Farming Foresight

Yesterday evening

 Bucolic idyll, sun drenched hay bales soaking up the last rays of the setting sun; the sound of children playing on the bales; the smell of freshly cut hay.

This afternoon

Storm clouds and a very heavy downpour; positively brooding clouds in a variety of colours that can only be described as 'bruise'.

As you can see from the empty field the farmer has evidently been listening to the weather forecast, as he spent several hours this morning dashing back and forth from the field with a tractor and trailer full of hay bales.

I love how quickly the British weather turns from 'where did I store my shorts?' and 'do we have any sun lotion?' to 'for heaven's sake put a rain coat on' and 'well at least we won't have to water the pots tonight'.

Sitting here with a cup of herbal tea and the scent of wet earth and rain wafting in through the French windows - lovely.

Jean-Luc has splashed his way to the local pub to watch England's final attempt to regain some dignity in the World Cup; I reckon it all went wrong when we swapped compulsory archery practice for football.  I guess the England team can gain some comfort in the fact so many of their team mates from the league seem to be having a much better time of it with their national teams.

Or not.

Making Hay

We're very lucky.  We live in a real farming community.  There are loads of people who don't earn their living on the land, like Jean-Luc and myself; but there are lots who do.

One of the farmers farms the field behind our house for hay and once that has been cut and gathered and the fresh grass has grown again, for young cattle.  The hay will be used to feed his livestock over winter.

The farmer cut his hay about 3 weeks ago, last week he turned it so it would dry out evenly.

 Turning the hay.

Today it's hot and the sun is out and it's haymaking weather.

This machine gathers the hay up into heaped up rows.

This one is the baler, it gathers up the hay and turns it into nice, neat, easier to handle bales.

They drop out the back all neatly parceled up.

It's hot, dusty and noisy work with big machines.  But it's the reality of farming - the job that puts food on all our tables and so here's a big Thank You from a very small and very grateful corner of the blogiverse.

Fruits of our (and others) labour

Well the Summer Solstice passed quietly in glorious weather and everyday domestic pottering.  The sun rose, the sky as blue, the flowers showed off their best frocks and danced in the breeze.  We drank elderflower cordial, white wine and a rather lovely commercial bottled cider flavoured with berries and other fruits.

Jean-Luc cooked from scratch: spicy turkey meat balls and pappardelle with lime pickle sauce, a recipe from John Torode - I know this sounds really weird but tastes divine; roast leg of lamb; lamb rogan josh (leftover lamb) and Moroccan lamb tagine (more leftover lamb).

We've also found a really handy and frugal way of using up old bread, we crumble it down into breadcrumbs and pop it into an airtight container and into the freezer - handy for meatballs, toppings, and crispy crumb coatings when ever it's needed.

I bravely ventured into the greenhouse to water the small Amazonian jungle that has appeared in there - note to self: 19 tomato plants may be a few too many!

Rumour has it that a lost civilization  lurks somewhere in this vegetative paradise - possibly of ants building temples from sugar cubes a la Terry Pratchett;  I know there are ants in there as they come out to protest every time I water.  I'm hoping for a harvest of truly epic proportions.

My peppers, Jalapenos and Scotch Bonnets - growing with differing degrees of success.

Courgettes - resistance it futile,they will assimilate your greenhouse.

Heavenly, heavenly Rainbow Chard, pretty and delicious.

Our first and probably only cherries this year from our new cherry tree.  It's only young so I'm very proud of it.

Tiny baby apples on our apple tree, newly released into a garden after 5 years in a (very large) pot.  Hopefully the apples will grow in size as the tree matures otherwise it's going to be very small apple crumbles.

Delicious gooseberries that a lovely friend from the village left by the front door - I can't quite make up my mind what to do with them - gooseberry fool or crumble.  Given how hot it is at the moment Fool may be winning.

I hope you all had a lovely Solstice and are enjoying the glorious weather at the moment.  

Right, off to annoy the ants again; I'm expecting tiny placards and an organised march any day now.

Oh Those Pretty Things

It's June, the summer solstice will soon be upon us and the garden is at its peak of flowering beauty. 

So right now the borders are a riot of colour, full of bees and hoverflies vying for pollen; full of jewel like colours that would not disgrace a pirates treasure chest.

 Lysimachia - it looks so innocently pretty doesn't it.

Hordes of Lysimachia marching on the rest of the garden - good job I'm such a sucker for its golden yellow stars. :-)

 The beautiful Johnson's Blue cranesbill - one of my must haves.

 Fox and cubs

 Red geums and orange Californian poppies - sunshine on a stick.

 More cranesbills, fox and cubs with Lychnis, a delicious cerise pink with furry green-grey leaves.

 and of course the prettiest thing in the whole garden is sitting there on the right of the picture. 
She sure knows how to look photogenic.

Somehow it just seems right that nature has her best party frocks on for the Summer Solstice.
A happy longest day to you all.

Can you tell what it is yet?

I'm crocheting something for my sister - her birthday is at the end of the month so it might be a bit of a rush (or a bit late).  Obviously I can't say what it is - it's a surprise; but I did want to share it as it's the most complicated thing I've crocheted so far.  I learnt to crochet last August the fantastic Becky teaches classes that transform us poor ignorant beginners to confident crocheters who can read patterns and happily hook away in a very short time indeed.

  The base.  I'm using 100% recycled cotton in a lovely worn denim colour and a 4mm hook.

15 rows up and still going strong.  The shell pattern is a delight to crochet, fairly simple but effective and giving a beautifully textured finish; it does require you to count correctly especially on the first three foundation rows.

Here's a close-up of the stitching.  The firmness of the cotton yarn and the fairly intensive stitches mean that the final item will be quite self supporting and hopefully strong.
only 28 more rows to go....on this part of the pattern.

I do hope my sister likes it.. at least as much as I've enjoyed making it. 
I'll post further updates when it's safely finished and delivered - I'd hate to spoil her surprise.

Rik Mayall RIP

Rik Mayall died on Monday 9th June, 2014.

I moved from teenager to adult watching him on TV.  His performances epitomised post punk culture; irreverent, foul-mouthed, intelligent and incredibly funny. 

I can't believe he's dead as he seemed so much larger than life.  It's as though the people we grew up with have grown old and started to die.  His death marks our own mortality.

We are mourning the royal jester of our youth.

Goodbye Lord Flashheart - we'll miss you.

Water, water everywhere

Jean-Luc has fitted the greenhouse and summer house with water butts.  He's also fitted an overflow butt.

When we left to visit my parents on Friday the two larger butts weren't completely full and the overflow butt was dry.  While we were away there was some torrential rain here as well as a massive thunderstorm today.  Now all butts are full and the overflow butt is overflowing into the field ditch next door.  We have 520 litres of water to use on the garden and greenhouse.  Jean-Luc is thrilled that it all works as a system.  Mind you with all the rain we won't need to water anything much for ages - even the greenhouse is nice and humid.