Sallygardens Smallholding

Guest Smallholder

I meet many like minded people who are smallholding in various ways around Ireland and I'd love to introduce some of them to you now and then. Each smallholder has their own way of doing things and a lot can be learnt from others. This is my friend Geraldine.

She and her family grow all their own vegetables and also keep chickens, goats and occasionally pigs. Both her and her husband work part-time giving them a cash flow and plenty of time to be at home with the children and tend the smallholding. They are in the process of converting to an organically certified farm. When I was visiting her recently over in County Roscommon I noticed an ingenious way of watering pumpkin and squash plants until they are established under a mulch. The system can be reused year after year.

Simple, effective and a perfect example of the re-use of otherwise waste materials before they go into landfill.

That's an awful lot of squash for one family! I'm hoping some surplus comes my way.

Sallygardens Smallholding on TV?

Last week Eileen Magnor, a presenter with the programme Nationwide, came and visited us at Sallygardens. They found us via the new Into Leitrim virtual craft trail. We had great fun all morning racing around and filming the various animals and vegetable gardens. Little did our  New Zealand wwoofers realise that they would be making their Irish television debut when they came to volunteer on our farm! I don't know if or when the piece will be used, but if I hear anything I'll be sure to let you know.

Making Time for Air Dried Hams

Sometimes when all the pork comes back from the butcher it can be quite overwhelming deciding what to do with everything. By the time you've made a years supply of various sausages and salami there's little or no energy left for much else. Something we tried with our last pigs which were butchered in February was so freeze the joints we intended to air dry. We recently defrosted them when a few rainy days arrived and so a little time indoors was well spent preparing the hams. Once they have been frozen and defrosted they only need half the curing time in the salt in comparison to fresh pork.

With our first hams we followed the River Cottage dry cure recipe but this time we tweaked it a little, changing the amount of sugar (within safe curing guidelines), juniper and bay, and adding a couple of other herbs and spices.

I suppose with each batch we will tweak the cure mix and so I begin to appreciate how mixes become guarded secrets from various parts of the world where they have centuries of experience and have tweaked to perfection!

But somehow Leitrim Ham doesn't have the same ring to it as Parma Ham or Jamon de Serrano. Anyway, not that we'd ever want to part with it by selling.

Elderflower Pancakes

Quick get out to the hedgerows and gather the last of the elderflowers, they are already beginning to fade. Whatever you do don't let the summer pass without harnessing some of this exceptional resource. The elderflower is such a fantastic bonus to the smallholder or anybody with access to the plant. It's so versatile in it's use; we've made a mountain of elderflower cordial and also a small batch of precious elderflower champagne. Another favourite of mine and one use I've not seen described on other blogs is elderflower pancakes. If you wish to delight your children, impress your other half and treat yourself all at once why not give it a go? The secret to anything made with elderflowers is to pick them on a hot sunny day (if at all possible!). Identify the elder with the help of a knowledgeable friend and/or an excellent identification book, be sure the area has not been treated or sprayed.

Make a simple pancake batter, for example Mrs Beeton uses 1 egg, 250ml milk, one 15ml spoon caster sugar and100g plain flour to serve four. For those dairy or wheat free it works well with soya or corn flour substitutes too. Beat the milk and egg into the flour and sugar. Pour some batter onto a hot buttered pan and sprinkle roughly half an elderflower head into the cooking pancake, snipping or hand stripping the flowerletts off the green stalks. Flip it and cook the other side. Serve hot with honey and lemon juice. Enjoy.

If you've missed the flowers don't worry, soon the elderberries will be ready for jam and wine! In the meantime, for more excellent foraging recipes try Cooking Weeds by Vivien Weise.

Felting Workshops at Sallygardens

The felting workshops have been a joy to teach. The participants are always really enthusiastic and we have a lot of fun around the kitchen table. I recently had a fantastic group of ladies who brought their mother for her birthday, she was in her 80s and bright as a button. She was full of stories about how they used to dispatch their chickens and even offered to demonstrate her technique but I didn't have any ready 'to go' at the time! Of course nothing of what we do here at Sallygardens in our bid to live sustainably hasn't been done before and there's a lot of useful knowledge out there for us beginners amongst people who have done it all their lives. Finding that information can be very difficult and then sometimes it arrives at the kitchen table without me even looking.

One of the most fulfilling parts of the felting workshops for me is to see the wonderful array of creations made by the participants, they really are inspiring. So here are a few from a couple of recent workshops to share with you (with full permission from the creators themselves!). The next felting workshop will be on Saturday 12th July 10am till 12.30, please leave a comment on this post or email me to book a place.

