorial' thing in case any of you two who read my blog have a burning desire to make a peg bag and don't know how to do it!

Lay paper pattern onto material. I'm using the hanger and shape from an old peg bag, but a child's clothes hanger would do.


  Oh yes...lay the pattern on the wrong side of the material, whoops

 pin down pattern and sew through two pieces of material around the edges of the paper

 Then un-pick stitching and do it all again with right sides of BOTH bits of material together whoops (don't worry I don't make any more mistakes..)

 Ahem, that's better...cut out hole

 zig zag raw edges...that's in case Ren is reading or she'll tell me off.... and wrap bias binding round the edges of the hole. Again I salvaged this from the old peg bag, I guess you could just zig zag the edges of the hole.

 All done, good grief I even ironed it, not sure what came over me.

 back view, full of pegs, hanging on the washing line, I'm really pleased with it

 Front view. I particularly love it because Vince gave me these two bits of material for my birthday last year, what a great present, and I've got some left to make something else one day.