Damn The Broccoli

When I was a lad

2012-01-15T19:07:00.000Z

I promised myself I would never use that phrase.

Trouble is the world moves on so fast these days, and a Neoluddite like myself barely has chance to smash the Spinning Jenny, burn the rolling Rosalind or Destroy the going up and down a bit and then moving along Gertrude, a raft of new inventions and things has come along.

I am not actually a technophobe, in fact quite the opposite. In keeping with my contradictory nature whilst I am trying to simplify and minimise my reliance on electricity and gadgetry, I love my computer and the knowledge available through it and I won't give up my home cinema for love nor money. However there is a balance.

I don't need a special electric device that reseals plastic food bags, or a toothbrush that needs batteries.

But this week I had a wake up to call to the steady march of technology. The old idiot box got me thinking again. If you have recently parted with some hard earned to buy yourself a new LCD telly chances are it cost you a few hundred pounds and at 1080 might look quite nice too. Trouble is it is outdated technology. The new films are being made a 4000 and that makes your telly particularly low res. The advent of 3D technologies as well threatens your state of the art box, and the race is on to launch smart TV. Keep an eye on Apple, this is their next biggy.

But this wasn't the wake up call.

I was reading an article and it contained the phrase 'e-baby'.

Now this isn't the latest kids telly channel or the on line site to buy a foreign kid. No this is something much more decimating.

This year the first generation of children will enter adulthood (ie 18) that we born in a world that always had the world wide web.

Yep, in 1994 CERN decided that the WWW should really be WW and free. By 1996 the web was being used commercially and gaining speed, even with the old HTML 1.0.

18 years, I have been using the Internet for 16 of those. These things shouldn't surprise me, I have a 10 year old daughter. But it seems I age in decades. I bumble along being the same age for years, never considering things and then suddenly one of these soundbites comes along and drops a metaphorical piano on my youthfulness.

Whereas undoubtedly the www and the Internet will prove to have been the most significant invention of my lifetime, there have been so many other things that have happened in the 37.5 years I have graced this planet.

I feel this one deserves a soundtrack so fire it up and read on.

I was born in a world that still had a cold war, we had 2.5 TV channels and 2 Germany's. Windows were for looking out of, in fact Windows was 11 years away in 1974. Cd's were called records and were anything but portable. Apples were for eating, the other only came along in 1984, and 28 years later you've gotta wonder if there is an Orwellian synchronicity at play there given how ubiquitous Apple products are. You could walk around without being caught on camera. We didn't have a telephone, and only had one TV, the remote control was the youngest child or the person nearest to it.

The eighties finally gave us computers that could be used at home, not the ZX 81 but a PC. However the early ones had to boot up from a floppy disk each time you used them. Speaking of floppy disks, they came along in the early 70's but many years ago a game called elite put the entire universe on one floppy disk, these days an average word document would not go on one.

Nobody knew what a Google was, now it is a verb. We didn't yet have videos, now they are obsolete. In fact I am not even sure my daughter knows what they are. Their replacement, the DVD has already been usurped by BluRay and in turn streaming video gives this a very short life span. We have ipods, ipads, iphones and a host of clone devices that mean we are never out of contact. Back then a mobile phone was a ten pence piece and you had to chance it. When mobiles came along in the 80's the Yuppies used them to spread the word of Corporate Greed which also came along about the same time. They were like briefcases and signal was a very great problem.

Digital photography was first invented by Kodak in the mid seventies but it would be fully 25 years before they became commercially interesting, and then phones had to have them. Modern mobiles have cameras of up to 10mega pixels. This pushes the low end of the digital SLRs that professionals use and the camera phone has made the digital camera near obsolete as well as the photojournalist.

Only birds Tweeted and only lights Flickered. YouTube was unimaginable, now here you sit listening along to it.

Television was 2.5 channels, BBC1 ITV and BBC2 which turned off for a bit. None of them ran 24 hours, they all closed down about 11.30 with the national anthem. Channel 4 tuned in for the first time in 1982 but didn't broadcast all day, in fact it used to turn on at 4.45 each day with Countdown.

The height of gaming technology was a small incomplete yellow circle.

We didn't have teleportation, artificial hearts or contact lenses, all of these things now exist in various states. Robot workers became the modern printing press and put hundreds out of work particularly in car plants.

We had the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. We didn't have the Channel Tunnel or the Euro, although the later may not be around much longer because of that lovely Corporate Greed the Yuppies gave us.

You could drive down the M1 and be the only car on it, in fact you could stop and have a picnic if you wanted to. we didn't have four cars on every drive in a city with excellent transport links.

I was born in a world that didn't have 'merchandising' (but only just), now shops are filled with tat that is the next must have thing.

My mum and my Gran both darned, this is now a skill akin to sorcery in terms of trying to learn it!

We still had an industry, although there is still a great deal of manufacturing in this country it is increasingly specialised. We rely on our 'neighbours' in the far east for nearly everything.

Genetic engineering was done the hard way, in 1973 the first bacteria was produced, so just before me but it would still be some time before commercial uptake. Sheep looked alike because that was how nature intended them, not because they were cloned.

The space shuttle launched and has been mothballed in my lifetime, also hundreds of satellites spitting communications data across the heavens.

The population reached 5 billion, and then reached 6 billion. And now approaches 7 billion. Although latest data indicates the birth rate is slowing somewhat as people are waiting longer in the developed world to have children. Of course we are looking to the 'Undeveloped' world now to furnish us with consumers.

That's how much I can remember changing. I've looked up a few dates but I remember all these sort of things. There are still some things I'm waiting for. The hover car hasn't appeared yet but it is only a matter of time.

My point is so many things are changing, not all of them bad it has to be said. But do you really need a telly that is watching you and making sure it targets what it wants you to see? Does a kettle really need to tell you the water temperature? From science I reckon it should be between 0 degrees or 100 degrees depending on what you are wanting it for. That doesn't require an LCD.

Of course over the same span we have LEDs which will be the future of lighting efficiency. Solar Technology has moved on in light years quite literally and there are other exciting developments in the

energy field but this is definitely a Damocles number if you ask me.

I don't fear change, I don't have issues with it at all. I just don't think it is always necessary, but people

generally don't seem to think like this. We are told we need something and like those sheep we flock to buy it.

Corny as this has been, and much as you might hate it, stop and come up with your own list of things. Then think about what they have done to the world. Would it be any worse if they hadn't come along?

In most cases I reckon not.

So why the delay then?

2011-12-08T20:38:00.000Z

Well as mentioned in me previous posting, there's been some organising to do. What with impending nuptials coming up and trying to make the Good Life both Good and a Life which isn't as easy as it seems.

There is major upheaval in the garden at the moment which in finest tradition I haven't thought to photograph so I will take a few in progress shots and blog about that later.

But to the wedding. I know my readership is largely female which may or may not say something about me (it's the beard, chicks dig the beard!) so I am sure this will be a period of interest for you all.

We are trying to have our wedding as cheap as humanly possible whilst still maintaining a level of acceptability. I am divorced, my previous wedding cost about £150 as we disappeared of to Gretna. This did not meet with a lot of approval it has to be said so something greater is needed.

Also I have to think about m'Lady. Whereas I would happily do the same again she would like something a bit more weddingy.

I have a few issues though as after having a baby, getting married is probably the singularly most wasteful thing people will do in there life. I am not talking about something bad here, just the amount of money/materials that are wasted. Seriously, how many mums do you know who shop in charity shops or put their kids in hand me downs? I know people who got new Silver Cross prams for each child they had. In contrast my daughter was the sixth member of our family to use the same highchair, one I managed to fall out of when I was young.

Given the amounts of money I have seen thrown at weddings it does make me a bit apprehensive of the whole process.

But m'Lady is amazing and thoroughly on my wavelength which is probably why we are getting hitched.

Neither of us want something lavish, in fact we are trying to do something as low key and traditional as possible. More details will follow on this but lets get to the important bit.

Alcohol.*

I envisage a few beverages being drunk that day and this comes with quite an impact to the environment. A lot of wine is transported in bottles which is hugely weighty and fuel heavy. Stuff that comes from outside Europe is often bulk transported in huge tanks then dispensed into bottles here but that comes with a few problems. Firstly it is outside Europe so lots of drink miles. There is often a huge plastic tank to dispose of as some are shipped in plastic containers, more oil consumption. Air is the enemy of wine. Decanting is a delicate process, otherwise the wine can go stale or vinegary. To compensate chemicals are often added often with their own carbon/fule footprint.

So I want something a bit better. Well for some wine, we have enlisted the help of a few CSA members down at Swillington who are keen home brewers. So lots of local hedgerow wines then. For something a little more regular, we are lucky enough in Leeds to have the most northerly vineyard within the city boundary! They are a little pricey but the are about half a mile from the venue, how much more local can you get.

As I keen Home Brewer I am making a lot of stuff myself. I intend to make a decent amount of beer but before that we had september.

September is typically cider month. English apples are readily available and I had access to plenty this year.

Now for good solid instructions go read Murphyfish makes cider as his instructions are great and he is very thorough.

I am less so it has to be said. I see too much cleaning as a waste of water and unnecessary chemicals. Keep in mind we discovered alcohol as a means of sterilising...

So I made a batch for home, well I aren't letting all the Mad Apple Juice leave the house after all, I am quite fond of a bottle. This turned out to be around 8.5 % abv.

You may have seen this before and wondered what it means. It is literally Alcohol By Volume and is the percentage of alcohol in the liquid in the bottle. Simple. Calculating it is a different matter! But it is relatively straight forward if you know the gravity readings, but I'll come to that as it gets important later on.

So first thing give everything a quick wash down. Then it's a matter of chopping up everything and putting it through a masterchef to chop it into little iddy biddy apple chunks. These are then put through a press and the juice is squeezed out and collected. The process is very simple and straight forward but very time consuming and labour intensive without a scratter and a large press.

So after three 5 hour nights, we had pressed all out apples and set them fermenting, waited a bit bottled it up and it's in the cupboard of alcoholly goodness upstairs again.

Then I went and got more apples and started making some more. It was at this point a friend mentioned I might not want to be serving 8.5% cider to my family and friends as he put, "We can drink it, can they?"

Not knowing the answer to this and not wanting to risk an apple induced riot, I decided making it weaker might be a handy thing. This is not easy, again we will come to this.

So the process begins again, mash apples down into little bits however you can. Too small and you can end up with pulp in your juice, too big and you can't get enough juice out of them, so there is a bit of playing around here. Some people take the cores out of the apples, I don't, the juice gets strained as it leaves the press and everything is fine. Some people put their chopped apples into water with a small amount of lemon juice in them, this stops them going brown. I don't.

Having got everything mashed and juiced, I put 18 litres of juice in a tub. At this point I add some pectolase and a campden tablet or two. Pectolase is the enzyme that breaks down pectin. Adding this stops the cider turning too brown. The campden tablet kills any natural yeast that might be present. Any yeast will start fermenting, even bakers yeast. However the quality and result vary wildly so it is better to stop unwanted fermentation and use a known factor like proper brewers yeast. Again some people choose a specific yeast for Cider, I don't. Ordinary brewers stuff is fine so long as it is strong enough to survive at higher alcohol strengths.

So leave it a day or two after adding the campden tablets for them to do their work and disperse, then add the yeast. If you do this straight after the tablets, then they kill this yeast as well see?

Just before the yeast goes in I draw off a small amount of liquid and using a device called a hydrometer I take a gravity reading. A hydrometer is nothing more than a glass bubble that floats in the liquid. It has a calibrated scale on it and will float at different levels depending on the density of the liquid.

Initially the density of the liquid is high, due to the sugar content, my original reading was 1056 which will finish up somewhere above 8% when fermentation has finished. To calculate ABV you take a final gravity reading when fermentation has completed and use the following calculation to figure it out.

(original gravity-final gravity)/7.46 = ABV

I know once fermented the FG will be around 1000 and all the sugar will have gone.

This is where problems occur, to achieve a weaker cider I can take regular gravity readings and kill the yeast at the reading that would calculate out to my desired alcohol level. But this leaves a lot of sugar behind which can occasionally start fermenting again over time (it's really hard to make sure no yeast is present when you are transferring things, it's one of the most common organisms on the planet, is on nearly everything including you and is even occasionally present in the air) which we don't want.

You can if you don't have enough room, brew this down to 8% and then dilute the strong cider however this is prone to issues caused be oxygen. These can be over come but it is tricky to do, involves boiling water first and then cooling it quickly and adding it carefully to the cider. Too risky, I need these bottles to be drinkable in a years time. Cider will keep up to about 18 months to two years. You can buy vintage ciders, some people reckon you should drink the last of last years cider as you make this years. This to me means a period of no cider which isn't a pleasing thought, although in truth ours didn't last to see this tradition this year! Om nom nom is all I am saying...

Back to track anyway, my best option was to figure out the dilution ration before hand. That is dilute the raw apple juice enough to lower the density and therefore Original Gravity to a level that will give me a more palatable strength.

I decided on around 4.5% as a decent brew that won't blow everyone away.

So here is the clever bit..

Original Gravity X Original Fluid Volume = Desired Orignal Gravity x New Volume

To find the desired original gravity I simply transpose the calculation to figure out an abv of 4.5 and bob this in to the above.

So...

(OG x OFV)/DOG= New Volume.

The difference between the new volume and the original volume is how much cold water I need to add at this point to give me the desired outcome. Robert is as they say your mother's sister's husband.

That all looks a little bit brain hurty and it can take some getting your head round but it works.

My numbers came up with add 10 litres. So then add the water and bung in some yeast. Leave it somewhere warm and preferably dark and don't interfere with it too much. You can give it the odd gentle stir to keep the yeast dispersed in the fluid, I don't. I've found the bubbling of the yeast leads to it self stirring and thats enough for me. After a week or so it should have finished fermenting. This is variable depending on many factors, the way I tell is to watch the little airlock I attached to the barrel and see if it is bubbling. If it doesn't I will take my gravity reading, anything above 1010 would concern me. Mine was down at 1000 exactly on target.

At this point I sterilise another barrel and put half a teaspoon (proper measuring one) of sugar in the bottom for each half litre. This is for priming the bottles. This sugar will start a secondary fermentation in the bottles that will lead to the production of CO2 and some more alcohol. You don't have to prime but if you don't you won't get fizz unless you use some carbonation method. If you do prime, you need to add 0.5% to you abv for good measure. I had already accounted for this in my 4.5% because I am a clever bugger.

Some people prime each bottle individually but having tried this I found it tricky, time consuming and the results were hit an miss. One bottle would fizz everywhere and the next wouldn't fizz at all!

So I batch prime as above, half a teaspoon or 6 grammes of sugar per half litre of cider. I also added some non fermenting sugars to the barrel at this point to bring the sweetness up again. My cider is very tart. It makes your lips recede in a way Canute would never manage and you walk around looking like Esther Rantzen for the rest of the day. This is not everyone's taste so I sweetened it a little bit to take the edge off it. Using a non fermenting sugar means this will not turn into extra alcohol and gas.

Then syphon the cider into this barrel, you can pour it in, or scoop a jug out at a time into this barrel but again this can all cause unwanted oxygen to get in. I syphon and the flow conveniently stirs everything up for me as well. Once all the liquid is transfered off the yeasty sludge in the bottom of the original barrel, I give it a gentle stir to make sure everything is mixed and then syphon it into bottles and cap it. It's important to use bottles that are designed to take pressure. Lager bottles are ideal but tend to be a little small. If you have bottles that have contained cider already these are also fine. I prefer Grolsh bottles as the top is reusable so long as it is cleaned. Failing that I have plenty of real ale bottles. These tend to be around a pint and are generally bottle conditioned therefore strong enough for the process. Some ale bottles are not thick enough to take the secondary fermentation process and will explode under pressure.

At a push you can use plastic pop bottles but be warned, plastic is much harder to sterilise well so more chemicals are needed. To me cider should be as natural as possible.

So for all my effort what to I have to show for it?

54 bottles of 4.5% cider all prepared for september next year. These are now safely put away with the other 60 bottles I made for us. They are of course clearly labelled by writing the ABV on top so I don't get them mixed up.

Like I said, clever bugger me.

So there you go, this accounted for around 3 weeks in total of the time I have been absent. This includes picking and processing the apples and the cleaning involved. Apologies for how long this one has been, and the presence of gratuitous maths. Right m'Lady has just removed cake from the oven so I am going to sign out and go and get some.

*Just joking m'Lady

Catching up...

2011-11-07T17:52:00.000Z

Well it has been a while then hasn't it.

I really hadn't realised how long it has been until I sat down the other day and found a comment in my inbox.

There are a few reasons why it has been so long, much has been happening up at Broccoli acres (acres! I wish but Broccoli Square Feet just doesn't have that snap).

Summer was blighted with the ultimate failing of the old mac. It was second hand, quite old and not very well. I had brought it back from the brink once with some cunningness on my part that was almost weasel like, but this one was beyond me. So that glorious fleabay came up trumps again with a cheap laptop until we can afford a grown up mac again. They do hold their value sadly.

Getting back on line there was a lot to sort out with one thing and another and also I wanted to get a couple of designs sorted out for the t shirt thing.

Then the was the recent addition to the collective and the promotion for m'Lady.

Now as a species we are particularly blinkered, we tend not to notice things. This isn't a criticism as it comes to us all. How many of you come here regularly? How many of you noticed a change a few months ago?

Anyone? If not go and have a look at the top of the page, I'll be here waiting for you...

...right welcome back.

So we got a kitten, and as soon as I can dig out a piccy of her I will pop it up for you. Her name is Willow which is a common name around these parts, wasn't copying Murphy honest! No her name comes from the tree which provides me with the raw material to weave things.

The thing I wove was quite special, did you notice the other bit? Is anyone sat there thinking what is he blathering on about? I wove an engagement ring so m'Lady is now the Fiancee. It was about time, the Daughter had been asking for months, and even a few friends were questioning me. As it happens I had also been thinking about it but trying to find the way to do it wasn't easy.