A Trip to Save Turf on the Bog

Our Wwoofers from New Zealand are wonderful people, they have settled in well and a lot of extra work is getting done. Last week we all went to help our neighbour save some turf from the bog (or 'bawg' as they say in Leitrim). Turf has been used for generations by many Irish rural dwellers to heat their homes. It's a concept that proves difficult for visitors to get their heads around .... burning slices of earth! These days turf is no longer cut by hand, instead it's scooped up by a digger into a large mixer then squirted out in lengths along the ground. Our job was to stack the turf 'sausages', a task called Footing. The Footings are built with wide gaps which allows air to circulate and dry the turf. It's then either taken home and stored for winter or built into close fitting large Clamps (seen in the background of this photograph) in a manner that allows rainfall to trickle off the surface. The structures themselves are quite beautiful and remind me of the beehive huts on the Skellig Islands.

With four adults and three children we made short work of five rows and managed to Foot what would take an individual a whole day within an hour. There was a spirit of competition as each person took a row to themselves and a little bit of distraction tactics were employed with some keen contestants chucking bits of turf at the each other. As usual Dan won and I came last!

When the work was done we took leave to what is akin to the 19th hole for golfers. In our case it was O' Callaghan's pub in Mohill for a swift rehydrating lunchtime Guinness. Like many of the traditional pubs it's not just a place to drink but also a grocery shop, as you can see by the tea bag display in one window and horse tackle in the other.

As a child my Father and I would play a game when walking through Irish villages called 'Guess the Shop By What's In the Window'. Not as straightforward as you might think. I remember on one occasion we saw a shop front which contained a ball of string and a jar of sweets. It turned out to be an Undertakers (funeral parlour) and a pub. In the countryside people often diversify their shops in order to survive eg estate agents and car spare parts under one roof.

You'd think that at my age I'd know a pint at lunchtime means the rest of the afternoon is spent in an unproductive lazy stupor, but sometimes that's the best way to spend a day.

Launch of the Sallygardens Goat Keeping eBooklet

'Keeping Goats for Smallholders, A Beginners Guide' is an eBooklet that I have been working on for some time now. It's finally finished and ready for sale. The success of the first Sallygardens eBooklet on pigs,  'Rearing Weaners for the Table, A Beginners Guide' has encouraged me to continue with more. This goat guide is aimed at those who wish to keep goats on a flexible small non-commercial scale, perhaps to provide milk and cheese for their family. It draws together from many sources all the nuggets of information that took me months of research to gather before I felt ready to buy our first goats. Sources include books, websites, blogs, forums and friends. Also included is the practical experience we have gained during keeping our goats and advice from other veteran goat keepers. The booklet covers where to buy a goat, how to ensure you buy a quality animal, which breed will suit your needs, housing, feeding, fencing, milking, set-up and running costs, breeding and more.

Goats get a lot of bad press but by following a little bit of advice you can easily avoid the stereotypical nightmare scenario* and find yourselves a lovely couple of well natured and productive goats that will bring you many hours of delight and provide you with milk, cheese and meat. The eBooklet costs €8.

*goats breaking into vegetable gardens, destroying rose bushes, billies chasing their owners across fields, nannies flipping the milk bucket over your head etc.

Successful Strawberries

At long last I can report that there has finally been a successful crop at of strawberries at Sallygardens! This is our third season trying  and I had sworn that if we didn't get a decent return we would cut our losses and never try again. In year one we bought some plants and eagerly put them outside in a well prepared bed. Anticipation rose as a huge spray of flowers appeared promising us a big bounty. The fruit all set and we watched them daily as the white strawberries began to swell. One day we saw the first blush of pink and the next day ... they had all been demolished by slugs! Lesson learned.

The following year we bought a beautiful terracotta strawberry pot. We positioned the pot by the back door, off grass, on the footpath which did a great job in deterring the slugs. The fruit got a stage further this time, a beautiful rich red colour, but on closer inspection the strawberries were almost hollowed out by ants. We put a thick coating of vaseline around the base and upper lip of the pot and that stopped the ants in their tracks. However waiting in the wings for their opportunity were the birds who swooped in and wiped out most of the remaining fruit. Smeared in vaseline and surrounded by a cage of chicken wire the once attractive terracotta strawberry pot had become quite an eyesore.

Year three and the polytunnel was our final stab at growing our own strawberries. We planted them into a mulched bed along the southern edge of the tunnel. No slugs, ants, birds or other vermin managed to attack the young crop. Indeed we've had three massive helpings so far with full bowls for all the family. It's been such a mouth watering success that I'm going to devote three times the area to the strawberries next year.

