Wednesday 10 September 2014

Of harvest and lost horns

 hello Dear Frugellers                                                                                                                                                                    Before I ramble on with some random stuff I must say Hello to Pat on the Follower bar and Michelle, Kimberly and Aimee on Blog lovin. Glad to have you on board.

I also need to apologise to Beth as I gave her blog address wrong, So here it is again. Pop on over to see her great Hob Nobs recipe. She can be found at  "ten tiny toes and a button nose.blogspot" (thanks Helen for your help with this)
                                                                                                                                                                 It's been quite a few days again since I posted, but I am sure that many of you are like me with buckets of stuff coming from the garden to be processed. We can't move in the kitchen for buckets of apples, tomatoes, courgettes, beans and sweet corn. On Gardener's World the other night Monty Don was saying that harvest were 2 to 3 weeks early this year. The next day I went out to check my mid-seasons apples and... he's right! I picked several buckets of apples and even some of the Bramley's were ready.  I usually pick the Jonogolds (which are laden this year) in October/early November. I shall have to keep my eye on them. They are a good keeper and give us apples into February/March.

 We still haven't had time to jar all the honey and will need to put a day a side to get this done. I am pleased with how it is selling, something we haven't been too successful at before. Most of our sales have been to people who have asthma and believe that local untreated honey will help them. This year we have kept the honey from each hive in separate buckets as we have extracted it. Each of our hives is numbered, which helps us to keep accurate records. As we have jarred from each bucket we have put the number of the hive on the jar label. Our honey customers have this pointed out to them when they buy a jar and we have taken to saying "This honey is from Hive No. ... Would you like to view that hive?" Not one person has said No and have been excited and happy to look at the hives!

 When I was picking apples the other day I looked through the orchard fence into the field and saw something bright red moving about..On closer inspection I realised that it was Adam the sheep covered in blood!. I scrambled down from the ladders and ran into the field. Poor Adam had lost most of one of his horns. It was shorn off about an inch from his head and blood was allover his face and chest. it had obviously happened some time before as the bleeding had stopped.We cleaned him up and set about drying the wound. the biggest problem was the flies, who saw an opportunity to lay eggs in an attractive place and were bothering him. We have been seeing to him several times a day and it is all completely dried up now and looking clean and tidy. We still haven't found his horn though!

D. has been spending much of each day re-building the dry stone wall between ourselves and next door. Dry stone is not exactly accurate as he is using quite a bit of concrete too. The main reason for this is that the wall was breached some while back by the neighbours' bull, who fancied the fresh grass clippings on the compost heap. Even the best of stone walls get be pushed over by a determined bull. So D. is talking no chances and firming up the wall as he re-builds

I have just realised that it is gone midnight and I'm tapping away here as though I don't have to be up tomorrow.
So I will return tomorrow and tell you about our new chickens and what else has been going on here in deepest Derbyshire
Good Night All
Gill x



19 comments:

  1. Poor Adam!
    Hope he continues to do well!
    So glad you have all those goods to put back for the winter!
    What a blessing!
    I enjoy your blog, have missed a bit of it here and there though,
    Working outside myself

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    1. it gets pretty busy this time of year, but we don't grow it to waste it do we? And isn't it a good feeling looking at all those jars, bucket and trays stashed away for winter?

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  2. I hope I'm still allowed to comment here after my dreadful remark about Derbyshire, but it WAS aimed at one particularly nasty internet troll who sadly hails from your way!

    I'm pleased to see the mention of Jonagold. I planted one two years ago, and it now has 3 apples which I shall pick (and eat) today. The Chestnuts have just started falling here, so I shall boil, peel, and freeze a load today.

    Poor Adam, I hope he's OK.

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    1. Goodness a troll! Iv'e never had one of those. I guess they come with success, so I'll probably never have to worry! I can't understand what makes people so nasty.
      Re. the Jonogold, they have little taste when first picked, but ripen over the weeks to a fine flavour. If left too long they can get a bit dry. A useful late apple though.
      Gill

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    2. As I suggested, I was going to pick my 3 fruits, but they wanted to hang-on so I left them.