We had a pretty special first date, we met online got chatting, got on and arranged to meet. The day was capped off with a kiss on top of Lincoln Castle as a thunderstorm rumbled in from the north. Pretty special like I said.

The trouble I had is we aren't often apart. We aren't really go outy people, we tend to like sitting at home and watching a film or two. We also work at the same place so I couldn't easily slip away without being undetected. I also had a few ideas of what I wanted to do but orchestrating it wasn't going to be easy.

However then I got my chance unexpectedly, a friend of a friend had some kittens to give away. they had got rid of all but two of them, and then gave these two to my friend saying 'You'll know someone who will want one.' They kept one and the other was up for grabs. At the same time m'Lady was going up to Woolfest at the weekend (this puts us back in late June), which gave me an opening and ideas formed.

I just had to get a kitten home get all the necessary paraphernalia and sort a ring in less than 10 hours!

Easy.

In the evening, cuppa finished and mother in law to be cleared out, it was a simple matter of dropping the little fuzzball in m'Lady's lap with the ring tied round her neck and a simple note saying will you marry him. Had to clarify just in case she thought the kitten was proposing, you know how it is. Also I figured it would be really hard for her to say no if I made the kitten part of the deal! Clever I am see.

So that was the big bit. There has been a lot of planning after that, which throws me a problem. Weddings by their nature these days are hideously wasteful expensive affairs. Possible the only thing more wasteful and expensive is a baby. So how to have a wedding that fits in with our low impact ideals?

Well that one is going to be the subject of a future blog when we have a few things sorted, it will also explain further reasons for absence.

As will a further post about the garden.

Long term readers will have noticed that there has been no updating about the harvest this year, basically because there hasn't been one. I lost my way at the beginning of the year, one or two things then went wrong and I never really got into it again. However the last month has seen some major progress along these lines and again that will be an upcoming blog.

So peeps, thanks for hanging around, those who have. That is a mini catch up and there is more to come.

One last note, we managed to hold of till November with the heating this year. Quite chuffed although it is on now as you should never be able to see your breathe inside a house! Also we have a real problem of acclimatisation. That is m'Lady and I are both naturally warm people so we tolerate the cold really well. Last year the heating only came on if the house was below 15 degrees unless we had guests or the Daughter who is a bit of a wuss. This means that when it gets warmer than about 17 degrees we suffer quite quickly with over heating. This year I have decided that I don't want to spend mos of the year uncomfortably warm so the winter heating is not going to get us to a point where that is likely.

In a few years the Daughter will be old enough to be told, tough put a jumper on!

TTFN

DtB

Hi All

2011-11-02T18:29:00.003Z

Hi guys,
Just realised how long it has been since a post. Far too is the answer to that one.

And this isn't really one either, well it is but not a great in depth affair, unless I go on like usual, oh you know what I mean.

Anyway life has been very hectic these last 4 (eep!) months and I have loads to tell you all when I finally get a minute.

Take care for now if anyone is still watching!

Thought I would share.

2011-06-23T08:32:00.000+01:00

My day started with me reading about fisting sheep.

Clearly there is more to this self sufficiency thing than I originally thought!

Not where I thought I would be at this stage in my life I have to tell you.

Feeling a little dirty.

2011-06-14T20:47:00.001+01:00

Well time came to finally put this one out there and get things straight.

I have been absent an awful lot lately, and my garden languishes for several reasons, but one of them is as follows.

I have for years, doodled and designed, I have come up with witticisms to challenged Wilde himself. I have pitched ideas to people and they have found them to be worthy. I have wanted them on t shirts.

Therein comes the rub though, one of the few talents I possess is hardly usable as to do so I have to tap into a market that I am trying to rail against. This is possibly one of the single biggest decisions I have made in adult life. Don't get me wrong there have been some other doozies. Should I leave my wife, should I have that last slice of pizza etc, the list is endless.

But this is the throwing away of a core part of my being. It is whoring myself to the world I detest so much.

But then I think, no matter what I do people are still buying cards and t shirts. My ranting hasn't stopped this and doesn't do anything to help me achieve my goal. If people are parting with their money, then instead of all that money going to some nameless corporation how about a little bit of it comes my way and goes in my dream fund. Then the money these people spend on fripperies and trifles enables me to reach my goal of self sufficiency rather than someone else's goal of getting a big yacht.

This argument sounds flimsy to even my ears, but my only other option is to let my ideas go to waste and never see the light of day.

So I have launched a Cafe Press shop to showcase my wares. You can get to it from that link or click the little piggy that has appeared in the top left of my blog. You can also add the button link to your blog if you wanted. There is another little box has appeared on the left with the code you need to copy and paste where you want it.

If you fancied doing a bit of advertising for me I wouldn't complain, there is absolutely nothing in it for you except a little bit of good feeling and just maybe a glass of home brew if we ever meet up.

I also have a blog running now alongside the shop which can be found at http://theblackpigshop.blogspot.com if you want to check it out.

At the moment there are only a few t shirts up there but I have loads of ideas and scant time to get them done, so keep checking back for updates.

Cheers

Why I have been absent.

2011-06-03T19:31:00.001+01:00

Well if this works it would be ace!

This is the reason I haven't been on line much. Between learning, recording and trying to figure out how the hell to get this in the blog well.

It should sound like this...

I wish.

Syzygy the sequel.

2011-06-02T21:50:00.000+01:00

Well this is the two hundredth post for me and by a great coincidence it happens to coincide (as coincidences are wont to do) with our 400th egg.

Given we only have three at the moment I cannot complain with the 19 eggs a week they are averaging.

So lets hear it for the girls.

In appreciation of.

2011-06-02T21:49:00.000+01:00

I wanted to post something a couple of weeks ago but knew I had this coming up so thought I would hang on.

About a fortnight ago it was Nettle Week. Now these days it seems every last unmemorable occasion or worthless cause can have an awareness week and to be honest I am as jaded as a big lump of jade when it comes to them. So there are Marigolds in Botswana? Woop de bloody do.

But Nettles really come into my world. They are the unloved, the forgotten, the downtrodden and so often these days, down right destroyed.

I love nettles. They are amazing plants. They do pretty much everything.

Well alright not everything, but they provide vital habitation for several species of butterfly, they are home to one of the earliest appearing aphids which means they are the breeding ground of Ladybirds. They make excellent compost and mulch. They can be used as a dye, a food and a tea. They make excellent liquid plant feed. They have been linked to possible cures or remedies for arthritis. The list is endless. And we kill and poison them and get rid because they look a little unsightly, they take over a bit and they have that stingy thing going on.

Well a few weeks ago I found a new use for them, one that will hopefully prickle the minds of one or two of you at least.

Nettle Beer.

I feel an instructable coming on.

For Nettle Beer you will need:

100 stalks of nettles with leaves.

12 litres of water.

1500g (3lb) of sugar.

50g (2 oz) cream of tartar.

15-20g yeast (1/2 to 3/4 oz)

You will need a big pan for this, and also bottles that can resist pressure. Something like a grolsch bottle or at a push a 2 litre lemonade bottle.

Remove any dirt and roots. I cut my nettles with some hedge clippers so took no roots in the first place.

Then wash them in a convenient bath.

Then with a pair of secateurs I chopped them up into iddy biddy little pieces and popped them in a pan.

This is our 15 litre pressure canner, that gets used for everything else.

I then added 12 litres of boiling water. To do this I boiled the kettle and added it to the pan and repeated until I had boiled enough water. At the same time I had the stove on to keep the pan boiling. The method recommends boiling for 30 mins, but by the time I had got all the water boiled they had had 20 mins anyway so I just gave them another 15 to be safe.

I then put the sugar and the cream of tartar in a large brew bucket and strained the liquid into it. Here I have a piece of cotton cloth in the colander to make sure I get all the gritty bits out.

At this point the liquid needs to cool quite a lot before the yeast can go in. Much above 30 degrees will kill the yeast, or seriously impair its ability. This took a couple of hours to cool.

Just before I added the yeast I took a gravity reading. The final alcohol content can be calculated if you know the original gravity and the final gravity. Here the original is about 1050, assuming it finishes out at 1010 then this brew should be somewhere just shy of 6%.

I added the yeast and put the lid on the bucket and put in an airlock. Within about 30 mins this bugger was off and bubbling so this is quite a quick brew.

Leave it to ferment for 4 days, then comes bottling. Before you start, skim off any scum on the surface you can and try not to disturb the sediment at the bottom unless you like it yeasty. I took another reading here and it was still at 1020 which meant it had a way to go to finish and to be honest I think that is too much.

I have spent some time each night opening the bottles to let them de-pressurise as I don't want them blowing up. I think in future I will check it is around 1010 before bottling.

The recipe I have calls for it to be chilled at this point for at least a week but I simply have nowhere to put 12 litres of Nettle pop. Which looks like this.

So then comes the moment of truth, trying it.

Now as I depressurised this one earlier there is not much head on it but it has indeed settled to about 1010 which is fab. The rest should hold a nice little head with a bit of luck. It doesn't taste too yucky either!

Somewhere between Cider and Lager, not my usual tipple but any port in a storm. I had to fight the urge to put a splash of black currant in it.

Needless to say, when handling the nettles wear gloves. Be careful with that much boiling water and DO NOT USE bottles that will not take pressure. This is likely to blow them apart!

The reason I really like this Beer is it is good and quick, it brews in a week, it only matures for a week and you have to drink it in four weeks ideally. It will keep longer but after about 8 weeks it will be going to vinegar. This speed makes it ideal for putting on when I have another batch of ale that needs to sit four weeks but doesn't get chance due to me drinking it early thus losing out on a good brew.

In future I will get a nettle beer on first to make sure I can wait!

It's also always nice to do something full process. The real ale stuff is okay but is not as ecological as I would like. When I can sparge my own hops then that will be the ticket, for now this'll do.

I want some of my own.

2011-06-02T18:38:00.000+01:00

Right nothing sordid or rude here, so bring your minds out of the gutter.

It's just a man and a lamb. Although we are equally hairy!

A year already?

2011-05-24T18:46:00.000+01:00

Hey folks,

A relatively quick one after the mammoth eye bending of me last post.

It doesn't seem a year ago since pink socks and a hard days graft but it very nearly is.

In fact it is about 11 months, and again I got a call to go help out. So today I have been wrangling sheep and separating them from their outer casing to help out. They are very early this year though, in fact one or two of them have been shorn despite still been in lamb.

The conventional wisdom is shear in June, but the trouble is this year has been very dry for prolonged bouts and then a lot of short heavy rain followed by dry. This is fly strike season.

That is every bit as bad as it sounds, flies lay eggs in the wool then the hatchling maggots burrow down and eat the skin of the sheep. It can be very nasty and in itself can kill a sheep if bad enough, but worse still it leaves open sores that can get all manner of infection.

A dead sheep does not pay it's way, it will not produce little lambs for meat, so anything that kills a sheep has a huge impact on a farmer's livelihood. It's a brutal way to look at it, but hey, we all buy food so we all support farming one way or another.

There have already been several fairly nasty strikes already, so the urgency is utmost. Trouble is they are not ready to be shorn.

The fleece of a sheep is made up of a lot of fibres together, all covered in oily lanolin. In the normal order of things the sheep starts to shed its wool, the fleece lifts. That is a significant amount is separated from the skin and takes the lanolin with it.

This leaves a nice, very fine layer close to the sheep's skin that is easy to cut with a pair of shears.

When you have to cut them early this does not happen so the job is a fight, the sheep fights more because it is in greater discomfort, and you end up cutting them more as you are fighting harder. It's possible to take quite a bit of skin with the shears, think Kebab here, and this at best leads to more discomfort and at worst to serious infection again, so they have to get a blast of iodine to sort it out which makes them bleat I can tell you.

But we got about 10 done between us, fighting all the way, and manage to cut out a whole load of maggots off another before they became a problem.

I enjoyed it furiously, I ache almighty and the pink socks need washing again.

It might just be to do again on Saturday!

Quick one

2011-05-20T08:45:00.000+01:00

I do not normally advertise or promote services here, but I thought this was worth passing on for anyone who is interested.

99£ Solar power for your house.

There are terms and conditions and you have to be an Eon customer initially, but the savings should soon rack up if you are an average household.

The basic rub is that Eon's partner get the tie in tariff from the grid not yourselves, so you just benefit from the free energy that is produced. You need to make sure this is of benefit but at under £100 you are soon going to be in pocket regardless and you are doing some good to the globe.

I reckon we still start to see more of these kinds of things being offered.

Waste

2011-05-19T19:59:00.000+01:00

Right as I have been absent for a few weeks I thought I would make up for it here. This one is a bit epic so make a cuppa and bed in for the long haul.

Louisa at the really good life posted this blog about consumables and waste which made me think about what we do.

The concept of chronicling waste is a nice one, but I fear without a point in our house. Not that I don't see it as a good exercise, far from it, more people should look at their waste. No I mean it is a little late in the day for us as we are pretty good.

First, what is waste. Well it is anything you throw away or dispose of. This can include everything from the milk carton to the water you wash the cup with.

It's well worth thinking of the waste streams in large amounts. For example if you buy a bag of crisps, somewhere there is a lorry driving around with a trailer full of crisps. Another lorry had to drive to the crisp factory with a trailer full of crisp packets and another one with a trailer full of crisp boxes to transport our fragile fried potato product. So forget the crisps a moment, right there is two lorries worth of product that goes in the bin.

Now most of us would be horrified at the thought of driving a lorry full of crisp packets to the tip and emptying them out but we lose sight that we do it everyday just in much smaller bits. If you look at some of the various consumables manufacturers around the world some of the facts they put out are scary. For instance 418 of a certain well known chocolate covered wafer biscuit are eaten each second. So that's 418 waste wrappers then.

Thinking big like this can focus you on the small stuff, yes you are just one person but you are one person who on average produces half a tonne of waste a year.

Waste takes a lot of forms from the above mentioned milk just and water to the little things like the foil of the milk jug or a tea bag or a multitude of other little things. Little things? One isn't a problem but over a year it's half a tonne of little things! Just like people it soon mounts up.

Almost everything we consume is manufactured or processed these days, it comes in packets, packages, parcels, tins, jars and jugs. All hermetically scientifically sealed in a protective environment just for you.

This means a lot of waste material and in the case of cleaning and cosmetic goods a lot of chemicals. There are also a lot of chemicals in some foods but that is a different rant.

So lets start with the obvious bad boy. Plastic. The poster child of the 80's. Before then plastic was awkward and not the easiest thing to make then all of a sudden there was an explosion in what could be done. Suddenly everything came wrapped in plastic or made from plastic. Now plastic is one of the biggest waste issues on the planet. Yes many of them are recyclable, the trouble is very few of them are.

The reason for this is simple. Most plastic use is in food wrapping or containment (remember the crisp packets), and plastics are chosen for this for specific properties. The trouble is a food plastics have to be guaranteed food safe, and the processes of recycling don't promise this. Unlike glass and metal that are heated to a high enough degree bacteria and pathogens are killed, plastic is melted at relatively low temperatures or not even melted at all depending on the process. So recycled plastics often are not used in food wrapping, or at least a great deal of plastic waste isn't used.

This brings us to the three R's, and unlike the terrible school one where only one is actually an R, our R's are all R's. With me? Then you are as daft as I am.

Reduce Reuse Recycle, this is the mantra of the neo hippy. And this is the order of preference.

Before you buy something you should assess whether you need it first, may sound overkill but 8.3 million tonnes of food are thrown out in the UK every year. Forget about the waste, that's about £50 a month the average household throws out. Can you really afford to burn ten pounds every week and a bit more for good measure?

So how do you reduce waste? Well first identify what you are wasting and this is where Louisa's idea comes in. I have done this for a few years looking at everything that comes through the house in terms of need, impact and output.

See what you can get rid of. We don't eat any processed or prepackaged foods. Everything we get is fresh vegetables from the farm, fresh meat from the farm or the little bits we need from a supermarket. By not having wrappers in the first place we don't have to throw them out. When we get apples from the supermarket we don't get a little plastic bag to put them in, we watch some poor minimum wage till tart struggle to stack ten large British apples on the scale. Being a hippy can be fun!

So we have eliminate food packaging from our bins with the exception of milk cartons and juice cartons and a few others I'll come back to these later. We also have reusable bags so they are not waste.

In terms of food waste, well step one is don't waste any. Make only what you need or be prepared to eat leftovers. Tonight for tea we had leftover soup. Rice was added to fill it out. Tomorrow sausages will be added to pad out the last of it and we have made one meal last three days. Of course we do end up with food waste, sometimes we just have too much even with best intentions. The lord knows I have never been able to gauge just how much potato is in a potato, that or mash is self increasing, I just don't know. The veg comes in its own wrapping. But anything that can goes to the hens and they in turn provide me with eggs. Anything the can't eat is bokashi fodder and then in the compost for the garden. The eggs shells are cleaned, boiled and fed back to the hens to provide them with the essential minerals needed to produce an egg shell. Funnily enough each shell has just enough of these.

No food waste leaves the premises though, it is all put back into the chain somewhere.

In terms of cleaning products we don't buy any. m'Lady makes her own soap that has no packaging. We don't buy shampoo or conditioners. A quick glance at the ingredients in these products will reveal they are almost identical. A few years ago I used to work in a cosmetics environment and I can tell you now there is little difference between either of them and soap. In fact most cleaners contain the same few chemicals and then additives to do one or two things. If you want to save money stop buying the expensive shampoos and conditioners that say healthy looking hair in the commercial. They are full of silicons and methicones that make your hair shine so indeed it looks healthier, but they are doing no good to you, your pocket or the planet. m'Lady makes a soap that functions as both shampoo and conditioner.

Now the lye she buys and the oil we buy do have packaging. We are on our first tub of lye still so instead of buying lots of bars of soap in wrappers or bottles we have one plastic bottle that can be recycled. The oil comes in bulk in a metal can, that will be recycled as mentioned above. Soap making is a scary chemical process but is easy and in the reach of everyone. You don't need a laboratory. Just some sense. We have even had my 9 year old daughter helping out, under supervision and well kitted out but all the same.