My friend Mary has come up with a great way to grow strawberries out of harms way plus it utilises every inch of potential space to grow food. This method would be ideal in urban settings with restricted space. She has used plastic gutters against the wall of her house. The guttering contains a length of seep hose and each section slopes gently downwards to assist drainage.

Meat Rabbits

When you first consider what livestock to keep on a smallholding there are a few usual suspects that always make an appearance but don't forget about the unusual ones too. Cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and goats are at the forefront of most peoples minds but there is an alternative option that requires only a couple of square meters grazing, if any at all. Even people in an urban environment can consider raising meat rabbits for the table.

The wild rabbit was first utilised for meat by the Romans who realised a single pair could produce an impressive 90kg of meat a year. Originally they were fenced into large areas, fed bundles of fodder and culled when required.  It didn't take long for rabbits to be housed in urban hutches for meat production. There still seems to be a strong tradition of keeping rabbits domestically for meat in Wales and much of the US. When I was a child I clearly remember skinned rabbits being sold on Moore's Street  in Dublin and my mother would often make a delicious rabbit stew. In France rabbit is still sold in the markets and even supermarkets alongside chicken and pork.

Consider the advantages; on a couple of meters you can keep a breeding pair with two enclosures. A female rabbit (doe) is capable of giving birth every thirty days but realistically she shouldn't be allowed to do this or she will lose condition. A good doe can have approximately nine kits at a time and they are ready to eat at three or four months of age. Tthe doe ovulates in response to the buck's presence. If there is plenty of food she will give birth to all the kits.  If food is scarce she can reabsorb some or all of the kits and give birth to the appropriate number to match available resources.  Outdoors she will breed during spring and summer but if housed indoors she can breed throughout the year by extending daylight hours with lighting. The disadvantages are that you will need to confidently cull rabbits yourself. There are some excellent books which talk you through various methods including Basic Butchering of Livestock & Game, by J. Mettler. 

There are a few excellent large breed meat rabbits that grow quickly. The most popular is the stocky New Zealand White, followed by the beautiful Californian. Sourcing a breeding pair or trio is relatively easy in the UK, just read the adverts at the back of any smallholders magazine. In Ireland it's possible to source them via an excellent poultry breeder in Co Leitrim.

I've been researching meat rabbits for about a year now and I've found it very difficult indeed gathering the necessary information. I hope to publish another EBooklet 'Breeding Meat Rabbits for the Table, A Beginner's Guide' very shortly which ought to save those new to this idea hours of research!

How Did You Learn All This?

When we first moved to our smallholding three years ago I could have written what I knew about raising pigs, rabbits, chickens and goats on the back of a postage stamp. I had a basic level of gardening and vegetable growing and a bit of an inkling about the ecological conservation and management of woodlands (thanks to my Environmental Science degree all of fifteen years ago). People who come on our Smallholders Visit always ask 'how and where did you learn to do all this?'.

Books have been a great start and on each topic there are usually one or two iconic publications. Our bookshelf is well stocked and even now we constantly refer to our books. I repeatedly revise the contents of our bookshop, adding and removing books as I, or others, use and rate them. They are very well utilised and some pages are more dog eared and soiled than others. The River Cottage Cookbook is splattered on the pate recipe and the wine making pages of The New Complete Guide to Sustainable Living are very sticky (in fact I have it opened on the Edlerflower Wine page as I type).  The internet has also been a blessing to connect with others doing the same thing across the globe. Blogs of other smallholders both urban and rural are a fantastic way of sharing knowledge and forums are also a brilliant way of tapping into ideas and meeting like minded people. Our own new Sallygardens Forum is slowly gaining momentum, and there's also another Irish forum worth checking out 'Country Talk & Tips'. Of course the infamous UK 'River Cottage' forum is always kicking and I've just heard about another good UK forum I haven't visited yet, 'It's Not Easy Being Green'.

Attending courses is also sometimes well worth considering. It's true everything you learn during  a day or two on a course could be found in various books or the internet but I generally find it worth my while attending a well chosen course. It can save months of sporadic research and in just a few hours you can be catapulted, armed with all the relevant information you need to get started on something immediately. I've found some courses at the Organic Centre, Rossinver to be excellent catalysts; Introduction to Beekeeping,  Herbal Medicine and Permaculture Design  have all been incredibly inspiring and groundbreaking  for me, with immediate results at home. Dan is all set to attend a course there next month 'Working With Horses', but that's another post.