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  3. Never know this might interest you a dear friend of mine is heading your way...talk about sheep/wool ... here it's what he posted on Ravelry.
    Hi everyone, just to let our Northern based Members know that I will be coming up to lovely Derbyshire on Thursday 25th September. The venue is, The Red Lion Inn, Stanedge, Nr Chesterfield, Derbyshire. I am due to start my talk at 7.45pm and will take about an hour, plus a question and answer session.

    It is being held by the Derbyshire Smallholders Association, and I believe that if any of our Group Members would like to come along, that will be fine !

    Best wishes, Rob.

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    1. yes, I'm a member of The Derbyshire Smallholders so do know about this talk. I have another engagement that night, which I am trying to get out of so that I can attend. If I do I will introduce myself!
      Hope you have found a recipe or two that you can use in your Girl Called Jack book.

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    2. His name is Rob Harvey Long, the talk will be about sheep and wool (I did spun and knit some for him) go ahead and introduce yourself, he is a good friend tell him I'm sending you ;)
      If you check my blog Ohlalalaine you can see how I processed my fleece last year and some of my knittings.
      I absolutely love the book and use it, it's very handy when running out of ideas.

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    3. Rob just posted this:
      IMPORTANT NOTICE
      -------------------
      CHANGE OF VENUE FOR MY TALK ON ” The History of Wool”.

      It will now be held at ” THE BLACK SWAN”, ASHOVER, DERBYSHIRE, NO DATE CHANGE, Thursday 25th September, 2014, at 7.45pm.

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  4. I wonder what happened to Adams horn, I know now how important sturdy boundrys are, yesterday we had a herd of ponies breach the bottom fence it was mayhem, all repaired again now. :-) we havenyt taken a honey harvest this year after splitting hives and moving I have left them to build up plenty of reserves next year I will look to start harvesting again.

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    1. You do right to take your time with your bees. So many people take honey and leave nothing for the bees and think that sugar syrup will do. I'm betting we come across his horn when vegatation dies back in winter.

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  5. Animals, like children, are a constant source of worry, excitement and pleasure, not to mention love. I hope that Adam recovers from his ordeal. I miss my garden at the moment although I do not miss the work, I have so much time to sew and read and generally relax.

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    Replies
    1. Adam seems completely unfazed by his ordeal. I shall take a picture of him to post.
      Soon the gardens will take a little less time and I shall get my sewing machine and paint brushes out.

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  6. You sound pretty busy ( understatement!) Animals with horns are easier to catch hold of but you never know when they will get caught up . We always got goat kids disbudded and most of the sheep we had were Ryeland and hornless. Whats that saying? Good boundaries make good neighbours or something like that. I hope no one was in the way when the bull came through - scary!

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    1. We have never had a horned sheep before,, and like you always disbudded our goats.
      You are so right about boundries. I was in the garden about twelve feet away when he crashed in and climbed onto the compost heap, making him look even bigger as he was five feet up!. For what seemed hours(seconds) I stood completely still while I sized up his move. I then quietly called D. over to help me shoo him away.

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  7. Reading about all the work you have to do I am astonished that you are blogging at all. Our friends have bees and sell their honey at the gate - honesty box - so far nobody has taken advantage.

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    1. same here. have never had money taken and people have always paid for what they have had. Somehwow it seems more of a risk when the amounts are so much bigger than for, say, a bag of apples, but so far so good!

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  8. Oh dear poor Adam, I wonder what happened! You are always so busy freezing and preserving lots of your lovely produce and working round the house and smallholding I dont know how you find time to blog! Its lovely to read your posts though and hear about the goings on. Well done with honey, hope the sales continue. X

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  9. Thanks, if you saw the state of my house though you would see what I should be doing instead of blogging!

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