The only cleaner we buy is Ecover or a refill so the bottle is getting used over and over, and the product is less harsh, I am sure we could remove this from the process as well though and make our own liquid cleaner.

Refilling is the next thing, we saved up some jars and bought some kilner jars and now these get refilled with anything from Jam to dried garlic. So we buy no more jars unless we need more to store them in.

I like a drop of ale from time to time, so I home brew. This year I hope to be wine independent. I currently get tins of home brew ale but 1 large tin against 40 bottles is a no brainer in terms of waste reduction. I saved bottles and now clean and reuse them. If they need replacing I can generally find some.

These are just some of the ways we avoid waste or deal with it so it doesn't leave the house. We are stuck with things like loo roll, but we make sure to get recycled. The consumables we are stuck with are flour, sugar, loo roll, milk, fruit juice and feed for the pets.

So to avoid as much packaging as possible we buy in bulk. The bigger something is, the less surface area it has per unit volume. That is bigger things use less packaging per gram.

This can be hard to get you head around so think of a cube. It has 6 faces. If you got 8 of these cubes and stuck them together like Lego so you had an Uber cube it still only has 6 faces. Each of our little cubes is only showing 3 faces now, three of them are hidden inside. So in this example something that is 8 times as big only uses 4 times the packaging. What that means is the economy of scale says if you can buy something that is bigger you will throw out less waste in the long run. We buy animal feed in 15 or 25k bags, flour in 12.5k bags. Sugar in 3k bags but this year we are going to get 12.5k at a go particularly round brewing/jamming season. Make sure though that you don't buy more than you can use. We go through a 12.5 k bag of flour in 2 months roughly because we make our own bread. If you don't use it and end up throwing it out, you have increased your waste.

So in our recycle bin goes the odd tray from the meat, the milk jugs and the odd tin can. Then periodically something like a paper feed bag. In our waste bin, we put the contents of the rabbit hutch and hoover and that is about it. Our carpets are synthetic so can't go in the compost and the rabbits produce more poo than I can deal with at the moment. I have plans for this though which will mean more compost!

I could go on far more with this one. We barely half fill our recycle bin each month and each week we put one small kitchen bins worth of rubbish in our regular waste. I still see this as a personal failure and will get to a point where that isn't happening either. Finding a local organic milk delivery is high on my list of priorities.

I always have suggestions if people want ideas for how to use things, and I am also always open to new ideas of how to re use things.

The necessary evil.

2011-05-19T18:20:00.000+01:00

Right, a mate made a recent valid comment on my post excited which I think is fair to address in another post entirely as it is quite a big issue and a valid problem facing anyone trying to live green and low impact.

Lisa, I don't think you are missing the point entirely, a lead acid battery is not a nice thing in terms of what goes in it, it is a bit of an environmental nightmare waiting to happen. It is full of nasty chemicals and heavy metals wrapped up in a bit of plastic for good measure, and used for storing electricity which is simply put one of mankind's crowning achievements and greatest evils.

It's great because in theory it made labour easier, improved our quality of life and brought vast improvements in many fields from communication to medicine. However it also made slaves of us all and ushered in an age of super consumerism where trinkets are bought today and disposed of tomorrow. We are all surrounded by the stuff and I am no exception.

Which brings me to the aim of my life, I want to get to minimal impact without huge compromise. I could live a zero impact tomorrow, but getting up at the crack of dawn and going to bed at dusk, making myself out of step with the world I have to live in, whilst making it physically impossible to maintain contact would not be a great life. While we're at it I would be running around naked and only eating raw food that I can find with in the few miles of my house and seeing my hairy arse rustling through a bramble is probably not on everyone's bucket list.

So I have to find a way of living that means the compromises I make are tolerable, I brew my own beer rather than transport stuff miles, that kind of thing.

Any way we are getting off track somewhat.

My aim is to be grid free. If I could be without mains water and electricity that would be ideal. It is possible to run equipment straight of the generators but this is tricky business and locks you into patterns. To generate enough power to run a kettle for instance might take a much bigger panel to produce the 2kW it needs, and you can only have a cuppa at midday in strong sunlight. That is a little over simplistic but it does emphasise the point.

So we need a means to store the power we use, the first step is reducing our output so we don't need so much power in the first place which means I can get away with a smaller battery in the first place.

But it still comes down to being able to store enough power to provide your daily needs and a few days grace if there isn't wind and sun, unless you live somewhere you can use hydro power which is pretty much endless.

The only way to store power is in a battery, and these come in many forms from Lithium ones to the simple lead acid accumulator we are all familiar with. Now the advantage the Lead acid battery has is that it is user serviceable. Well managed a good battery can last at least 20 years. So it's lifespan is good. At the end of it's life the lead acid battery is almost 100% recyclable and because of the nature of the contents they are recycled these days.

The reason they are nasty though is what goes into a lead acid battery. Starters is Lead which you might of guessed from it's name. Lead is energy intensive to mine and process which is never good. Stick it in a bath of sulphuric acid and start producing hydrogen gas and you have a recipe for a bit of a disaster. We've all seen the Hindenburg footage so everyone knows the dangers of hydrogen gas.

However, the incumbent energy is no different to coal, the dangers are maybe more common but less frightening that nuclear, and none of the alternative battery types are any better, many rely on much less common metals. But Lead Acid has another advantage, it is cheap. In fact it is one of the cheapest available storage mediums.

And I get off the grid. Which is the better part of the equation, again I take control of my impact. Like I said at the start, the alternative is to live electric free which I cannot do any more than I could give up my car and walk everywhere.

So it is evil but it is necessary to my plan, and on balance it is no more evil than what is already there.

Excited!

2011-05-10T18:14:00.001+01:00

Right the Vitriol is finally unleashed, thanks for putting up with me! Apologies if it upset anyone, we are all entitled to our opinions, that is just something I wanted since I was about 13 so seeing the chance sail past... well Bygones.

Back to other things.

I have been very remiss in posting so far this year, but truth to tell, I've not had a whole lot to tell you about. The early part of the year saw us too busy to do much of great interest, even no power nights fell by the way side. Or we were out and about at various shindigs.

Come the Vernal Equinox and the clocks going forward, I aimed to be out and about in the garden.

Unfortunately the weather has rather spoiled this for me. The ground here is too dry to do anything with meaning my plantings are behind schedule. In fact I may have to abandon plans this year, I'll have to see what can be saved.

That said I spend the last weekend planting out seedlings. I now have ten tomato plants and four peppers in the green house. There are three tubs of chillis waiting to come out when the weather settles a little. I have peas in that are going well depsite the sun. I have put in sweetcorn and potatoes and French beans and the herb bed is loving it's new location.

I also have a cherry growing from a stone, which I was really surprised about. I set a dozen going a while back and planted them out, at least a year passed and nothing so I was getting ready to bin them this year when I noticed the first green sprouts and saved it. Now it is nearly 10 inches tall and will be getting trained as soon as is possible.

But the cucumbers haven't germinated for me this year, and one entire strain of pepper also failed to take off. I will leave them in the seed pots but I am not hopeful it has to be said. The cucumber is particularly upsetting for me because it was my first attempt at saving seed. I don't know if I did something wrong or if it was just a dud. If you have got any going, I'd love to know about it.

Decorating also took over a large amount of my time recently. The bathroom was grubby and needed attacking, so now it is tiled and mostly grouted and looks lovely. New taps replaced the old not so suitable ones and it is ready to be painted and finished soon. But there have been a few days work for a room so small.

There is also the little matter of the banjo as well, which I have to admit consumes a lot of my spare time. Video will be posted at the first opportunity, or when I feel confident enough anyway.

But the subject of real excitement in my life at the moment is a major step for me.

I spied that Maplin had a deal on a solar briefcase a few weeks back. This is basically a large solar panel that is housed inside a hard plastic case that folds in half. It was cheaper than buying the parts to make a seperate panel, had none of the fiddly effort and is ready wired. Now don't get me wrong, I am all about doing things by hand myself and still have plans to make my own larger array in the future but solar cells are delicate things so this was a great find. Under £50 for a decent panel.

Then I found a very cheap battery on ebay that is brand new. It is a lead acid battery which many people don't like as they come with a huge environmental impact but they are the best answer to storage of power if you want to be grid free. Car batteries aren't suitable as they cannot take the cycling so you have to get something a little more stout.

But now I just need to find some cheap and cheerful LED lighting and we are suddenly off grid for lighting at home!

When I get stuff sorted there will be a more in depth post on this and the subject of power.

But after getting the chickens it was one of the big ones on my list to tick.

A mite angry

2011-05-10T17:54:00.001+01:00

Why in a world where millions are not entitled to vote, or if they do there vote oft counts for nothing (the NO campaign conveniently didn't mention these countries when it was talking about the rest of the world's voting systems) do the slackers and muppets in this country not go out and vote?

The single most important poll in my life, and I would favour the rest of it, and nearly 60 percent of the country couldn't drag it's lazy arse to the polls to vote.

This angers me especially seeing as the vote went the wrong way. I would favour given the overall swing in the by elections this was people making a whipping boy of Mr Clegg, or a lot of students taking out their dissatisfaction by scuppering his plans. I hope I am wrong on that last point but folks are daft at the end of the day.

So I am a more than a little bit angry with the 60 percent who didn't vote last week.

Also I'm a little bit angry with the majority who did.

I am yet to hear a reasonable reason for voting for the No campaign, any one who cannot argue there own point but has to badmouth the other side of the argument makes me nervous. In all things.

So the amount of negative polling in the No campaign rang major alarm bells, and not a single argument thrown forward held water.

Your vote will count less than others under AV? Not any more so than it does now at worst, at best it equalised the playing field.

Some poeple's votes are worth more because they got their first choice? Er no that is the whole point of the ranking system you get the person highest up the order you voted for. Everyone has the same chance to vote for multiple people so every one has the same chance of having to rely on a secondary vote.

AV will lead to more hung parliaments? Well news flash, we've had two in the last 60 years under the current system, and also the system shouldn't lead to hung parliaments any more than the current one as it still produces a clear winner in each constituency. We elect who we want to win.

AV is unfair because the person in second can win? Well twice in the last 15 years this has happened under the current system. At the previous election the Labour party took victory with 70000 fewer votes than the tories. In the late nineties, the tories polled third behind the lib dems but still took opposition.

The thing that really pisses me off though is that more than one person told me they were voting no in the referendum, then complained there was no point in voting because it doesn't change anything.

This just makes them numpties in my book. It's like leaving your front door open when you go out then complaining you got robbed.

I'm sure many of the people reading this had to vote No as statistically over 3 out of every 5 voters did, and disagree with everything I say but too many people I have spoken to who voted No did very little research into it themselves.

If anyone out there who voted No wants to explain to me why and why it was a good idea, I would love to hear an answer that makes sense...

So you've had a bad day?

2011-04-23T20:08:00.000+01:00

Listen to this then...

Tubthumping

2011-04-19T19:03:00.002+01:00

Right I tell you now in honesty this one is political. I make no apologies for it. I am putting my thoughts right out there and do not expect people to agree. There are things you may take offence at but frankly the things I say that may cause offence, well I am not sorry about them in the least and you need to look to yourself on those.

In the UK we are about to face a historic choice, the people are to be allowed to decide whether we need a change in the voting system or not.

Now I find myself in an uncomfortable position here, you see for once in my voting career I find myself aligned to the UKIP party, no doubt also some other minority and bigotted parties are also rubbing there hands in glee and that one fact is possibly enough to sway the scales against them.

Then again possibly not, these radicals seem to have more and more followers these days.

That is one reason why the vote should be Yes and I will come to it.

However first I am going to be honest about things.

Do I think the AV system is going to be worlds better than first past the post?

Well no I don't, frankly it still has flaws.

So why am I voting yes?

Well, this is a once in a lifetime chance to make a real change to politics for the proletariat.

Wait a minute you say, you voted in the election surely that counted.

Well probably not, you see our current system is set up around constituencies that are not fairly balanced. It isn't one vote one seat in the house. How so?

Well constituency A has 30 voters, constinuency B has 45 and constituency C has 20. Party X has a safe seat in C and wins the poll with 13 votes to Y's 5 and Z's 2 . A and B are marginals.Excuse the poor formatting but the table below helps illustrate a point.

X Y Z

A 7 11 12

B 10 17 18

C 13 5 2

30 33 32

Party X comfortably wins their safe seat as was expected. The two marginals go to party Z by very narrow majorities. Look at the figures at the bottom row, this is the total number of votes for each party. In the above very simple example, Party Z take government with two seats and party X sits in opposition despite having the lowest vote count, these are the first past the post rules. However the clear majority of voters chose Party Y who are not represented at all. Is that right? Can that happen?

Well in answer to that yes it could, in fact even more extreme in 2005 labour got 60,000 fewer votes than the conservatives but won 92 more seats. In total they got little over a third of the poll but still took power in a landslide victory.

This is because the marginal seats have fewer voters in them in general, so swaying the minds of a few people mean that the overall election can be biased. I believe I am correct in thinking that in the poll previous to that the Lib Dems had the second greatest total of votes after labour but these were over fewer seats that the Tories so they remained the second party.

The last election was decided more or less by about 450,000 voters in marginal seats

In fact in the last election in Leeds your vote was roughly comparable with 0.1 of a vote when you account for how many voters there are in each constituency.

Voting Yes will start to change this discrepancy, it will also make the practice of tactical voting more dangerous.

Currently we have a two party system, although there are far more than two parties.

It boils down like this, you have staunch Labour and staunch Tory voters, these will vote regardless of policy or practice for the Party who's colours they have taken. They are frankly muppets who do not deserve the gift of voting. You then have a pot of voters who are not aligned to one of the big two and do not agree with any policies but still vote for one of them because they don't want the other buggers getting in. These are worse than muppets. I don't have a word to use but so many elections have gone the wrong way because of these people.

I currently am the third and best kind of voter. I choose my party based on what I think are the best overall policies. This means I have voted both Labour and Lib Dem. I am yet to find anything positive about Tory policy overall but the day may come where I will vote for them because I agree with them.

I am not indecisive, I make my decision based on fact and who represents the best choice for me, not some daft arsed tabloid argument.

But tactical voting makes a difference. But what if the impact was reduced and suddenly MP's had to try harder to canvas those voters who now have another choice?

This also brings me back to my opening statement. Many fringe parties recieve votes in protest at the Labour and Tory parties. Votes are cast because it's an up yours to them both, in truth this is foolish as the chance to make a difference left you the minute you picked a party that stood no chance of getting in.

There are many arguments on both sides for the AV argument. They are all easy to find but I suggest you have a look here for one that gives both sides.

To me the spectre of a hung parliament is nothing to be scared of. In practice we can get those in the first past the post system as we have seen in the last 12 months. One or two hung parliaments might quickly make voters start to vote truthfully instead of tactically. A being frank, 15 years of Tory domination followed by 15 years of Labour have hardly set the good ship Britian on an even keel have they?

If you vote No because you feel let down by current events and Nick Clegg, then again you are a fool who does not deserve the vote that many died for. Vote on the grounds you are genuinely convinced this is the best idea but not out of spite, you will not get another chance soon to change your mind when you are let down again by the ruling party you didn't vote for. Don't vote No or Yes because some pop star or other fleeting celebrity encourages you to do so.

The AV system isn't going to be perfect, before that happens the constituencies need to be resorted which is the next step. Could it be the Tories are against the AV vote because they would lose most?

We also need to up the turnout, which ideally should mean voting becomes compulsory. It works for Australia.

But AV represents the first step to true political reform, maybe the first step to true proportional representation. The first step to a true fair one person one vote system where every voice is equal and our leaders are much more accountable to the voters. Not a situation where nearly two thirds of voters are not represented by the government.

The only vote is Yes, if you vote NO I don't want to hear you complain in the future about how the current government are screwing things up. You made it possible for them.

Right soapbox ends. I'm off for me tea.

ps I am not in the practice of censorship so if you want to leave a comment feel free, however I won't accept any that simply attack me personally for having my views. If you put forward a good argument I will post it. Yeah lets have a debate!

Being honest

2011-04-14T19:33:00.000+01:00

Right, although spring is really here there is another reason I have been much absent of late.

I bought an old banjo some time ago and nice as it is, it could do with some attention. Trouble is that would leave me banjoless at the sharp end of the learning curve.

The other day I was idly browsing ebay when something caught my eye. As m'Lady and I work in the same building I regularly ping her things on the internal chat system we have.

Well this particular day I got a reply asking what I want for my birthday/christmas. Yes my brithday is in august and the season of the fat red guy is some way off but we pay scant regard to such calender rigidity in our house. If we have cash and something comes up we really want, we will get each other it.

So this arrived about two weeks ago.

Ain't she purty.

So I have been playing banjo furiously. It's a much better instrument than the old one in terms of playability, I'll not go into the technicals, suffice to say my playing has jumped on no end in the last few weeks.

I will be back around more often soon, I promise! Right must go, I can hear her calling.

Oh yes, second hand by the way, I love ebay some days.

And I love m'Lady, she gives me the best gifts.

Keeping the species alive.

2011-04-14T19:23:00.000+01:00

Right this one is for those of you that got cucumber seed off me.

This can go in now so find some little pots, fill it with a good seed compost and pop a couple of the little buggers in.

Put them on a nice sunny windowsill and water.

I couldn't get any new seed this year, possible there is no more on the planet than what we few hold so take the best care you can.

I expect to see pictures of the progress.

Semi Monthly Posty thing

2011-04-14T19:20:00.000+01:00

Well I seem to be long over due a post again.

The new followers I have picked up must have wondered here lost because it isn't my flowing verbosity that is attracting people at the moment that's for sure!

Actually, to be perfectly fair this isn't for other people anyway, I always intended this to be a record not a place to say look at me!

That said there is more than a little 'look at me' going on and I would be a fool to try and pretend otherwise, but hey if there is a pointy hat with bells on in the offing, Fool doesn't sound so bad I'faith n'uncle etc.