Welcoming WWOOFers

First I'd like to thank everybody for their kind comments in response to my recent health scare on the previous post. I'm immeasurably grateful that I've been blessed with good health to carry on as usual with my family and life on the farm. I don't underestimate for a second how lucky I am and I intend to put my years on this planet to good use, so lets get cracking!

WWOOF is 'world wide opportunities on organic farms' and those who join as volunteers are affectionately referred to as Woofers. For the first time we have decided to join this scheme as a host farm. Hosts need not be organic certified, but they do need to work with the environment at heart and use organic or permaculture wherever it's practical. That means that volunteers can request to come and work here at Sallygardens with us. We will teach them what we know in terms of sustainable living as they work along side us each day and provide them with accommodation and food. In return they give us another pair of hands to hopefully help us get a few extra jobs done on the smallholding. It could work like a dream, or it could be a disaster! Time will tell and we enter into the scheme with realistic expectations, optimism and hope that friendships will be forged along the way.

Our aim here is to live sustainably by minimising our impact on the environment, and indeed hopefully enhancing the ecosystem in which we live rather than depleting or damaging it. As seasons go by we are embedding ourselves into the ecosystem around our farm and we strive to work within it, as part of it, keeping inputs from outside to a minimum and 'closing the loop' whenever possible so that energy within the farm is conserved on all levels. That energy includes the fuels we burn (home grown wood) but also energy in the soil and plant energy harnessed from the sun. Whatever excess or waste we produce gets put back into the system to maintain it ... kitchen scraps, human waste (humanure), animal manure, garden waste (from vegetables, lawns, etc) by composting and reapplying it to the land, or by feeding it to the animals we raise.

There is a never ending list of tasks to be done on the smallholding and a huge amount of possible projects which will span decades and hopefully pass to our children, and if not, some like minded land lovers. At all times of the year there are jobs that need doing, anything and everything from vegetable gardening, woodland management, wine making, hut building, sausage making, milking, harvesting, preserving, fencing, maintenance and renovations.

If anybody is interested in working with us, you'll find us listed along with many other inspiring hosts on the WWOOF Independents website with a preview of Irish listings here, we are host EIR290. It costs €30 for a host or volunteer to register.

At the moment we are eagerly anticipating the arrival or our first WWOOFers next week, Georgie and Oliver, who I had to postpone at short notice while waiting for my test results last week. Now all is well and we are really looking forward to welcoming them here at last.

Broody Hatches Her Eggs

Our Light Sussex hen hatched four of her five eggs a couple of days ago. Today they ventured outside for the first time and mother has been minding them proudly. Father has also been staying close by and keeping other interested parties in their place*! It hasn't all been good news though. Yesterday two of the chicks died. They must have wandered from the nest and couldn't find their way back in and mother hen was torn between keeping the two chicks still in her nest warm or following the other two around the shed. Perhaps we should have kept them all securely shut in the broody box for a couple of days. Sometimes these learning curves can be heartbreaking, especially for the children.

In the meantime one of our other two broody hens has been a bit silly. She got off her nest for a stroll and a feed which is perfectly normal and to be encouraged, but then sat back into the wrong box (empty with no eggs at all). By the time we noticed all her own eggs were stone cold. I don't know how long the eggs can be left unattended and remain viable, so we put her back in the right box and will hope for the best.

Life here has been on hold for a week or two recently. I found a lump in my breast and it's taken this long to have the relevant tests done, thank heavens I got the all clear on Thursday last. It's been an exhausting time and it will take a while to get back on my feet. I can't begin to explain the fear and heartbreak I felt at the thought of what might be about to happen to our family. The outcome could have been very different so I'm counting my blessings on a daily basis.

* 'interested parties'

Sallygardens Smallholding, Typepad Featured Blog

I'm really chuffed to be able to tell you that Typepad have featured this blog today. I'm delighted they picked me because I subscribe to their featured blogs page and really enjoy reading all their recommendations. It's a privilege to be up there, so thanks Typepad. I wonder if anybody who sees me wearing my Typepad Featured T-shirt will know what it means!!!

Fox Attack & Ruffled Feathers

When you first get chickens everybody tells you that the fox will get them. We've had ours for a couple of years now  without any bother from predators (except a visiting dog that killed five). For quite a while we were very lax, leaving the chicken house open the odd night. Then  friends of ours lost all their chickens to something and since then ours have been religiously shut in every night.