Still I have to address the matter of letting myself down. Several times since I started blogging I have had to refer back to things I had already written to see what I did so if I don't keep up I will not have that knowledge. If my aimless prattlings can amuse a few others and stymie the hours of boredom then that is just a plus!

So why the great abscence of late? As I keep saying I am just soo busy with things. One of which I am not ready to reveal to the masses but the other is a bit of a given.

If you look outside you may have noticed it is spring o'clock. The sun comes out, says sod this for a game of skittles and goes back in then it rains. You know the good old British Weather.

I did basic meteorology a few years ago at university and if memory serves me right the UK is almost uniquely placed on the planet to receive seven different weather fronts depending on one condition or another, which is why we are probably so obsessed with it. Anyhoo back to the plot, what little there is of it.

Spring as any gardener knows is when things get going, yes you can do things through winter but spring is where it is at.

My first job of the year was to get the herbs transplanted from that shaady bit at the back of the house into a nice big freshly prepared bed specially for them.

Here you can see sage, marjoram, bay, chives and caraway. There are a couple of others but I can't remember what they are. Here they will get full sun all day long which may or may not suit them but it has to be better than where they currently are. The hope is that this little bed will provide a lot of our herb needs so no packaging waste or unnecessary miles involved.

This is the front bed, in summer the sun gets right onto this bed so we are putting sweetcorn in. The gap in the middle of the hedge is where the sycamore was. In the big tub is the Lovage so kindly given to me by Billie Jane (who I managed not to call the Michael Jackson song finally) which seems to be doing well and some chard just to the bottom left of this. It is beset on all sides by wild garlic which doesn't really have a place in a normal garden but was here when we moved in and seems to florish in the spring shade of the hedge. At this time of year the Daughter will often be seen just munching on raw leaves and again it is an endless supply. If you look just up to the top end of the bed, just below the wall you will see some of the many pea plants we put out this year. Peas are our first step towards self sufficincy of seed. They are self fertile and normally a pod is forming before a flower has even opened meaning seed stays true year after year so it is easy to save. There are hundreds of plants in high density planting this year, I hope they go well.

So that is the main action at the front except for a might amount of weeding.

What else have I being doing? Well I have created a mushroom bed in the shadier part round the back. I must get some photos of that one.

The other thing I did involves that there hedge. It is in need of some serious attention and I intend to layer it this year but towards the back end after the year has gone or maybe early next year before the sap rises again. But for now it is putting out some very straight rods, so I cut a choice few of these.

A nicely prepared greenhouse bed is also needed. Fortunately I have a couple of spares from last year. This one will do for starters. This is before I enriched the soil so just last years compost. I would like to point out at this juncture just how incredibly tidy the greenhouse looks. Much different to a few days previously.

Having enriched the compost with a lot of high quality soil from the farm, those there rods bend nicely into the frame.

This then gets a covering of fleece. Which makes a little cloche/tunnel inside a greenhouse.

This is the finished result. What this should do is keep the temperature in this bed above zero even on cold nights which means I can get some seed starts going. A lot of the heritage seed I use is early starting and doesn't mind a bit of cold. In fact most plants will tolerate a fair degree of cold even subzero temperatures. It is the icy wind and it's desicating effects that do the damage. I look at this as a vest, for tomatoes.

So a few plants are out in this already, I also have a plastic mini greenhouse in there too which also keeps the temperature well up for those plants that need it. I am hoping at the back end of the season to get thing like carrots and spinach in here as well as some of the winter greens and pak choi's etc.

You're not helping!

2011-03-21T20:30:00.000Z

I seem to be developing a new catchphrase of late.

Seems hardly a day passes where I don't utter the phrase 'You're not helping.'

Now often this is immediately followed by 'Linus' as typically it is the curious little RIR that is getting under foot and in the way in general or helpfully perching on the back of my legs whilst I try and construct a quarantine cage thus making it almost impossible for me to move until she does.

She is not the only target of this phrase but is at the top of the list I would say.

However turning up at the farm the other day to discover an 8 week Kelpie Collie cross?

Not helping!

Puppies are so cute, and adorable and so much about them really gets me, from the cannonball belly they have to the complete lack of elegance when they fall over just trying to run. Or the shape of their head when all the features are crammed down at the bottom. Or the tiny little squeak instead of a bark.

And when she decides that now is the perfect time to attack your glove rather than let you work, reminding me that I am seriously in want of a dog and a puppy would be an amazing idea?

Altogether now.

Ready to Go

2011-03-21T20:19:00.000Z

I mentioned that it was Spring Time.

For those of you really interested, it was 11.12pm last night that it occurred.

I however have known for a few weeks that it was close. The fruit bushes are in bud, the Rhubarb has made a surprise come back. I am not touching it this year, I'm letting it get established like I should have done! The Lovage that Billie-Jane swapped me for some seed is sprouting, note to self look up what to do with Lovage, the peas are in the ground and the Sparrows are Twitterpating in the eaves (Sparrow Private Time).

This year I have really set my stall out to do things well and I have a project manager in the shape of m'Lady.

So this year I actually got my arse in gear and got those early seeds started. I use heritage varieties and they often require an earlier start as germination can be a bit more haphazard.

So about a week ago I spent a sunday afternooin putting seeds in pots. I have planted out about 60 starts altogether, mainly peppers but htis year I got an early variety of tomato. It is native to Hungary and has been known to set fruit as early as May! They are called Latah.

Having got them in the compost I put them in the nice bright sunshiny window and look!

There look, the first seedling is up already.

Now this doesn't need to get too exited as the greenhouse is still a mess from the winter dumping so I couldn't transfer it for a week or two anyway, but the year is now under way.

Only 110lbs to go!

Keep an eye out if you got seeds off me cause in a few weeks it will be time to do the cucumbers and pumpkins.

On a lighter note

2011-03-21T20:02:00.000Z

Well having got quite angry about the Chicken thing, I mean something is really against me with the original four, I thought it would be nice to share the lighter side of the girls.

The Black Rock is healing nicely and there is the start of new feather growth, the lesions turned out to be just bruising which went a beautiful rainbow of colours but have faded. The bleeding stopped and healed up nicely and they have carried on laying as though nothing mattered.

Now, it may not have escaped your attention but it's still kind of cold so I was worried about the health of my girls. Chicken body temperature is a good couple of degrees warmer than a human one and this keeps away the majority of illnesses and bugs. Take away half the inbuilt duvet though and this could cause a problem.

So I thought we could address this by knitting them little aprons. Now that may sound a little daft but feather loss from Rooster Attention (you know chicken private time as the Daughter might call it) is often prevented by putting a little saddle on the poor hen. Seemed like a good idea to me, plus it would stop the worst affected one from scratching and picking at the scabs that had formed.

Sadly it was a bit of a fail as we couldn't manage to tie them to the chickens in a way that didn't look like it was going to trip them up as they walked.

So unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of this years Gallus Knitwear collection to show you, but I do have a couple of pictures.

The other night we came home and collected the eggs in the normal way.

Except it wasn't a normal night by any stretch, and stretch may very well be the operative word here.

Having collected the four, I walked back into the house and asked of m'Lady when did we get an ostrich?

The egg on the left is from a Black Rock, the one in the middle is a Light Sussex and the one on the right is from the Rhode Island Red. Now these eggs are normally around medium, bordering on small.

These are both from Linus to give you a better idea, the left one is regular, the one on the right m'Lady reliably informed me is a whole ounce heavier.

Tonight Matthew, I'll be a Goose!

Borrowed Time

2011-03-21T19:45:00.000Z

Time is much on my mind of late.

Starters we are nearly into British Summer Time again, which means that a quarter of the year has passed already.

In case you don't know we are officially into Spring time now, it started last night.

There is not enough time to do everything I need to do.

Time everywhere see but Borrowed Time has to be the worst I think.

Lets back up a few weeks (see Time Flies when you're having fun*), and talk about Chickens. This is before they laid their two hundredth egg.

About a month ago I noticed a strange thing. One of my girls was starting to go a little bald. This didn't concern me immediately as a little feather loss isn't an uncommon occurrence and once a year chickens moult and loose feathers anyway. They were a little late as it is typically in early winter, great timing, but I didn't worry too much. Then a couple of weeks ago I did start to worry, I noticed a huge pink lump on the throat of one of the girls. A very quick inspection revealed it just to be a very full crop and nothing to worry about there, however she was stripped of feathers right underneath her breast like she had been plucked. There were a couple of nasty lesions coming up too.

Suddenly I am concerned, do I have a problem is some disease coming in? I do on occasion, socialise with other chickens, had I inadvertently transferred something?

A quick check revealed the same feather loss on the other Black Rock, fortunately no lesions and much less loss. Linus and Pious were both fine. So I was confused, what would be only attacking two of my hens?

I looked to the Internet with no great luck, there is plenty out there but all diseases in chickens very quickly result in lack of laying and listlessness. Normally anything serious is quick to kill so getting infection out of the flock fast is key. However other than being bald, there was nothing wrong with mine, in fact that week they laid the most eggs in a single week.

So confused I was and without clue. Then I made quite an upsetting discovery.

Watching on with concern one night I found out what was the problem.

Pious was attacking the two Black Rocks, pulling out their feathers and eating them. Suddenly little things dropped into place, after all I hadn't found any feathers anywhere if they were moulting!

I am at a complete loss as to why this is happening. In normal hen pecking it is the head, neck, wings or tail feathers not the breast. They are fed very well with plenty of supplementary greens, layers pellets, corn and other treats and I put Apple Cider Vinegar in the water. This has been routine since day one, nothing has changed. They are not over crowded and they can't be bored or else this behaviour should have happened sooner.

There's no great explanation. Pious has just decided to be a git to the others, and they don't fight back or run away. I watched her literally pull one of the Black Rocks over by pulling a feather out, not a sharp tug like tweezing a hair, just a slow hard pull. Running outside to intervene I was quite upset to discover that not only had she plucked the poor hen, but this last one had torn skin and the poor girl was bleeding.

What to do? In a mad flap I had to figure out how to quarantine a bad hen and quickly. So taking stock of what I had to hand, I hastily constructed a barrier under the coop out of the shelving from my seed started. I threw Pious in while I figured out a box for her. This was just a cardboard box with a hole cut in the end. Worried about the effect of the cold on her, I covered it with half a dozen old towels and put a flap on it so I could close her in. Of course by the time I got back outside with this she had escaped the makeshift cage and was terrorising the others again.

So I put her back in and made sure it was stronger, put her in a separate feed and water pot and closed her in. She prowled back and forth like, well, a caged bird. Not happy.

This was about two weeks ago, in that time it has been very hard to get to any eggs she is laying, or her food or water dish or even just close and open the flap on her nest box. She has tried to escape at every opportunity.

The idea is that this time in solitary will make her change her ways. Tonight she got to mix with the flock for the first time. Had she change?

Had she f**k as like.

First thing she did was tackle the worst Black Rock again. So straight back in for her then.

She has one more chance. This time next week I will let her out again, if it doesn't change?

Well.

Borrowed Time.

*Unless you are Kermit the Frog then 'Time's Fun when you're having Flies'

Sons of Hephaestus

2011-03-10T20:05:00.000Z

It seems so long since I posted again, I notice at least one follower has left, probably due to boredom!

Also what little I have written lately has been very off form for me as well.

I'm not about to apologise for any of it, if it's how I felt at the time well that's it really.

And time? That has been one of the biggest problems this year, finding time. I have culled down the amount of blogs I actually read to a choice few as I haven't time to keep on top of them all. I am not posting as regularly as I would like as I don't have time.

Why don't I have time? Well the are 14 days in a fortnight, I measure in fortnights as this is the usual span between visits from the Daughter. I go pick her up from Middlesborough on a Friday night straight after work and return her on a Sunday evening getting home about 9pm. The weekends that I have her are a write off as I give her as much attention as I can.

We also visit the farm every Saturday so that is another day gone, the Daughter adores going there and they love to see her as she gets involved. Once a week we have a no power night although that was skipped due to business last week, the one night we were in I wasn't going to sit in the dark!

Once a week m'Lady hosts sock club, where she teaches several of her close friends how to knit a sock. I generally provide tea and banter, or cake if we are out of banter.

All these things eat into our time. This last week fortnight we lost one night to m'Lady's visit to a osteomyologist we she has once a month, and one night to a gig as we went to see a band we both love, check out Admiral Fallow they are ace!

I've also been working on a new flyer for the farm which has taken a lot of spare time, and a side project I will be announcing at some point in the near future but don't hold your breath.

These have both eaten a lot of computer time, what remains has become a bit of a chore as I have had a couple of intense weeks at work where I am a desk jockey, so when I have made it home I haven't wanted to do a whole lot.

Then there are Thursdays. On a Thursday m'Lady goes off to her amateur dramatics troupe, who I will be supporting in the marketing and scenery department this year (more time), and I head off to College.

Thursday is my Blacksmithing night and I haven't told you much since hammerfall so I thought it was time to bring you up to speed.

So after the simplicity that was the snail, Teach had us do something different. A little more complex. Now I have to say I am not fond of his way of teaching, his method is great lets get you making real things instead of teaching in the abstract by demonstrating a procedure. But he doesn't explain himself well or stay with you, literally wandering off mid sentence. Still there are sixty years of experience in his head so he can answer any question you fire at him.

So building on the snail we each made on of these.

This is a Ramshead poker although he cut the stock for mine a little short, we jokingly said it was a yorkshire poker as the fire would have to be cooler to get near it so less coal.

It looks complex but it is really relatively simple to make as all such things are. First take a piece of square bar saw a couple of inches into the end of it. Then round the end and draw it to a point.

Bend the end over to form the head, then shape each horn.

Use a punch to make to eyes, mine are a little low but you can just make them out in the above picture, there is also a mouth that was marked in with a chisel but that isn't visible here.

Finally add the twist, which is very simple but can make things look so very pretty in Blacksmithing. It is a detail that just lifts a piece out of the ordinary.

So that is the poker.

This one used most of the basic techniques in Smithing, curling, twisting and making a square thing round. The only other major one is making a round thing square. Making things pointy is also used here.

Having done that it was time to make something a little more adventurous and more skill full.

Using nothing more than flat bar we made a trivet.

The above is a really nice photo of it. I am quite proud of how well this turned out for an amateur, and only my third piece of work. We have to make three pieces, the two curved insides and the square that bounds it all. These are joined solely by 6 collars, nothing else.

Here you can see quite nicely how the end of the curl is drawn out to a little bit of a point, again this just lightens the piece in quite a nice way.

And this one shows the inside of one of the collars, nipped down tight and holding the metal together. As it cools it contracts which means you get a really tightly bound joint which should really never loosen although in reality wear and tear will take their toll.

This is a lovely little Wee Willie Winkie style candle holder. You can just see a bit of wax on the point were I was trying it out. It was amazingly simple to make and I could knock these out endlessly.

There's a close up of the spiral work, and below is the handle detail. It's not very good but I was more interested in how thin I could get the metal than how neat I could make it at this stage!

Last week I started a new project which I will show you all in due course. I should be there tonight but I am full of cold and didn't relish the long drive or late night. I figure I have enough time left to finish my project so wasn't going to worry.

I have really really enjoyed this and wish I had a forge to carry on practising on. I would carry on into the next course but sadly that time thing comes around again. There are other things I want to do and learn that will help me more. But I do intend to revisit this in the future. I feel like this was my calling and that I should have been born centuries ago when the Smith was the centre of the community.

Oh for a different time.

On a lighter note, the Admiral Fallow gig we went to in Leeds was at a place call the nation of shopkeepers. The toilets for the girls had a very girly looking lady on sign, the gents had an etched plaque depicting four images of a smith each in a slightly different pose so the overall effect was of movement, I took great pleasure knowing that I was most likely the only Blacksmith to pass through that door that night!

The Old Man and the Emperor

2011-02-23T18:35:00.001Z

Well I have been absent except for Egg related updates for a while. I am to say the least a little busy in life. There are external factors at play that have made me not want to sit and blog and to be honest, just lately I have lost me mojo.

Recent blogs seem to have tended towards ranting. Sadly this is how I feel about an awful lot at the moment. So a little warning before you invest more of your evening than you really want to, this one isn't going to be any better.

So the obtuse title then? Some of you may be ahead of me but for those who aren't (also Hello Newbies!) there is a tale of an old man who did a favour for a Chinese Emperor. All he asked in reward was a grain of rice for the first square of a chess board, and double for each square thereafter.

The Emperor feeling he was getting a good deal agreed, the favour was done and the old man came to collect his debt. It was only then the Emperor discovered that this was a bit more than expected.

Lets stop and think about this simple little multiplier. Start with 1, double it and double each subsequent answer a further 62 times.

Say one Kilo of rice contains 10,000 grains. A fair assumption, may be high may be low. So one tonne (metric for those in the US) would contain 10,000,000 grains. How far up the chess board do we have to go to get to this figure? Make a guess. We hit this around the 25th Square. Doesn't seem so bad does it? By the time we get to the 3oth square however we have around 536 million grains. And by the end we have 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 grains in the square. By our maths we now have 920 thousand million tonnes of rice. For comparison the largest Oil tanker built, the Knock Nevis is just under 500 meters (yes half a kilometer) fully laden weighs 565,000 tonnes.

And this is just the last square. Cumulatively we now have 18,446,744,073,709,600,000 grains of rice. This weighs 1,844,674,407,371 tonnes, or 3.35 million of those little boats.

Best get the large Rhogan Josh then, and maybe not the extra chapatti.

Impressed?

So what point am I getting to?

Well I have read an awful lot lately of one problem or another that is besetting humanity.

We are overcrowding, we haven't got enough food, we can't produce enough oil, there are too many diseases

Answers are generally along the lines of build high rise, genetically modify crops to produce higher yields, develop cures etc. We seem keen to manufacture, engineer and sell our way out of the issues.

There is one simple answer that is not being put forward anywhere.

We need less people. There are currently around 6.9 billion people on the planet. This figure expands by around 80 million per year. By the time 2050 rolls around we should be in the region of 10.5 billion at highest reckoning, lower estimates put it at 7.5 billion. So lets settle on 9 billion as the middle ground.