A couple of weeks ago we lost one of our red hens. She disappeared without a trace and we came to the conclusion that she must either have gone broody in the hedge with a secret clutch of eggs or a fox got her. It's well known that once a fox finds a stash of tasty hens he'll come back, usually every day, until they're all gone. Yesterday I was just beginning to believe that the red hen couldn't possibly have been taken by a fox because we'd had no problems since. Three other hens have gone broody in the chicken house and because it's the season for it I expected to see the red hen emerge triumphant from the undergrowth any day now with chicks at her side.

Dan and I had been visiting our goats this morning and enjoying a good hearty laugh at the frolics of their kids on the tin roof. We walked up the garden path and both heard a curious noise. It was very obviously from a chicken, but was nothing like any of the calls we'd heard before. We both stopped to listen, looked at each other, then Dan sprinted up the path to the chicken field gate. I ran behind him and we could both see a flash of red fur and the erect ears of a startled fox .... Dan started bellowing like a man possessed and he disappeared into the hedge after the fox thrashing and shouting, doing his best to give it a real scare. Our dog bolted after him barking on the scent and because I was feeling a bit left out of the action I began to shout and screech to hopefully add to the terror of the prowling fox!

Pumped with adrenaline we began counting the chickens. Two of the broodies were still sitting tight on their eggs, but the third broody had disappeared. Out of eight of our chicks we only found four.  The rooster was in a terrible state. He was in the chicken house desperately trying to fly up onto the perch bar, but he kept falling hard on his side and was unable to even flutter six inches off the ground. He kept repeatedly trying and falling, his mouth was gaping and he was gasping for breath. I closed the door so he could calm down but he was in severe shock and I knew we could lose him any moment.

In the meantime Dan had found a huge mound of feathers scattered right across the field. There were so many feathers over such a large area we came to the conclusion that they must have been the remains of the four missing chicks and the broody hen. As we made our way back up the field we saw something white next to a clump of grass. It turned out to be two trembling chicks, hunched down in a bid to hide themselves. We carried them up to the chicken house and they seemed unscathed but the rooster was stilling gasping for breath and now just lying on the ground.

We made immediate plans to fence off a large section of the field for the chickens to free range in safely. I went to start making lunch and thinking about how to break the news to the children and Dan began to clear brambles for a new fence. A few minutes later he came bounding in all smiles ... he had found the final two missing chicks and broody hen in the undergrowth, so all hens were accounted for.

The rooster got to his feet and made a timid appearance. He soon stood tall and began to patrol his patch. We spotted a bare patch of skin on his leg and rear ... it seems he put up an amazing fight with the fox to protect his girls and offspring and that all those feathers scattered across the field belonged to him. I'd like to reward him a medal and a special dinner.

So what seemed to be a predetermined miserable ending actually turned out well. There have been a few things ruffling our family feathers too lately, and I really hope that the chicken's happy ending is a good omen for us.

Country Wine, Chateaux Sallygardens

Wine making is something I've wanted to try for years and now that we grow the majority of our own food at home one of the biggest expenses on our tiny food bill is alcohol. The timing for having a go at this craft is perfect. It will reduce our expenses, utilise locally grown wild plants and cut down on all those air miles and energy that go into producing commercial wine. Of course, I'll still enjoy the odd bottle of Cabernet-Shiraz, St Emilion or Chateauxneuf Du Pape! The question is will our home brewed wine taste nice enough to replace our weekly bottle of bought red wine or will friends throw their eyes to heaven as we produce our dreaded liquid offering at dinner parties.  Time will tell.

I ordered a few glass demijohns, yeast and yeast nutrient  from The Homebrew Centre in Co Clare, who deliver nationwide and provide good advice if you seek it. Our wine won't be made from grapes, well at least not until the grape vines in the polytunnel are a few years old. I'm a believer in utilising what we find in our home environment and in this case we've decided to harvest a variety of seasonal flowers and berries from the surrounding fields to make our wines. There's a whole range of possible plant parts you can use to give flavour and colour to wine; dandelion, gorse, rose and elder flowers, blackberry and elderberry, even nettles, rose hips or birch tree sap can all be tried. During the summer there's usually at least one thing mother nature has on offer that you can pop into a brew. You can even try leaving out packet yeast, in the hope that wild yeasts will be there to do the business instead.

Our first attempt is a joint family effort. Dan and the children all picked a bucket full of dandelion blossom one sunny afternoon. A demijohn holds a gallon of liquid (4.5 litres) and you need to collect the same volume in blossom (berry or leaf). Place the blossom in a large pot and pour in a gallon of boiled water. Push the contents down into the water with a wooden spoon so nothing is floating dry on top. Leave the mixture to cool down to the temperature recommended on your particular packet of yeast (different strains of yeast flourish at different temperatures). Scoop out the flowers, squeezing them to release all the fluid. Enjoy the sweet aroma as you do this.

Stir in a 1.8 kilos of organic sugar, the juice of 4 lemons and a spoon of yeast nutrient. Stir well and then sprinkle the yeast on top of the liquid. After fifteen minutes stir the yeast down into the mixture. Pour the mixture through a sieve on a funnel and into the sterilised demijohn. Seal it with an air filter. As the yeast consumes the sugar and coverts it to alcohol, gas bubbles of carbon dioxide will exit through the water in the air filter. Once the yeast has stopped (a few months, depending on weather temperature) siphon off the mixture into wine bottles, leaving any sediment behind in the demijohn. Label the bottles, wait a few months or a year if you can bear it ... then drink at leisure.

I shall let you know how we rate our wine in a few months time.

Hanging Basket Tomatoes

Last year we grew eight tomato plants in the polytunnel and realised that you just can't ever have enough of them. This year we've made space for eighteen plants on the ground and having got the lust for home grown toms I decided to milk every possible available bit of space... including the air!  I'm experimenting with 'tumbling toms', a variety that's perfect for hanging baskets. There are two baskets in the polytunnel, each with three tumbling tom plants. I also have two hanging baskets beside the back door of the farmhouse and they contain sweet pea (for heady aroma), busy lizzy (because they were cheap at Lidl!), pot marigold (petals for salads), nasturium (again, salad leaves & flowers) and of course each basket also contains one 'tumbling tom'. It'll be interesting to see if the ones in the polytunnel do much better than those outdoors.

Last year we also grew several varieties but this year we only have two on the ground; Ailsa Craig and Gardeners Delight both grown from seed. There's a very good reason why these are the favourites of gardeners world wide and that reason is that the flavour is absolutely superb. So even if you live in an urban environment you can grow tomatoes in hanging baskets. They would be especially well on a south facing wall.

Raised Beds

The days this time of year are busy with sowing, planting and weeding. Growth is so sudden and prolific that it's hard to keep on top of it all and the choices for dinner expand by the day (just as time to spend cooking it diminishes!). Gone are the days of late winter when kale and chard were just beginning to fall out of favour and instead we are now spoiled for choice. Everything in the polytunnel is doing well. Melons, grape vines, strawberries, peach, mixed lettuce, chop suey greens, golden and red beetroot, broad beans, peas (pod, mange tout & sugar snap), french beans (purple & golden teepee), runner beans (Lady Di and Polestar), artichoke, chard, rocket, carrot, herbs, tomatoes, pepper, chilli, aubergine (black beauty), courgette and sweet corn are all coming along nicely. I did manage to kill off six lovely cucumber plants (paska and marketmore) by planting them out too early, the cold nights were too much for them so that's set me back a few weeks on one of my favourite vegetables.  I just couldn't help planting them even though I knew it was too early! One melon plant also copped it out of three, but luckily I've a couple of spares in a seed tray ready to take it's place. Having a few extra of each thing is a great insurance policy, then if they're not needed they come in as great birthday gifts ... just pop a selection of salads, or a couple of tomato or melon plants into a grow bag or even a hanging basket.

One thing I haven't really indulged in greatly are brassicas. We always have purple sprouting brocolli but this year I've tried my hand at a handful of cauliflowers, cabbage and calabrese. To accommodate these we've been working on a couple of new raised beds. With this extra outside space I'll also experiment with some swede, turnip and kohl rabi, parsnip and leek. Hopefully these things will mean we'll be providing ourselves with food during the winter this year too. It's all been a lot of hard work, but it's well for some ...

Divine Salami

A couple of months ago we began processing the meat from the two most recent weaners we raised for the table. Some of it went into Ox Runners (large intestine casings) to make our very first salami. We experimented with three recipes; plain, garlic and last but not least peppercorn, garlic & port. I was glad we had the comfort of our book which reassured us that the growth of white, blue and green furry mould was perfectly normal and indeed a very good sign.  We decided against using the preservative salpetre which keeps the meat artificially pink but also reduces the risk of botulism in air dried meats. It's something to read up on and to consider carefully before you embark on processing your own pork. Time ticked on and the salami hung tantalisingly in the wood shed to air dry.

Regular groping of the salami gives a crude indication as to when they're ready to sample. Finally, eight weeks later, the time had come to cut down the first salami. Before sampling the bounty the mould is wiped off with kitchen towel and the salami rolled in wood ash. And the moment we waited for .... sheer bliss.