9 Billion is quite a lot of people, that is roughly square 30. I for one would not want them round for tea. We are currently around square 29. Not even half way across the board.

This figure assumes all things stay constant. The birth and death rate haven't changed much for a couple of decade. It's about two to one in favour of the hatches. But the dispatches are taking longer to happen.

I come from a family that can boast 5 generations alive in recent memory, one side of which had 13 siblings at one point. There are currently four generations on this earth. My Gran is the Matriarchal Capstone, beneath her are 3 children, 5 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren, the oldest of which could be producing in the next 3 years or so. If Gran hangs on there may again be 5 generations on the planet again.

Think in terms of a house. You live in a building with 40 rooms. You need one room to live and one room to produce everything you need. That leaves you 38 nice rooms to play around in.

Add one more person.

Suddenly you have 36 rooms to play in, technically 18 each if you share fairly.

You see where this goes. When 20 people are in the house, there is now no room to play, produce everything and live. So you have to start sharing. 2 people to a room 2 rooms to keep them still means 26 people fill the house. In fact if every room bar one is given over to production you still only get 39 people in the house before capacity to keep them is compromised.

It's an uncomfortable thought, and one everyone is keen to shy away from but there are already several countries that have population problems. The world only has so many rooms, and if Environmental Change is a reality these will get less and it is a lot of the producing rooms that are in trouble!

I don't envy any government or leader or group of leaders the years ahead where these decisions are going to have to be made but the maths is quite simply against us. At some point soon people are going to have to tackle the people problem at source.

I'm sure somewhere and Old Chinese Man is laughing.

Go girls

2011-02-16T08:32:00.000Z

Can we just have a little woot of appreciation for the girls.

They have just posted their hundredth egg!

Last week also managed full production with 24 eggs. These little girls are going great for me.

I've read mixed things about the Blackrocks. Some say they are great layers, others have said they are nothing special. I can only assume this is down to the husbandry as mine are producing a steady egg a day. The Rhode Island is probably the next most common and Pious, the sole Whiterock is the least regular, but she is a sitter so if I ever want to raise chicks she is the one.

This morning there was very nearly a full egg tray in the kitchen, I think it is and 18 tray. If they keep going at this rate I'll soon have the odd spare half dozen to sell.

Currently each egg has cost me £4.50 which is a lot when you measure it like that but think on the first 2 we got were costed at £225 each, I could have got a Fabergé for that. That is over time though measured by egg against start up cost. This is currently dropping faster than an Egyptian president's share of the vote.

So once again for these adorable little walking food factories, Woot!

Our Love is in Your Cornflakes

2011-02-15T12:48:00.001Z

Just thought I would share.

Hit the ground running.

2011-02-06T13:16:00.000Z

That's a lyric that stays in my head from my favourite song by what may become one of my favourite bands.

In context it means more that the words there but that is so far of the point of this post as to be beyond even my meanderous typing style.

Today was another 4 egg day, all hens present and correct before dinner time. In fact all four eggs were harvested at the same time and two of them were still warm.

Being the ever so slightly geeky type that I am (really, hadn't you guessed?) I am keeping a record of all the eggs and how many are laid on what days.

These four little hens have only being laying for 4 weeks but have furnished us with 72 eggs.

Four hens, an egg a day would give me a maximum possible of 28 eggs, but I figure they need a rest so think that the resonable expectation would be 24 as this allows one rest day per hen. They deserve it.

This week they laid twenty eggs. So they are approaching the maximum.

This is also the second week where we had at least two eggs every day, and the second week where we have had two four egg days!

Don't ask me what all this statting means, I have no idea, I am just a little sad that way.

However, the hens are not eating much in the way of processed pellets. They have a feeder that is always available, but get plenty of corn at the moment and as many scraps as we can muster. This generally means some apple cores, vegetable peelings and the leftovers from our veggie share at the end of the week.

The fact they have started laying so early in the year, and so prolifically very quickly, makes me feel a small amount of pride in the job I am doing. They are all active healthy looking birds and are clearly fed enough or production would be down. They all seem happy as far as I can tell but they refuse to fill in the satisfaction questionnaire no matter how much I ask them so I am guessing on this.

The only real down side is I have already kicked Linus three times, two of them quite hard. She has a habit of getting in the wrong place at the wrong time and being right underfoot. She does get in the way and she hasn't learned yet.

Still she hasn't been injured and she keeps coming back, and they are all laying well.

Go Team Gallus!

A little anxious...

2011-02-02T20:49:00.000Z

Last night was the second night we went without power.

If anything it was better than the last one as we were better prepared this time. Tea* had been cooked the night before so first task was chow down on some cold chili and potato wedges. Mmm.

Then I tackled as much washing up as could be done by candlelight, which was not much.

Then I just settled down with a book and did some really full on reading.

I used to be quite a prodigious reader, and it shames me now that I haven't read a real book in some time.

Mostly these days it is a graphic novel or a text book of some variety. Now before the geeks (of which I am brethren) get upset, some graphic novels transcend the genre and become something more than a comic, however many don't so I draw the distinction. I like them either way.

The last novel I read was Dan Brown's last shower. The man cannot write but be buggered if I cannot let go of the things when I pick one up. I really couldn't remember what I read before that.

Plenty of candles made for an ambience and complete lack of eye strain which is nice.

The only real complication of the night involved a trip to the loo, where adequate lighting was certainly a necessity and before the blog gets too British I will stop there.

In fact the biggest problem I frequently have is habit. Going into a room the automatic reaction is to turn on a switch. It is what we have always done.

After that several times in the night I would go to a switch to turn off the candle and catch myself just in time! I share this with you to remind you despite all my skills I am at heart human and therefore largely daft.

This neatly brings me to a couple of things. I have the 10:10 button up there on the right. But I can do very little to reduce my usage as before I signed up we had already done everything we could. However no power night does help that.

Secondly in little over a month it is Earth Hour, a movement started to get people around the globe to turn off their lights. Even for one hour this is an impressive feat.

Just how impressive?

Well as a culture westerners seem to have developed a fear of the dark. So afraid of boogeymen, mugwumps, bunyips and drop bears are we that we live in a world of perpetual light.

Don't believe me? Well look down next time you fly at night. This is what you will see. I suggest you click for the big picture for full impact.

It's certainly a spectacular sight, but that image shows how scarce true darkness is in the 1st World.

It is scary how easy it is to pick out the major areas on the planet, and scary how many of the areas in light are the G8 nations. Look at Africa, except for what is probably Johannesburg there is very little there. Australia is limited to the coastal areas where all the power centres are but look at Japan, Europe and the US.

So much light that areas are clearly identifiable. Light burning oil and coal and whatever else.

Light to hide the shadows we have become scared of. Light that stops people sleeping in urban areas and makes the wonder of the stars a pleasure to behold.

Remember me telling you about the walks with my mate and his dog? Well the Milky Way was ever present back then. You looked up, it was there.

I actually cannot remember the last time I was consciously aware of it now.

What truly bothers me is what this represents in terms of consumption. Have a look around you and see if you can spot an LED from where you are. Chances are there is a least one on the computer in front of you somewhere.

A typical LED has a power rating of somewhere in the region of 0.4 watts. Ultra efficient ones can be as low as 0.04 watts

If a 0.4 watt LED is run 24 hours a day 365 a year it would consume around 3.5 kWhrs and cost in the region of 40p. Hardly an earth shattering amount I grant you.

However, just to have my internet on I have a modem with 6 little flashing lights, the USB hub has 5, there are two on power adapters and if I print anything there are two on the printer.

There are also two lights on the 6 gang I have which are not LED but are element ones. One of these is just to tell me there is power on. I also have a switched adapter so I don't have to turn everything on at once but each switch comes with a light on it!

These are just the lowest usage things in my house which I consider to be especially good compared to many. It's not uncommon for people to leave PC's on constantly or at least the modem flashing away somewhere. Suddenly that's 17.5 kWhrs just on the modem.

Multiply that across a city, a nation, a continent, a planet. Then add in every filament and light that is there because we are scared.

I think about these things, I see them, I know they are there and it frightens me. The complacency in people, the lack of any caring.

When I'm walking a dark road

I am a man who walks alone

*Dinner for the people south of Sheffield.
** Picture credit: Nasa Visible Earth and click nightearth.gif, be warned though it is a big file and takes ages to load up!

Malaise

2011-01-26T19:43:00.000Z

No that's not gone off salad dressing, it is a feeling that has pervaded my very being this last week or so.

By nature I am not materialistic, I don't really crave this and that. There are toys I want, but there are toys I've wanted for ages and never bought because in the final reckoning I am not that bothered.

So I tend not to deal well with real desire, never have probably never will.

Just recently a few things have contributed to this feeling. I'm frankly fed up with work, I know most people are but I am fed up with the whole of work. The process, the impact it has on the earth and people, the way work is generally just a back process to selling the world some crap it doesn't need etcetera, I tend to see everything and I want out of it.

I'm getting closer to what I really want, close enough that rather than a pipe dream it is a future reality. We are not there yet but it isn't far off in the grand scheme and when I want something badly enough it happens. I have the rabbit to prove it.

So the plan is in action, just waiting.

The plan brings many things, but above all else it brings the thing I want most.

This surprisingly isn't self sufficiently, it isn't a better world. It's not even peace and enlightenment with the realisation all I need I have within me.

No it is a dog.

Canis Lupus Familiaris.

They've been with mankind for millenia, literally dogging our steps. They provide companionship and just bring all round good juju to a house.

It seems everywhere of late dogs have been cropping up even to the point at the weekend I went to see a friend for the first time in a while. He has always been one of the least doggy people I know.

So what do I find? Well not only has he become a dog lover but he has usurped his girlfriend's Staffordshire Bull Terrier to the point where the dog very nearly only listens to him!

I was up at another friends last night and they have an old dog who is absolutely ace.

I grew up with dogs, I grew up around farms where there were also dogs. My friend and his wife have the most amazing obedience trained Collie I have met. These can be trouble dogs, they have loads of energy and are very clever mostly, but they have done an amazing job with him to the point he plays differently with a child to how he does with an adult as he realises the strength difference.

My best friend at school had a black Labrador that we would take walking every night for about 6 years, talking about absolutely everything and nothing under a starry sky.

Dogs have always been part of my life.

Trouble is we are both out all day at work, we can't take a dog with us, it would be unfair to leave one in the car even though they would be out of the sun and could be walked uber regularly, I couldn't do it.

The Daughter mentioned it a few weeks ago and we gave the above as the stock answer. She just looked at us and said her gran could look after it through the day. Having mentioned this to the gran in question she didn't disagree which didn't help.

More than one person I have mentioned this to has said, 'Get two, they'll be company for each other then.' which is also another fine point that isn't helping.

I really, really want a dog. It is a need more than a want, in fact I am coming round to the idea more and more, that everything I am trying to do is just to facilitate getting a dog.

Ho hum.

I bought a dog the other day...I named him Stay. It's fun to call him...

"Come here, Stay! Come here, Stay!"
He went insane.

Now he just ignores me and keeps typing.

~Stephen Wright

Better to light a candle.

2011-01-26T19:12:00.000Z

It is probably fair to say within our plans I am the driving force.

But if I am the engine, the powerhouse, then m'Lady is the gearbox. Taking that raw energy and transferring it into usable power otherwise I would just spin the wheels. This year she is charged with project managing me to make sure everything happens when it should.

Without her I am just an espresso fed Jack Russell chasing a runaway powerball around a squash court.

I have many of the ideas and much of the knowledge and most of the muscle necessary to make our plans work. But I tend to want to start everything at once.

All this is just by preamble because when m'Lady has an idea it tends to be a belter.

Over the weekend she came up with the suggestion that one night a week we manage without any unnecessary power.

There are a few exceptions, the cooker is fair game as this is gas, we have wind up torches that require no mains so they were also allowed.

The intention was to get through the night without relying on the grid though. In practice we had to allow the kitchen light as well because m'Lady had bread and a cake to make but otherwise that was it.

I have to say it was a really pleasant way to spend the evening. Light was provided by just enough candles to chase the dark away, if we needed to go upstairs then a tea light in a glass served as a lantern to shine the way.

I sat and played banjo all night, I had enough candle light to read by and my metronome which is clockwork. When I had finally had enough of that I went to reading instead.

m'Lady did some of her knitting, she is making me a cardigan which just requires a simple stitch so she could do it with her eyes closed.

We are intending to make this a weekly occurrence, which admittedly will be easier in summer with the longer daylight hours but I can't say we suffered at all.

The house was pleasantly quiet. We tend to have music on which means the computer and the power amp. The candles cast a gentle glow and a soft light that is far less harsh on the eye, and going to bed by candlelight was fantastic.

We did misfire a little by deciding late so weren't fully prepared, next week the intention is to make something to eat the night before and eat it cold so we don't need the cooker or kitchen. Even cooking could be managed by candle light if we had anywhere in our tiny kitchen to put anything.

I'd love to say that we would make massive energy savings for the planet, but I am under no illusions. It was a small gesture really, and the energy inherent in the candles would go a long way to cancelling out the energy saved by not using fossil energy. But I bet we were still up on the deal.

Also by not using the computer and amp we cut all our extra energy out for the night which adds to the tally.

On things like cooking we are just transferring usage to another night but there should be less used overall in even these as the oven only has to warm up once instead of twice etcetera.

But more than anything it is a step in the right direction, one that involves a lower usage of power.

Self generation of power at the moment is not enough, people are still consuming too much and it would take a significant installation to power the average house. We are moving to not requiring the power. The cooker was allowed as we aim to use a wood burning range in the future, heating is the same as we intend to have a wood burning stove to provide heat and a house that has a very high r value.

Just maybe it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

Belgium!

2011-01-26T18:41:00.000Z

Today was the second four egg performance by the girls.

Also thought the tally needed commemorating.

We are now down to just over £10 per egg!

Shameless Hussying

2011-01-21T20:27:00.000Z

Well the blog is no longer ad free.

m'Lady finally launched a Folksy shop for some of the stuff she lovingly crafts.

So you notice a little guy to the right there who looks a little out of place. Click him and you will go to her shop, or click this one.

and the same will happen.

I actually designed that little guy in Illustrator, I am trying to learn to use it as a transferable skill so I can get mobile and still have things to offer. When I get up to speed I will be freelancing I reckon.

Anyway why you still reading, go look, enjoy.

Hammerfall - The Blog

2011-01-21T19:36:00.001Z

Right I was more than a wee bit cruel the other night.

Trouble is I was very excited but without access to a computer I couldn't post pictures.

Hope that the wait hasn't been to long.

Some time ago I wrote a little post called I don't do horses.

This might give you a little clue. Well long story marginally less long, last Thursday was the first night of the Blacksmithing night course I found. It is a bit of a hike from Leeds up to Skipton where it is being run, only about 25 miles but at 4.30pm that takes me best part of an hour and a half and most of an hour to come back. It is away up the rural roads.

But well worthwhile. The course is initially 10 weeks, we are being instructed by a chap who has very nearly 60 years experience so he is knowledgeable, unfortunately his teaching skills are a bit lacking. He tends to say do this then you have do ask him why to get the reason for it. But he has the information.

So off I drove with my school bag all packed, armed with only a Mumford and Sons cd to keep me company as I pass dangerously close to Lancashire. The college annex is on an industrial estate, access to the part of the building we want is through the decorative building and plastering room. This is a bizarre place where walls move each week. It's a bit like the Labyrinth, I couldn't help but feel somewhere there was a little worm with a red scarf waiting for me...

Anyhoo, back to the plot.

For three hours I am given a bit of iron and as much fire as I can eat*, and am given a project. It was a little bit hard the first week as there were three new starters and five who did the course before and returned to carry on with a more advance project. The three of us were put around one forge which makes it hard to get the metal to the desired temperature.

Basically Blacksmithing works like this.

Take metal, warm to plasticity but not too hot or you burn it, put on anvil, twat it, repeat as necessary.

If you have 'too many irons in the fire' they don't get warm enough to work properly, this causes problems from breaking the metal to half killing yourself trying to do anything.

At a lovely orangey red colour, mild steel reaches plasticity and for a few halcyon seconds is as workable as play dough. Then it cools and stops playing. At this point it is still bloody hot though so you have to be careful.

So it wasn't too easy last week but bless him he still got three of us to produce one of these.

Can you tell what it is? How about the below?

m'Lady couldn't but the I didn't give it to her like this, and knowing me far to well she assumed it was something fiercely practical and not arty in the least.

Well if you said Snail you have got it right! Not the most beautiful of pieces but for my first effort I am more than happy. There were a lot of things to learn here in terms of working the metal and even the process of shaping it. The order you do things in is quite important, in certain things it is imperative!

You'll see what I mean when I sure you pictures of the next project. We are still working on this one so I am keeping it under wraps until then.

I have to say though I have found my calling, I have never felt happier doing something. I figure that I need to get a forge set up as quickly as possible. I have been researching loads to find something I could do. Trouble is I lack space. If only I had a garage I could lock myself away in.

Oh well.

*I can actually fire breathe. Don't ask, suffice to say a drunken night and an availability of meths finally gave me the courage to overcome the fear factor.

Late Night Quicky

2011-01-20T22:09:00.002Z

Look at the eggulator!

First 4 egg day, go team chicken.

Its also possible now to identify the eggs and which breed is laying them!

Omm nomm nomm.

2011-01-18T19:30:00.002Z

Well the more eagle eyed amongst you may have notice a little counter going on on the right.

I did mention a week or so ago that we had our first egg, and now I present it to you.

m'Lady, being in the habit of naming things, called it Sheldon, who was the egg with feet in Orson's Farm. The above photo is not posed by the way, that is exactly how it came out of the hen, except without the egg cup of course. You will notice Sheldon gracing the egg counterer on the right there.

So we did quite well in our first week, finishing on 11 eggs off the girls in 7 days. For hens that have just started laying at the wrong time of year I am very chuffed with this. Don't get me wrong, I adore them, their characters and their ways, but these are not pets. Much as it pains me I will end any one of them that isn't keeping up their end of the bargain.