Welcoming Our Newborn Kid Goats

The arrival of our two new kid goats didn't run quite as smoothly as it could have. In fact the whole thing was a bit of a trauma as a number of events took the wrong turn at every possible opportunity. It all started five months ago when the goats visited the billy, our first mistake was not writing the expected due date on the calendar immediately. A couple of months later we accepted a very special invitation to attend a baby welcoming ceremony for my best friends child. This event was to be very special as her arrival  into the world six months ago had put both herself and her mother at serious risk. With mother and child now thriving, celebrations were truly in order.  A couple of months later I counted up the days and realised that the goats due date was three days before the baby welcoming ceremony date. Pants.

I was certain that fate would be kind to us and that the goats would kid several days before we were due to leave, meaning we could be confident that both the mothers and kids were safe to be left with a carer to keep an eye on them. But, this was not to be the case! The morning we were due to leave one goat went into labour. Against our better judgement we set off with a great sense of trepidation. Their carer was great and she texted us five hours later to say two kids had been born with no complications and they were both up on their feet.

After seven hours of driving we reached our destination, the beautiful town of Kenmare in Co Kerry. We checked into the Hostel and found a great little pub for dinner. We chatted excitedly about the ceremony planned for the following day, and how we would then take a boat trip out to the Skellig Islands the day after, and before heading home we would stay in An Daingean (Dingle) to swim with Fungi the Dolphin. Spirits were high.

Then my mobile rang and it seemed that all was not well. The kids weren't yet suckling and they must do so within six hours of birth in order to ingest antibody rich colostrum. After six hours the ability to absorb the colostrum through the stomach and gut lining is lost and the kids then have no defence against illness. Their chances of survival would be minimal. She tried all the tricks in the book, including bottle feeding, but as the six hour deadline loomed and darkness fell their carer milked out some colostrum from Esme, loaded the kids into her car and took them to the vet for a tube feed.

At this stage Dan and I knew that we had made the wrong decision to leave our goats at such a crucial stage, so following a tearful phone call to my best friend to explain what was happening, we packed up and left Kenmare after only two hours! We arrived home at 2.30am and stayed up till 4am looking after the goats. At 8am I got up to check them and was delighted to witness the smaller doe suckling but the larger doe was still not managing it. Although she licked the udder she seemed to have no sucking reflex. I tube fed her again.  Tube feeding can get the vital colostrum into their system, but it's only an emergency solution. For a weak kid it can give them enough energy to get going and suckling, but having a full tummy also inhibits the sucking reflex ... vicious circle.

Happily a few hours later hunger kicked in again, and before the fine line of exhaustion took hold she finally managed to suckle. Exhausted we all breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed a good nights sleep.

Hatching Chicks

It's three weeks since the chicks emerged from their shells, you can watch one hatching on this video clip.

They come out all sticky with their fluff stuck to their skin but immediately begin to try standing up. A comical couple of hours follow as they dry off, fluff up and topple backwards and forwards on their little stick legs. They also begin to peck at the ground and soon find their sources of chick crumb and water. By the following day they are running about at high speed, preening their imaginary feathers, scratching the ground with their feet and nodding off for thirty second naps slumping to sleep in the most peculiar poses. After just a few days their true feathers begin to emerge at the tips of their stumpy little wings, and a few days later the tail feathers. The rate of growth is amazing, and so is their rate of consumption for that matter. A daily litter change, or sometimes more than that, is required to keep odours at bay! They now sleep for longer spells, all together, in a little heap.

They currently reside in a large box under a heat lamp in the spare bedroom. Their loud chirps and constant scratching and pecking sounds have become part of the household, but in only eight weeks or so they will be having their first ventures outdoors and will have to find their pecking order in with the rest of the flock.

You've Got To Be Kidding

Five months ago (151 days to be precise) our goats were covered by a billy. Yesterday was their due date but it's not unusual for a goat to go a few days before or after that. This week I've been out to the field every couple of hours to try and spot any signs of impending labour but as yet, nothing. I'm still not entirely sure if they are both in kid. I'm pretty sure I felt kids kicking in the belly of Esme but then again ruminants tend to have massive belly gurgling events as a matter of course, in fact it's a sign of good digestive health. The same goat is definitely 'bagging up' which means her udders are filling out, a sure sign that something is afoot.

Their shelter is ready with clean fresh hay, baby bottles just in case, some lubrication jelly, a pair of long plastic gloves and antiseptic for the umbilical cord wound ... with any luck I won't need most of it! I'm hoping to milk out a small jar of milk in the first few hours after the kids have had a feed. It contains antibody rich colostrum which is vital for their survival and must be ingested within hours of birth or the kids won't survive. Having a small amount in the freezer for emergencies is an indispensable  and wonderful insurance policy.