The trouble is knowing who is laying. Well I thought we had three. I was basing this on what appeared to be sexual maturity, figuring if they are ready for the rooster they are probably laying eggs. Seemed sound to me.

However today we discovered something that didn't quite ring true.

Two of these eggs were laid today, the third is from the haul. As you can see all three are markedly different. They appear to be tinted, brown/tinted and brown.

This to me indicates three different breeds, we have a Rhode Island Red, a Light Sussex and Two Black Rocks. So it is possible that we had three breeds laying, however the brown one only appeared today which would say only two breeds were laying. Trouble with this is the one hen I though wasn't laying was one of the Black Rocks yet we have had a couple of three egg days. Three hens producing two colours of egg pretty much mean the Black Rocks both had to be laying and the best I can make out from the Internet, the dark brown egg is from the RIR.

We are confused so if anyone can shed light on it for us then great if not then I am not too fussed.

The egg eating seems to have stopped as well which makes me think that it was mere opportunism, that is the eggs were getting broken and then the hen was eating them. We did finally catch one with egg on it's beak so know who it was and we will keep an eye out. Also one of the others has decided to be dominant and sit on the eggs as well so she may be protecting them while we are at work.

So as you will note we now have had twenty eggs. We waited until the weekend just gone before we did anything, I was going to let the Daughter have the first one while she was with us. I got her up on Saturday morning and took her out to check and she found two eggs which made her quite happy. So Saturday breakfast for her was a two egg omelette beautifully cooked by m'Lady.

The verdict? Well see for yourself.

As for us? Well take five eggs crack them into a dish and beat thoroughly. Add salt, pepper, paprika and herbs to taste.

Dunk in a slice or two of fresh homemade bread then chuck in a frying pan.

Cook on both sides and serve with your choice of condiment, m'Lady likes salad cream on hers. I like homemade chutney with it but went also with the salad cream.

And the verdict for us? Well look back to the title...

He's Back!

2011-01-18T18:29:00.000Z

One hard drive crash later here I am.

The good thing about Macs is they have this fantastic function called time machine that backs up your entire system so what you do is once you have reinstalled everything, you attach your Time Machine drive and the mac says you wanna restore all your settings and programs as per the last backup which would be the day previous to the crash.

Yeah I probably should have been using that, still all the important stuff is stored on an external drive anyway. I think I will start protecting things more.

Still it is a valuable lesson learned. I am too reliant on this box for all things. If the power goes out permanently they will be nothing more than expensive paperweights.

So I have several things to catch up with and am about to start so for now, hello to the Newbies.

Make yourselves at home, sorry you joined me just as I disappeared!

Hammerfall Teaser

2011-01-14T08:41:00.000Z

I had fun last night?
What with?
Well that will have to wait till I can sit and upload photos I'm afraid.

Insert Maniacal Laughter here.

Quicky

2011-01-12T16:20:00.000Z

Home computer broke.
Sneaking one under the radar at work.
May be gone a while!

Arseburgers

2011-01-09T21:09:00.000Z

There was another egg, it appears to have been eaten.

Thing is I spent the best part of an hour and an half on eye level terms with the hens and not one of them had egg on their beaks. Definitely pecked open I reckon though as it was in the nest box, so no bad fall for this one.

The internet offers plenty of options, normally involving mustard and a half eaten egg, but I've seen some of the stuff that hens chow down on, I'm not convinced that they would notice mustard, plus if they get a liking for mustard they will cost a fortune in condiments.

So we are putting golf balls in the nests on the grounds that they look slightly similar to eggs.

The theory is that they give up pecking when they try and these things don't break. Not sure whether it will actually fool them or not but I don't have a lot of choice, we are out at work all day so the culprit has plenty of chance to eat up while we aren't around.

Bugger.

It would have been easier but for the hens.

2011-01-09T14:13:00.000Z

Well I had to tackle a job today.

The chickens are meant to be on deep litter. What should happen is they poo all day long into wood shavings but scratch it all up so that it composts, ammonia levels never build up and this time next year I have a run full of lovely organic manure ready for the garden straight away.

Trouble is the hens don't seem to read my blogs. They would rather scratch as much of the wood shavings out of the run as possible meaning it just gets wet in the rain and does not do what it is meant to.

So this morning I started cleaning the greenhouse and getting things sorted there, then I decided to tackle the run. I decided that by simply running an 18 inch deep strip of clear plastic right round the inside of the run.

If you just refresh yourself here of the coop and run design, you will see that it looks like quite an easy job except for under the coop itself where there is only about 24 inches of room from the ground.

So I had to get down on my hands and knees and crawl around under the coop stapling plastic to the framing. A job that would have been so much easier except for the presence of four inquisitive girls who wanted to see what I was doing and more importantly, did I bring food?

Seems us non avian bipeds only have one purpose in their little feathery universe.

So it was a bit of a struggle in a tight space with hens pecking at the plastic, my tools and my feet.

I was amazed to look round at one point and find that Linus was no more that two inches from my face looking back with a 'Wasn't doing anything!' expression on her face. While I was laid on the ground there was much jumping on me as well. Apparently legs make a great roosting bar!

I find it hard to be annoyed though, in fact despite several swearings while an erstwhile Gallus literally stood between me and the job, I spend most of the time laughing at them. I am captivated by these we beasties, they all have individual characters and subtle nuances that make them, well, them.

On top of the two eggs we found yesterday, there was also the remainder of a third shell. I am not sure if this broke because they realised it was food or because a young hen with know better idea laid an egg from the roost bar. Coupled with the fact that today Pious surprised me by assuming the position when I went to pick her up means I most likely have three egg laying birds.

In fact, as I type now there is some quite disturbed clucking coming from the coop itself so another offering may be on it's way! It's so hard not to keep going and checking every five minutes!

Rude Awakening!

2011-01-08T18:48:00.000Z

Okay so yesterday was a ranty day so I will stay away from hot topics today. Glad to hear your comments though and be once again reminded I am not the only one who despairs sometimes.

Freedom food is the future, they have really high standards so if you see their endorsement then go with it. Currently Morrisons' eggs are freedom food registered as are many of their Turkeys.

Anyhoo back top topic.

It's the new year as you may have noticed and to be honest I didn't want to go back to work. I had a long break where I did very little and enjoyed some quality time with the Daughter.

Christmas was the usual low key affair, we brought the tree in at about 6 pm on Christmas Eve and decorated it, it was back in the garden by New Years day. We have one in a pot that I intend to grow to a good size and then keep for as long as it will live.

Daughter gets very little off us in the way of presents, she is an odd one to buy for anyway. But the Gran gets her loads each year so she doesn't miss out. She also went to her first gig in December. We got tickets to go to Manchester for Weird Al's first UK tour. She was soooo happy even though we had to stand outside in the snow for an hour as we queued to get in. Got great seats and we are officially the best parents ever!

The biggest eep on Christmas Day was for the hand knitted Moose that m'Lady made for Daughter.

Otherwise nothing overboard, we both had our presents in October. We're not sticklers for a date!

So the new year means for many the business of resolutions which is a business I am not in to be fair. I have things I want to achieve but nothing concrete.

The target for this year is over 110lbs of veg from the garden and to be honest I am wondering if I will do it as my gusto isn't so great as last year. Still I have reset the counter and look forward to it starting. No doubt I will get interested again next month when the first seedings start. For now there are just too many jobs need doing first.

This is also the year for the chickens. I am now more than happy that the four we have are all girls. They are all of an age where they should be crowing by now if not. They are all starting to redden up on their combs and wattles now as well.

Yesterday morning I let them out as usual before going to work. Broke the ice of their water, throw down the food scraps and hand fed them some grain as is the routine. Generally at this point I try and stroke them to keep them hand tame, they are a little flighty still and Pious still hasn't forgiven me for eating her chums I think, she remains a little distant until I leave the run. Makes me feel a little like Mrs Tweedy.

Anyway yesterday morning when I went to stroke Hilarious, rather than run away as she has been doing she crouched down and raised her wings. This is an act of supplication to the rooster, the fowl equivalent of 'Take me I'm yours'. Now thinks I, if you are ready to tup you are ready to start laying eggs so get too it instead of just eating me food.

It's worth noting at this point that I have not been expecting to see any ovoid avian ovulations until spring as the young chucks didn't get to laying point before the winter shut down.

So imagine my surprise this morning when m'Lady prods me awake at nine o'clock and says you have to see this while it is still warm. She had been out to let the girls out and checked the nest boxes as we do periodically, and guess what? Well go see what m'Lady had found.

Somewhat of a surprise I can tell you and I think I will forgive the rude awakening.

What are they doing?

2011-01-07T18:31:00.000Z

Well if you have just come of the ear bashing that was Not in My Cuppa then this one may not be be the best follow up as it contains my next gripe.

I mentioned in that post that there are currently experiments into GM Pigs happening in Canada.

There is nothing in that article I can agree with. Making animals digest something they shouldn't because otherwise it is a massive environmental issue isn't a good idea. Runoff is only a problem when huge amounts of manure get dumped in one place. It doesn't happen in fields at reasonable Stock levels as the soil absorbs the manure as compost much is the cycle of nature.

Plus has anyone stopped to consider there may be a reason why pigs don't digest these things? What would it do to the meat? You can guarantee that if it is successful this will be pushed into the US food chain in the same way that GM corn and Soya have been, giving the US consumer very little choice in the matter.

In fact in the States it is practically illegal to even report on these sort of practices in agriculture as the companies that control them fund the government and in many cases the Government Departments are headed by people who have/had a vested interest in the companies. Revolving Doors anyone?

Well the upshot of it is the main feeds are GM crops and we want to concentrate animal production so we need to try and deal with the effluent problem. The simple answer is allow animals free range on pasture to eat a balanced nutritional natural diet. But we are growing all this lovely GM Grain that the nice people at Monsanto kindly sold us, they do excellent work in controlling the agricultural policy in the US so we can trust them to do things right. Trouble is this grain contains levels of stuff that can be quite troubling, I know lets change the pig to suit us. And lets use a deadly virus to do this, there surely won't be any long term ramifications of this will there?

Sound a little over thought and doom laden?

Well lets look at that other major gripe of mine, the CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Organisation).

Well these lovely little places are where they keep cattle in vast numbers. The numbers are so vast that they can't possible be kept on pasture, because of this they can't eat grass so are fed a crop that can be grown quickly such as GM corn and GM soya (guess who from?) but the cow's stomach isn't designed to digest corn or soya. Millions of years of evolution gave this ruminant a penchant for grass.

So the internal chemistry of the cows stomach is changed breeding ecoli to much higher levels. This is excreted out but the cows are kept in such large numbers that they are pretty much living in their own and others poo all day long, so disease is higher. This means we need to inject them with a lot of medicines made by other companies who support the US government.

The animals are then shipped to one of the handful of super abattoirs that process most of the commercial meat in the US. Thousands of animals bringing disease with them? The meat contains high levels of ecoli? Out breaks of this disease are getting quite common? There's only two answers, get the cows back on pasture land and there stomachs will reset within a weak and the problem goes away. Or

alternatively we could send the processed meat to a factory that washes it in ammonia to clean it in the same way you would bleach a toilet.

Which one do you think happens?

It's not the one that doesn't benefit the chemical companies that are helping to support the government that's for certain. Notice a pattern? If you buy burger meat then unless it is certified organic from a local farmer of known provenance, this is how it is produced. Watch a film called Food Inc for details.

So having engineered a problem in the first place, we now engineer an answer, all of which rely heavily on the oil companies that support... well you know.

I think the problem is as a species we are too enamoured of how clever we are, to use a phrase no one stops to ask why. Science went to the moon but pretty much came back an arsehole and I actually love science geeky stuff.

If anyone thinks that these sort of things will lead to good, then I suggest you go and read the story of Alfred Nobel and why he created the Nobel Prize.

Things of this nature are rarely used mostly for good.

Urgent one

2011-01-07T17:44:00.000Z

Hey all,

I try not to be too activist and scary but there is something that got me real angry over christmas.

There are plans to open a US style cattle factory in this country and time is running out to oppose it.

Read the background here, Nocton Super Dairy.

Then read here for another side, Notinmycuppa.

Arguments rage on both sides and I will trust you are all intelligent enough to make up your own minds.

This is my take.

These things exist in the states and are frankly horrendous. One I read about boast a calf is born every 80 calves born every day. Let me tell you now they do not go on and live long happy lives.

My Grandad was a Dairy Farmer most of his life.

He had about 100 cattle and they were kept on pasture most of the year round. In the winter, they were brought into the big barn and corralled in a large yard so they had both shelter and access to the outside.

They were free to eat grass most of the year with only a few supplements such as mineral licks. In the winter months they were fed on a mixture of silage and hay which was harvested on the farm in the summer, and feed nuts.

There is no truth to the statement that cows do not need to be outside.

If a cow is fed on the wrong food, the internal chemistry of the stomach changes, this can lead to an increase in the e coli bacteria in their stomachs. This doesn't really affect the cow but us? That is a different matter. Cows in large numbers and close quarters are more prone to infection, as is any animal including humans, so the cows become routinely injected with antibiotics and prebiotics. Until recently in the states growth hormones were being administered to get the cows to production time quicker. These end up in the milk and ultimately in you.

The cows are pretty much locked in and overfed to ensure they overproduce. Any women here who breast fed fancy doing that for hours at a time?

The main reason that the dairy farm became unsustainable was the driving down of prices. My Gran used to do a local milk round, only about 10 miles from the farm, she was one of several local milkmen who bottled and sold their own milk. The rise of the Food Safety regime put paid to that as to deal in small quantities, the cost of operating at their standards was too great. So one by one the little dairies and dairy farms stopped. A community lost out on local free range pretty much organic milk delivered to order 6 days a week at a reasonable price.

This story is not unique.

Now the supermarkets are driving prices down as the consumer demands the lower prices. Well who pays there do you think? Do they only have the single Jeroboam at the shareholders meeting? I rather think not, instead the supplier is squeezed. So dairy farmers have to produce higher quantities (not higher quality) at the same or less price.

It's hard to blame them entirely for making a living, it's most other people who are to blame.

I say most because there are a couple of things you can do. Firstly go and oppose the dairy in this country, you'll find a petition in the Not In My Cuppa website.

Secondly shop consciously. I know milk can be cheap, as little as a pound for four pints, but check if it is British. Daft as this sounds it is cheaper to import milk as on the continent a lot of dairy cows are already raised solely in barns. Lower production and labour costs means cheaper stock. British stocks are better as the welfare laws are higher. This of course pushes up the price.

If you can run to it by organic, there are strict rules on stocking densities and feed qualities and medicating that make the life of the cow a higher quality and thus the milk. If you can't buy organic every time then try and budget the extra 50p every other time or every third time, the increase in demand will detract from the regular. The glory find would be to have a local farmer willing to supply you but this can be dubious as milk is meant to be pasteurised these days.

If you can not afford to buy the good stuff then try and use less and drive down your consuming, however this will only ultimately drive all prices up so there will be no great gain.

I know there are arguments cost wise but it really is the fault of the consumer for buying into these things. Recently in the states, WalMart, the largest retailer on the planet, had to back track on milk from cows that were given hormone injections after consumer pressure as shoppers refused to buy the stock they had bought.

People hide behind the cost factor but we have made the market this way, but are cushioned and sheltered from the 80 calves that must be slaughtered at that place every day. What if I were to bring those calves round to your house and slaughter them on the garden? It would be no different for the calf, but it might bring it home to the consumer.

This of course is a British thing at the moment, but it is an incursion of a bad idea from the States, any American readers I urge to oppose Mega Dairies however you can.

There is a major worry here. If we concentrate on one or two massive dairies that rely on energy input for the milk, ie a lot of electricity, manufactured feed, cleaning etc, then the milk has a high embodied energy, as opposed to a cow eating on pasture (that is reasonably self sustaining) and producing only waste that will fertilise the pasture for years to come? What do we do if the power goes off? Or the cost of oil suddenly drives these prices sky high.

We have committed, the super dairy has made smaller herds unprofitable so the small dairy farms disappear, struggling rural economies suffer, a major food staple becomes delocalised so if production suddenly does stop there isn't a local farmer capable of producing. The stock lines are bred to produce cows only suitable to the super dairy so these stop doing so well on pasture or even worse become unable to survive outside (this is a little unlikely, but this week they started producing GM pigs in Canada).

I'm going to stop there as I have already run into ranty, apologies for making the first one back an angry one but that's how I feel about this one, it frankly boils my piss.

I'm afraid the next couple aren't going to be any better!

Busyness stops play

2010-12-23T14:01:00.003Z

Hey all,
I am not really around much at the moment with many other things going on.
So I am grabbing a quick moment to say enjoy the festivities, whatever your creed nationality or religion.

If it is a bit wintry where you are take care.

Have a good one folks and see you in the new year when I will get back to some real writing.

Last Call

2010-12-15T20:16:00.000Z

Hey peeps,

The seeds are ready so I am looking to start posting them.

I have addresses for Murphy Fish, Billie Jane, Bright and New and Kirsten. Seeds will be on their merry little way soon.

I also note from the comment list that Dethas would like some seeds so please drop me an email with your address and which seeds you want so I can get them out to you.

Anyone else this is last call. I am sharing out the seeds equally so every one can have a fair go at them so if I don't hear from you by sunday I am afraid you have missed out.

As I've said before, distance isn't an obstacle, the only place I am not sending to is Australia as the seeds will not make it through customs.

Right that's me, I am off to catch up on a blog or two then play banjo again!

What I want for Christmas

2010-12-08T19:09:00.001Z

Well Billie Jane posted this question today and it is always interesting to read other people's thoughts.

I was going to leave a comment but then I thought I haven't been around for a while and there is a post in this.

I haven't been around as I have had a few other things to do that will become apparent in this blog, but mainly because there hasn't been anything going on to write about. My teeny little urban small holding has shut down for the winter. The goat poo is slowly breaking down in the frost to be dug in early spring for the worms to enjoy. That's about it.