Right, I'm off out to check the goats again!

Fr Niall Molloy

Please take a moment to read this extract written by my cousin. If you feel compelled to encourage the path of justice, follow the link to sign the petition. On behalf of the family, thank you.

'In July 1985 Niall's body was found in the blood spattered bedroom of a friend's house in Clara Co.Offaly, Ireland. He lay beside an eight foot streak of his own blood, his face deeply cut. A priest who was first to be called to the scene, reported Niall's death to the Police & asked "Is there any way you can keep it quiet?". A man was eventually charged with his killing but the Judge WHO PERSONALLY KNEW BOTH NIALL and THE ACCUSED dismissed the case.

The judge in his ruling stated that Niall had Heart Disease (not borne out by the Autopsy) and it was possible Niall might have died from a heart attack. He said "It's a little bit unusual but not improper of me to say that no one intended any injury to be caused". THE INQUEST JURY CAME BACK WITH THE FOLLOWING; "It is the unanimous verdict of the jury that Fr. Niall Molloy died as a result of acute brain haemorrage consistent with having suffered a serious injury to the head".

In October 1988 Ian Maher sent two files to The Garda Commissioner in response to his request for new evidence. Both files contained medical opinions that Niall was left to die over a lengthy period of time. The Gardai to this day have taken no further action.The Family,Parishioners and Friends of Niall still want Justice to be done and a full Public Inquiry into the events surrounding his killing and the subsequent COVER- UP.'
Copied by kind permission of Bill Maher, Fr Niall Molloy Petition

Want to know more? I think we all do.

Wildflower Meadow

Last autumn we decided that we would try to replace part of our lawn with a wildflower meadow. Several reasons led to this decision. The garden already has plenty of lawn and keeping it mowed is a major undertaking particularly when there's so much other work to do on the smallholding. I also like the idea of reducing the area I mow due to the fuel that's consumed simply to keep nature under 'control'. So I thought, why not let nature run riot in a mass of colour that will attract plenty of wildlife and feed my bees with nectar for the hives. It will also provide a little hay for the goats as it needs cutting once a year after the flowers have set seed.

The first thing to do in order to convert an area to wildflower is to remove whatever's growing on it already. Enter pigs stage left. We put them on the front lawn for about a month when they first arrived and they did a good job turning it over. Three months later there was quite a lot of new growth grass sprouting up so we put the pigs back on the lawn, and being much bigger by then, they turned the lot over in less than two weeks. With a wildflower meadow less is more, it prefers a nutrient poor environment, which in practical terms meant any pig poo had to be removed daily and put in the compost.

The soil has laid fallow since October. It's clay and so digging it while wet is next to impossible. This week the soil has dried out quite a bit and so I've begun digging over a couple of meters a day and seeding it with a native wildflower mixture that I bought on-line. It's very hard work, perhaps it won't all get done this year!

I can't wait to see some of the widlflower seedlings begin to push through. Hopefully by the end of the summer, or perhaps next summer, I'll be able to show you the transformation from muddy slop to a meadow of flowers.

Interactive Food Map of Ireland

Paul O Mahony of Siopa Eile has launched the Interactive Food Map of Ireland. It's a brilliant idea for both producers and consumers. If you wish to locate an artisan made food product zoom into the area in question and click on the pointers to read contact information and product descriptions. Anybody can add or amend information on the map so if you are a producer go ahead and add your details, or if you know of a producer who isn't on the map please and add them. The success of the map depends on it's users adding information so don't be shy, jump in and help to make it a fantastic resource ... and don't worry you can't break it either!

What better way could there possibly be to start International Downshifting Week than to support a local food artisan in your area.

Spread the word. If you're an Irish blogger add the badge.

Now Its My Turn To Receive A Free Gift

I've been asked to review a Toyota SPA 15 ergonomic design sewing machine and afterwards I get to keep it.  This is going to fit in nicely with International Downshifting Week. How? Well instead of watching TV in the evenings I want to try and use up all those pieces of material I seem to have collected over the last few years. I'm going to start by making clothes for my children (mainly because they are the only recipients who would be delighted with my efforts!).

As well as various materials bought from bargain bins in fabric shops I've also got a variety of old clothes to cut up and remake into new garments. Another great source I've discovered are the sample books from interior design shops. Just call in and ask if you can have their out of season samples. They are only too happy to pass on their waste rather than pay to put it in the rubbish bin. Some of the pieces are really generously large and the smaller samples are perfect for various crafts, particularly quiltmaking or collage.