But returning to the question, well unlike Billie Jane I would rather be asked what I want as I abhor waste and don't want some naff present hanging around the house like a pox. All I see is the embodied energy that went into making something I didn't want and transporting it too me across the globe, to mention nothing of the acres of trees that are cut down every year to wrap this crap in.

I tell you once you have worked in a warehouse of the stuff it really gives you perspective.

So my answer is I don't want anything thank you.

In my anti waste, anti consumer drive I am actively trying to get rid of the unnecessary or the unreliable in my life for a simpler way of living. So why do I want more turning up now?

I have managed to get this message across to everyone now so I get very little. There is one Christmas card from friends I don't see very often, which I don't mind as we don't see them very often. Why I get a card off someone I see everyday and hardly talk too I don't know. Without wanting to be rude, keep it to yourself or better still leave it on the tree in the first place. I would appreciate that more.

Even the most Stalwart this year said you won't want anything, rather than asking me outright what I wanted. Score.

Leeds like everywhere else at the moment had it's fair share of snow. As is to be expected we didn't get our bins collected. Today was the next collection day, everywhere there were bins surrounded by black bags. It's only been two weeks since the last collection, how do we waste so much? I am hate this aspect of Christmas and we haven't got to the bad days yet.

Of course the recycling bin didn't get emptied last week so we have to struggle for another month before that gets picked up no doubt!

So what do I want for Christmas? Well m'Lady got me a banjo which is most of the reason I have been absent. You see in our house we are a bit time indeterminate. We had cash to spend on Christmas in October so I found one, she let me buy it and I have been practising with a fury ever since.

I'm not too fussed about not having it to open on the 25th, that is just another day to me.

I also had to assemble m'Lady's present, which involved a lot of painting.

I'm not going to say what it is as she will want to post about it, but that also took up a bit of time.

So all of a sudden it is a month since my last post. The daughter was down for half term in that time which always gets in the way of me posting. We don't have a telly so she tends to amuse herself on the internet when we aren't playing. m'Lady is teaching her to sew at the moment so that is a nice distraction. When I have got to the computer I tend to have been a weeks reading behind so by the time I have caught up I haven't wanted to sit and type.

But if I am honest, I want to be learning to play banjo at the moment, it's a steep learning curve with much swearing and cursing. Normal service will resume soon no doubt.

Come from alabama...

2010-11-15T21:16:00.000Z

Actually, origin unknown but we'll get to that.

If you look closely at my blurb you'll notice I am Buddhist, although I have to confess I have not been very good at it lately. Worry not dear reader, spirituality to me is a private thing and I'm not a tub thumping zealot out to convert the world with pamphlets. So know big discussions here.

But we are approaching that Christian Time of year, you know the one where the Guy with The Beard gives out gifts in memory of god giving his only son for you (yeah I couldn't think of a better reason why we have Santa).

In honour of one of the finest songs to be number one on two occasions by the same artist, one of which was at Christmas we'll have a musical accompaniment to this one.

Christmas is our house has become a funny thing. We don't really want new stuff which makes it hard to try and find stuff at the right time of year. The house is too small to try and hide anything is so you can't stockpile. If you ask the Daughter what she would like, she invariably lists everything that is on the adverts on kids telly, because as far as she is concerned this stuff is pushed at her constantly so it must be necessary.

The result is that Daughter gets money put in an account for her every birthday and Christmas, which is a tad ironic for a couple of anti capitalists but life is nothing without a little hypocrisy. Actually hypocrisy offends me greatly but the only alternative is to say to her that we are not giving her anything. Yeah that's not going to happen.

So we tend to get our presents when we can find them and not worry too much about seasonal accuracy. So Happy Christmas everyone! Well me at least because the mystery gift is sat on my knee (another clue, as was the choice of music by the way).

Any guesses?

Well feast your eyes on this little beauty.

I found this one on eBay, I've been after a Banjo for ages but wanted an old one and had a few specific requirements which made it hard to find. Also vintage Banjos have tended to be snapped up fast and go for quite a bit. This one said make me an offer so I did sharpish and I won.

It's definitely old as it has a real patina to it and the tuning pegs are similar in style to those found on things like violins. On guitars and such these were long ago replaced by geared ones. The fretboard inlay is gorgeous, the above isn't a brilliant picture.

She needs a little love as there is a little tear in the skin, so the vellum could do with replacing. Traditionally it is goatskin so one day I might make these myself. She needs restringing so I will do that at some point but I will enjoy her for now as she is.

I have pestered m'Lady endlessly about letting me have a Banjo and she has resisted on the grounds I may have 3 guitars, a bass, a violin, and a piano, but finally she relented.

I love m'Lady and I love my Banjo.

Just need to sort out a suitable name for her.

Ooh it got cold fast.

2010-11-15T19:34:00.000Z

I seemed to blink and miss autumn.

Now I know the seasons don't read the almanac but they could at least show a little respect for us humans!

Joking aside, we went from autumn to winter pretty bloody quickly this year. This morning the greenhouse was frosted up on the inside, and it was 1 below when I went out. Still after the gales last week I am lucky I still have my greenhouse. A third of it did try to escape but I managed to find everything and put it back together, and ensure that it won't blow away again.

Did you ever read that story about the man who let his furniture outside and it ran off? That's how my very cartoony mind sees it. But no harm.

Anyhow, it got cold as I may already have mentioned. Now m'Lady and I are pretty warm people so we are not too phased but we have had to put our heating on already for longer than I would like. I do have two house bunnies and a gecko to think about. A few weeks ago we nearly lost Fred (yes that's what a 6 year old girl calls a female gecko) as someone accidentally turned off her heat mat. As it turns out this didn't matter as the heat mat is connected to a thermostat which had stopped working around the same time. Long story short, she can only have been without heat for a few days but was cold to the touch.

Ten minutes in my warm mitts and she picked up a treat, the heat mat is now plugged into a timer switch instead of trusting anything else and the switch is taped on so there will be no repeats.

If it happened this week she would be dead, plain as.

But that brings us nicely to the topic of heating. I know many of you will already have yours on so it may be worth a little discussion about it.

Firstly, most of you will have radiators. Pop quiz, how do radiators transfer heat to a room?

If you said radiation then it is a conical hat and a sit in the corner I am afraid as it is actually convection. The air immediately around the radiator is actually warmed by convection but literally only a few inches. Air is a poor conveyor of heat which is why the best insulants have lots of air pockets. Left to it's own devices air would not transfer heat very well at all.

But the heat has other ideas. It likes to be up on high, so it rises. This does two things, it forces cold air down from the ceiling and cold air from the floor fill the void.

This air is heated and then rises and the whole cycle becomes convection.

Anything that disturbs this cycle will affect the efficiency of the system. So get the junk out of the way and get the washing off them. I know at this time of year it is hard to get the washing dry outside, but if you put wet clothes over a radiator you are lagging it much like the tank in an airing cupboard. This stops heat getting out. Better is to hang things in the airflow, so get a clothes horse out if you have one or hang things on hangers in door frames and in the stairwell from the balcony if you can.

The same goes for furniture, I used to have a bed in front of a radiator and my head would be sweating and my feet were cold. Ideally move the furniture altogether, if not then try and move it away so the air can get to the radiator for convection to happen.

Finally, walls eat warmth. Stop as much leaving that way as possible. If you have cavity walls, look at getting them insulated, there are plenty of organisations offering grants to do this and your loft too at the moment. If both those are done then simply putting a bit of tinfoil, shiny side facing the radiator, behind the radiator can make a difference.

Don't have curtains hanging over the radiator. Firstly you are lagging them again, secondly you are funneling all that lovely heat straight to the windows. Glass is one of the worst thermal bridges in a house, a place where heat can get out. If you have long curtains consider pinning them up.

Plug gaps everywhere, a blanket behind the front door to stop that draft will make the house immeasurably warmer. Draft proofing the loft hatch will do the same.

Next look at the settings, current thinking says run the boiler hotter. This is a little counter intuitive, but modern boilers work more efficiently at higher temperatures as the gas is burnt more efficiently. This is particularly true of condensing types.

If the boiler is burning efficiently you are getting every last watt out for your pound. This heats the water circulating in the system, if this comes back to the boiler warmer it will take less time to heat it up again so the boiler doesn't fire for so long. If you have one control the temperature by the thermostat. That way the boiler is only on when needed.

If you have thermostatic valves fitted then consider turning them down in rooms that aren't used as often. I personally don't recommend turning them off as the room then just becomes a heat sink and draws heat out of the rest of the house, which is counter productive.

Finally if you haven't already, dress for the weather. Tonight I have put on a shirt as a nod towards the cold. The thermostat in our house is rarely set above 15 and is only on for an hour or two.

I know most of you will be doing a lot of this already. Those of you that aren't changing will achieve a few things, it will save you money and it will save the environment.

One last thing on a personal note, get to know your own body and work with it. These days there is a fix for everything. We are cold turn up the heating. Well what about when that isn't an option? I have found I am only truly cold when my feet are. A daft correlation but non the less true. So I have a pair of woolly slippers that I wear over my socks. They keep my feet toasty and the rest of me doesn't complain as much. Also by allowing myself to be cold I am finding I have become tolerant to the cold.

I don't mean I sit here shivering, rather when my comfort zone was 20 degrees I turned the thermostat down a degree or two. This meant that I was only just underneath where I would be happy. Over time I acclimatised. Once I was at 18 I turned it down again, and so on which is why now it is at 15 and not too much of an issue.

This means I am better prepared for when it gets much colder as my level is around 15 degrees. If I put the heating up higher I feel the benefit very quickly, ie an increase to 17 is a huge jump and I don't really ever need to go higher than that now.

I get the impression when I am stood over a forge heating will not be an issue!

I don't do horses...

2010-11-09T22:29:00.000Z

That is a title that hides an absolute smorgasbord of meaning!

But please keep it clean.

I've never been a horsey person, doubt really I ever will. Odd then that my future contains, at the very least, a pony.

But that is not what the title is about.

No, after months of panning in the streams of the Internet I finally struck education gold.

Or should that be Iron?

A few years ago I was lucky enough to go and meet Peter Ginn on the Victorian Farm and be shown around by him. He was a really nice guy and interesting too.

Now this was just after the filming had finished for the Christmas special they did, although we visited in July! Bless the magic of television. As part of the special they made a load of bricks the old fashioned way, which were very necessary to repair the local old forge.

They had to rebuild the chimney and relay the floor, and find a working set of bellows as this would be a traditional old forge.

This is also where I first satisfied, my manly urges to bash lumps of metal into slightly flatter lumpier chunks of metal.

I have to say I loved it. I have always been drawn to the art of the Blacksmith and have been tempted to try but put of by the cost and frankly the unavailability of courses.

Coming back to Victorian Farm, the fire finally went out in the 50s following the death of the last Smith and ending nearly 400 years of continuous smithing by the same family. This is a tragic loss to me. Not the smith himself as death is a natural progression, it waits for me one day. But the skill and knowledge just went with him.

No apprentice was there to learn, no Journeyman embarking on years of understudy in this beautiful art.

Peter had some of the year books from the forge. These were the ledgers of the smith, everything for nearly forty years was listed in a handwritten script that could only be described as wrought. They contained every last thing that the smith had made or repaired.

The smith was everything in the community, they would make buckets and door handles and hinges. They would forge ploughshares as easily as they would craft a nail. They would also be there to repair in an age when everything lasted until it could last no more. They would rivet the handles back onto pans and patch that bucket they had made you years ago.

They would take hard tools and smelt poetry from the bones of the earth and communities needed them.

Then someone decided that things could be made quicker, cheaper and plasticer (?) and that was it, no more smiths.

Now you still see scroll work gates and the like but these are made by cheating, using formers to mass produce identical items. Except for the odd one or two artisan smiths who are still producing things the old fashioned way, the skill is disappearing.

We became disposable. Your bucket breaks, buy a new one from the company who made a second rate product in the first place. Thus ensuring the continued demand for second rate plastic buckets everywhere.

Well last week I found a blacksmithing night course relatively local. It is Thursday evenings for three hours starting in the new year and should give me a complete introduction to this trade. I say trade as I fear it will be more to do with modern methods, but I am hoping there will be plenty of practical knowledge on things like basic metallurgy that are also key to this craft.

Then I plan to buy every book on the topic I can and try and find someone to give me better knowledge of the craft. Build a forge and bring back this skill because I am convinced it will be necessary again. It will at the very least be a skill I can take with me and maybe trade off here and there.

Peter has a new series starting this week, Edwardian Farm, looking at the next run in the ladder. I'm not sure it is for me but I am sure it will still be fascinating.

Seeds

2010-11-03T22:45:00.000Z

Right guys,
The cucumber seeds are ready, also I now have a batch of pumpkin seeds under way.

A few of you commented before so if you still want sees drop me an email to the address on the right. I'll need your address so there is an element of trust here.

But you can trust me.

I have a beard!

The cuke seeds are only for followers as there weren't a huge amount of them, anyone who wants heritage pumpkin seed from a 24lb pumpkin is also free to ask. They are certainly viable because at least half a dozen were already sprouting inside the pumpkin!

It should be possible to grow the cukes indoors or out in the British climate so they should do okay anywhere else I would have thought. They originally came from Real Seeds in Wales. Check them out. I'm not on commission or anything I just really like there attitude.

I'll send them anywhere so if you are over seas no probs except for Australia. Sorry to anyone over there but I aren't sending rare seed for your customs guys to incinerate.

Don't worry about postage, I just want to see other people have a go at this little fellow. For my part I am getting some more seed this year to raise different plants with an intention to breeding them.

What I did on my holidays.

2010-11-02T21:44:00.001Z

Well I didn't go away but it was half term last week and the daughter was with us.

This partially explains the lack of computer time to get posting done and to be honest I haven't missed it!

It has been refreshing not to be thinking about what I am going to write.

Now don't think I do this for you readers, although I am mighty glad that someone dropped by and took time to read. No I started this blog for my own benefit. There are things that I would like to remember in the future and I can keep coming back here easily.

Things I have made, or done etc.

But I work with a PC all day looking at spreadsheets, although I quite enjoy it if I am being honest, so spending a lot of time at the Mac when I get home isn't always my priority. In fact it has been good to get back to reading.

You know? When writing came on bits of mushed tree? I have tackled a couple of graphic novels (or comic books if you want to think of them like that) which is an art form I have come to late in life. I have read some tat but there are some works out there that would stand up against any Booker prize winner or best seller you care to mention. Watchmen is fantastically deep if you care to tackle it, although in truth the ending of the film is much better.

I watched several films over the last week as well. Last Sunday was a luxury trip to the cinema to see Toy Story 3 with said Daughter and m'Lady.

It's not often we go to the cinema, in truth I am a bit of a film snob and there is too much I won't pay to see as it is going to be crap. In fairness TS3 worked out to be like that, it's just the first one rehashed again and suffers from 'we need to have bigger explosions in the sequel' syndrome. But Vue cinemas have a deal on a Sunday morning where you can take a kid to the cinema and everyone pays 95 pence. The film has generally finished it's run now but normally fairly new. Also they run this through the school holidays so if you have a Vue nearby and fancy a cheap ticket, borrow a child!

Otherwise it is Orange Wednesdays for us and no popcorn. The Daughter, being 9 and having a bit of money burning through the lining of her pockets, bought herself a pop. Needless to say a cup of fizzy cost more than the three tickets did!

But that's not all we did.

Seeing as Daughter helped me start making the cider it seemed fitting she was here to finalise the process. I drained the keg into a fermenting bin to get the liquid off the muck and then primed it. This is adding sugar to kick start a secondary fermentation in the bottle. This creates bubbles as the output from the yeast breaking down the sugar is CO2. Then this was all syphoned in to bottles without getting too much on the floor and capped.

And this is the bounty, 50 or so bottles of pure apple cider at about 7%. This is now all stashed up in the brew cupboard. Me girl done good!

Next up was the bramble and elderberry wine. I had three demijohns all ready to be racked. I had to make a decision here, I could either rack each one individually thus preserving each batch in its current state or I could mix them. Keeping them separate would be the idea if I was making a fine wine or single barrel brandy, but I figured the chances of all three being amazing were slight so I would mix them to even out the taste.

So these were syphoned into a clean fermenting bin and then syphoned back into clean demijohns.

I use a syphon as it is important not to get too much air in the liquid once fermentation has stopped. This can turn it acidic or in worse cases send it off.

That done they were put back into the cupboard for another few months. There was or course a wee drop left for a taster and I have to say it was pretty good in its raw form. It should mellow nicely in 6 months or so!

That done it was time to address the marrow.

Now I wish I had been able to take more photos but it was a messy process and m'Lady would not have been happy if I had got molasses on her precious!

So I opened the marrow and was a little upset to see some mould around the top. I fear this is because I didn't get it sealed enough. However I decided to take a chance and cut off all the bad bit.

All the sugar had sunk anyway so I could do this without risking anything. Then I could pour out the syrup and left over sugar. I mixed some warm water with this to make sure all the sugar was dissolved.

I put everything in a demijohn and then topped it up with water and added more sugar, and a few raisins for good measure. In a years time this will hopefully be a pleasant liquor. It is fermenting away nicely at the moment.

Finally there was the small matter of Halloween. Now I am not fond of the American version of this holiday and its incursion over here. I'm not one to look fondly on the local toads knocking on the door threatening you if you don't give them money. I think it lost something on the way back over the Atlantic. Yes back over, it started over here in Ireland to be precise although its origins probably go back much further than that.

I think it is the wastage more than anything that offends me though. All those little packs of sweets that consume more wrapping than the bigger ones do, not to mention the awful amount of pumpkins that get wasted.

I mean years ago you didn't see a pumpkin over here, now you can't move for them. They are all taking up fields and being grown with fertilisers and are then hauled around in diesel drinking trucks to end up in a bin without having been eaten. That is a bit of a sin in my book.

That's not to say I don't like the carving bit. We had a mighty pumpkin this year ourselves and had promised the Daughter we would carve it. So we did. However the pumpkin is now in several bags in the freezer. Then it will be muffins and pies and such courtesy of m'Lady.

Before that though...

Yeah I like it.

One for the ladies.

2010-10-20T21:16:00.002+01:00

I spend my truly free time in the blogosphere, I have found many of your blogs myself in looking around and many of them I am reading because I was curious as to the type of mind that would find what I have to say interesting.

I have to say you are an Odd bunch. This pleases me.

I write in permanent fear because at least one English teacher reads my ramblings. I know it is insane but I fear the red Biro like I did when I was twelve.

I have people from all hemispheres checking in and even from Wales.

There are people from all walks of life and backgrounds who are all united under a common banner of realising we are messing things up.

It has to be said though you are mostly women. I don't mean you are all pre op trans gender that you are 90% female and 10% hairy man feet or anything truly weird, just that my constant reader demographic is firmly in the double X range.

Without wanting to spark any sexist debates and have an angry mob charging down Broccoli Acres, this means there are a lot of recipes.

Obviously you ladies like to cook, and like any true man, I like to eat.

The result is I leave a lot of your blogs feeling particularly hungry.

So tonight I am going to share one of my own with you. Now I will confess up front, I did not devise this recipe, but I have made it my own.

It is what we do with the surfeit of Courgettes in our house.

So without further ado, I bring you (ta ta daaaa) Courgette Slice.

You need 5 large eggs

1lb or 450 grams of Courgette

One medium sized onion, red or white.

5 ounce or 150 grams of self raising flour.

Cheese, however much you like.

Butter.

Sieve the flour into a large bowl, I often add a spoon of mustard powder and a spoon of paprika but this is optional, and make a well in the middle. Sprinkle a little salt in for good measure.

Crack the eggs (free range) into the well and mix together thoroughly.

Grate the courgette roughly, finely chop the onion and mix this all in the bowl as well.

Grate the cheese and throw this in, the original recipe had 1 cup in it but this is clearly an error.

Use the butter to grease a large dish, I use a large Pyrex baking dish, and pour the mix in.

Cook on Gas Mark 5, 375F or 190C for 45 minutes to an hour or until nice and brown. Stick a knife in the middle, if it comes out clean, or just covered in fat from the cheese, it is done. If there is any raw egg left on it a bit longer in the fire might be necessary.

Eat with a big pile of homemade chutney or potato wedges.

This isn't just food, it's bloody gorgeous.

You can also throw in some chopped bacon, or some grated carrot, and the recipe is modular so you want twice as much, you double the ingredients.

Essentially it is a quiche without all that bollocksing about with pastry. Which means it comes in quite well for weight watchers, except for the cheese, and the bacon, and the butter, and the cheese.

All joking aside though, this is one of my favourite meals, on it's own or with a pile of wedges, a baked potato etc.

If you have a glut of courgette that you are sick of, grate it and freeze it in handy pound bags, it can go straight in this recipe then meaning courgette slice all year round without the miles.

It is also the first meal I ever cooked m'Lady. It's constant supply has helped keep her by me no doubt!

ps Pre op transgender, and women with hairy feet are more than welcome.

We've come so far together.

2010-10-20T20:32:00.001+01:00

I want you to do me a favour to tonight, I want you to sit and have a good think about the things you have surrounded yourself with. Try and place worth on them.

Not value, it's too easy to say this cost that or that cost this but value is, well worthless. You can only sell something for what someone is willing to pay and if it is something you don't want, this nebulous value means nothing to you. Think of those caught in the negative equity trap in the last recession, having a house valued at thousands of pounds but as weighty an albatross as ever got airborne.

As I look around there are many things that catch my eye, the rather nice Ovation sat in the corner. This guitar is probably one of my most treasured possessions and, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit, it is named after a horse that every one has heard of but no one seems to realise didn't exist!

I have my shiny car outside which has not seen a cleaning cloth since the day it drove of the forecourt two years ago.

I have Cd's galore and a choice selection of some of the finest films ever made on DVD, and I will argue their case with any one who ever fancies a cuppa and that discussion.

I have my long hair and my beard. Neither cost anything but the food to grow them but it is hard to imagine life without either.

But when I start to think about the things that are important to me on a fundamental level it's hard to beat these little beauties.

I have had these boots a while. They were bought second hand off an army surplus stall for ten earth pounds when I needed some work boots. I picked the only brown pair out of row upon row of black ones as I have always had an affinity for the odd. So these were never going to survive my passing by.

They were instantly put to use in the garden at home and going to my grandad's farm. They have tromped through plother* and mess, both animal and mineral. They have been soaked through and have dried out.

I wore them the summer I helped a guy dry stone wall and they took an adder bite for me. You can still see the two tiny marks where the fangs hit if you look close enough.

They were cleaned up and given a polish and became a fashion item when I decided boots were better than trainers, then they were my staple footwear of choice when I realised that all things rock and metal were the best music.

They were bought when I was thirteen.

Yep, these boots have been in my possession for twenty three years and counting. Back then I was eight stone wringing wet and had size ten feet. My dad used to joke when I put them on I had to go to the roundabout at the top of the street to turn round.

These boots have carried me many thousands of miles, maybe more than I dare think about. They have seen pure joy and great misery, not all of it mine.

I have nothing older, and they were bought used.

As you can see they are in a poor state of repair now but I don't want to get them resoled. These are the soles they came with and they are the Soul. The feel of these boots emanates from the inside, passing through your feet like some ancient leather reflexology. To resole them would be akin to touching up the Mona Lisa where she is a little faded or fixing the arms on the Venus De Milo. It just shouldn't be done!

Unfortunately the soles are so thin I can tell which way up a penny is when I stand on one. Also they let in water for some reason.

Worse though is they are now becoming a hazard, those flappy bits on the sole make it impossible to drive in them. But even walking, they tend to snag in things and try and trip me.

So I am faced with a dilemma.

Do I let them fade away, consigned to the dusty part of the wardrobe where even the hardiest of silverfish fear to tread or do I destroy the very heart of them by carrying out a sole transplant?

Well to be honest it's a no brainer. They'll get resoled.

At ten pounds they owe me nothing, they are still on the laces that came with them! They have had nothing but two maybe three coats of polish in their life but have served well. If it costs me twenty quid to get them fixed that would still put me way up on the game.

They are actually german army para boots. Once someone offered me forty quid for them there and then covered in cement and nasty as apparently they are very rare. I refused, I would refuse ten times that now.

Since I bought these I have spent £45 on a pair of doc martins and £35 on a pair of Caterpillars that are no longer with me, neither of these lasted five years. I have a pair of biker boots that cost £70 and are still going strong after 10 years but they are already desperately in need of resoling. I have a pair of seldom worn Makita work boots from a previous employ that have already fallen apart badly. I am going to see if I can mend those myself.

So they will be fixed because they have years of wear left in them and they are amazingly comfortable.

They will be fixed because they deserve to be fixed.

There is nothing else in my life that symbolises the make do and mend, the use it up or do without ethic I now live by. There is no more fitting a torch bearer for my ongoing dream than the footwear that carried me through every episode of my life that meant anything or defined me.

We've come a long long way, these boots and me, seems we still have some way to go.

'My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud' - Henry Rollins

*a polite word for the stuff that comes out of the wrong end of a cow where I grew up.

Bad Timing

2010-10-19T21:57:00.000+01:00

If you read

Bottled Poetry

I would still plant my apple tree

and

I don't want you to think I have a problem

you will know I am having a near industrial scale go at home brew.

I have just been up to check on everything in the lab. Seriously, the noises in the spare room would bring comfort to the maddest of scientists.

The Apricot wine is due its second rack imminently, the Bramble and Elderberry wine is due it's first rack, the Last Minute Apple wine is still fermenting which I have to confess does worry me slightly. The Plum port is going great guns still which is a good sign as there was loads of sugar in there for the yeast to munch through.

The marrow is starting to soften which means in a week or two it will probably be ready for stage two.

I have around four litres of beer that has stalled, that is the fermentation has stopped but there is still plenty of sugar left in the brew. Too much in fact. I need to try and get it going again but this isn't the easiest of things to achieve given the lack of heat around at the moment. I may have to put the heating on just so I can stand in next to a radiator. Maybe if I throw in a whole shed load of yeast sized gloves and scarves it will help?

But the major problem is that the lovely cider I started of is ready for bottling. So I have to do a whole load of cleaning as he brew tubs I have are all a little dirty, and then there is 5 gallons worth of bottles to wash and sterilise and priming and stuff. It's just so much work after a full time job that I get a little overwhelmed by it! Everything keeps needing to be done at once.

I don't even really drink cider, it's for other people mainly!

However I seem to have been too whingy of late so enough of that, I have made a quite decent cider if preliminary tasting is anything to go by. It's a little tart it has to be said but is somewhere above 7% which is where I reckoned it would be.

Before I bottle it, I will prime it. This is the act of adding a little extra sugar to start a secondary fermentation in the bottles. The yeast absorbs sugar and oxygen and puts out CO2, this is how the bubbles get in there and why beers are sold as ABV. That means average by volume as it is impossible to predict how much alcohol will be added to the bottle by the secondary. Typically for a beer it is around 0.5% extra on the fermentation rate.

But shortly this will all be bottled up and then needs a few months to mature ideally. This should knock the harsh edge of it and make it tasty gorgeous.

I hope.

This will be first thing available as the apricot wine won't be drinkable till next November! Most of the others are ready through the year at some point.

It takes patience I can tell you.

The spectacular egocentricity of the thinking ape.

2010-10-18T20:28:00.000+01:00

Quite proud of that one I have to say, came up with it myself as well!

So disengaging smug mode (beep!), what you may ask prompted that one.

Well today I read an article about Biodiversity, specifically the loss of which the world is facing at the moment. Why is it a problem? Well as Ben Kenobi and Buddha would both extol, everything is connected. Bees pollinate flowers which provide plants, which provide habitat for insects which attract birds. Birds may also scatter seed which grows trees which provide habitat for birds and insects and bees.
Deaf leaves fall and provide conditions for fungus to flourish, roots maintain soil structure and so the chain goes on.

As I have said nothing is so small as to be insignificant, no matter my feeling about Pandas everything is here to fill a niche and fit a purpose, even if that purpose is population control in the instance of disease.

Tucked away in the article was the simple statement:

"This is the only planet in this Universe that is known to have this kind of life."

But behind that statement lies a huge lesson in why we fail (and sorry Yoda it's not because I can't believe it.)

According to the European Space Agency there are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe approximately. It's a little hazy, I'm not going to judge cause I am not even sure what that number is called but it is close to a billion billion (sorry Americans that is 24 noughts as a true billion has 12 noughts, not this 9 business to make people look richer). We are getting into Jam territory here.

So lets say that just one millionth of one percent of those stars are capable of supporting a planet like our own, that leaves us with 10,000,000,000,000,000 possible planets. Still more noughts than I care to think about!

Again if just one millionth of one percent of all those possible planets actually exist then we have 10,000,000,000 earth like planets or M class as they are often known supporting life.

Finally if just one millionth of one percent of all those real planets can support intelligent life we are left with 10,000 little arks spread throughout the glory of creation.

That to me is another 9,999 opinions that are being ignored. Now I am not saying there is alien life and they are coming to steal our resources by leaving strange machines underground for thousands of millions of years then inexplicably spreading red goo everywhere, or that little turds on legs are going to come along and run up the mother of all phone bills but the simple fact is that given the numbers it is almost a certainty.

But the quote was very specific, "This is the only planet in this Universe that is known to have this kind of life." That is a very precise, definite, statement. Had he performed some kind of survey?

Technically he is not wrong from a human viewpoint but therein lies the problem, his human viewpoint has made the human the centre of knowledge in the vast infinity of existence. We are so conceited that ours is the only opinion. This is what has distorted all our decisions as a species, such things as 'they have a different colour skin they can't be human' that allowed the slave trade to flourish for so long, to the 'animals don't have feelings' that has lead to equally appalling treatment of our cohabitants that only now people are starting to address.

Now I know I am over thinking this a little but I am trying to press home a point, we think of things, even catastrophes, on a human level. The dreadful tsunami in 2004, how many lemurs died for instance? How many people cared. To right problems we need to stop thinking in terms of human, which is blighted with division so nothing happens, and think in terms of planet.

The overwhelming certainty is that there are many millions of planets out there that are all capable of sustaining life, but the even greater fact is they are so far out of reach that they may as well not exist. There will certainly be no escape plan that way.

Counting the cost

2010-10-12T18:57:00.000+01:00

I have said a few times I am alone in my little world.

There are many around me who do share my thoughts so alone isn't the correct phrase but in my day to day comings and goings I am unique. Many people agree or nod sagely when I start my spa[ boxing and it is a bit of an office joke.

I also am a little critical of the whole movement, we don't put our arguments across in the best way and also tend to rush out the slightest bit of research and shout it as fact only to be proved wrong some short while later to the glory of the naysayers.

Now I am a touch skeptical but not to the point of not believing if that makes sense to anyone.

My scepticism is to do with the reports we have and the things we are told are true.

Well they aren't necessarily is the thing.

Take CO2 for instance, the Eco Terror that it is.

Well actually possibly not, and certainly not the worst of mankind's ills. Methane is far worse, or the hydrocarbons that are pumped out to form Low level Ozone.

However Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect are both wrongly used. The Greenhouse Effect is a natural process that is neutral, it is the complex process that maintains the planets ability to support life. It is the imbalance in a greenhouse process that causes issues not the Greenhouse Effect itself. Without it we would not be here!

Global Warming also conjures up great images of people sweating away on beaches in Scotland when in truth the impact of the Global Warming processes could be another ice age.

The trouble is when I started to learn about environmental issues I also learnt about Milankovitch Cycles and Rossby Waves among other complex processes that affect directly the temperature of our little rock.

The 'since records began' is also a fascinating statement as we are predicting our impact based on about 150 years worth of data that coincides with the industrial revolution, but use them to judge processes that take tens of thousands of years. For reference our little ball of rock is about 4.5 billion years old.

Very little of that time has been spent at a temperature range that would support life!

Being both practical and logical, and all the more rare, truly objective, it is impossible for me to say that mankind is impacting on the planet. It seems a little conceited to make us the centre of it all. However I am not an unbeliever, I do feel we get proof that we can make a difference, it's more a matter of will it be quick enough to make a change. I also think that I need to make a change and live more conscientiously as there are some seriously bad practices around that need to stop regardless.

I think what I am trying to say is that I am a fence sitter, a spiky arse as we are sometimes known. I try not to judge (but fail) and try to keep an open mind whilst making my decisions. As I have previously explained doing nothing is not an option if you do the maths.

So it was quite nice to see someone has done the maths, again sadly not necessarily to any great accuracy, but by showing where the impact is and what will happen. Maybe if more people read this they will start thinking more of cause and affect which is the way it happens, (time travel is bollocks no matter what Quantum Physics tries to tell you) so go have a look, digest it and realise that we are not acting in isolation. Everything influences everything else.

Nature's Sting

Following on...

2010-10-11T23:05:00.001+01:00

...from Good News and Bad.

The blog rate seems to have slowed apace of late. That's largely because I have been bloody busy! I'm sure I am not alone in it.

Well last weekend as you will have read we ended Gregory. This Saturday was to follow the same process, with a new twist. This weekend was my turn to have the Daughter.

Now having her so accepting of where the food comes from is one thing, to drop her in and see the killing is another, although that day will come.

So we picked her up on Friday night and dropped her of at m'Lady's mums for the night.

Picking her up means a round trip to Middlesborough, complicated by a trip round by Helmsley this time as well, but we swapped a 6lb pumpkin for a one and a half stone one! When this one is cooked there will be more seeds up for grabs!

But back to Saturday, it was again an early start. Having got used to this now, preparation is done on Friday night. The knife is sharpened and the bowl is upstairs ready to catch the blood. The coffee is ground ready.

The first two have gone okay, but Boniface had other plans for us. With both Gregory and Cornelius we were able to catch them without any issues and take them away without a hitch. Boniface decided from the off he wasn't going to be caught. He is that much bigger that m'Lady couldn't hold onto him.

I had to go in the coop and get hold of him but by this point he had run around a bit getting worked up and causing a flap.

So we got him in and did the deed but he took forever to go and then didn't want to give up his feathers. m'Lady bruised him a couple of times and ripped the skin on his chest and seemed a wee bit crestfallen. I pointed out that my grandad used to do this from time to time so don't feel to bad.

It was just a matter of waiting for the Mother to bring the Daughter over after we gave them the word. She wasn't overjoyed to see him hanging up in the bathroom although I took great pains to make sure the messy part was out of view. Then it was to the farm for the day. Clearing a whole load of tomato plants out of the polytunnel.

Back home and I had a bag of squirrels to process again, we had those for tea. Then I had to process Boniface.

Now the odd thing with the Daughter is she wouldn't go into the bathroom until I pulled the shower curtain across and she couldn't see Boniface, there was something scary about him. To me he was just a carcass and not dissimilar to that you find in a supermarket but then I suppose I don't share my sensibilities with a 9 year old girl. But when I was doing the squirrels she wanted to be in and watching and playing with the legs.

If you bend the leg just right and press in the right place, the tendons make the toes curl! Rather than being freaked out she found this really amusing and wanted a go, then she insisted on prodding and poking the insides and the skin. Like I say a bit odd but then she is my Progeny.

But odder still, when I had cut off the chicken's head and legs, so he was essentially exactly as in the shop except for a few internal organs, she wanted to look, so as I was pulling things out I was showing her them and explaining there roll in biology and what they do.

Now to those of you who may think this a bit macabre, I will only agree to a point. My dad was a fireman, my Daughter wants to be a nurse and there are those who make a living out of cutting up animals and people. The world needs those of us who aren't fazed by the ick yuck goo and crunchy bits of life no matter how up close they are. So she saw a large intestine, a stomach, a pair of lungs and a heart, I made a mess of the liver, I only found one kidney but the other one must have been in the bigger bits, it certainly wasn't left over at the end.

Now this was Boniface's final Up Yours to us. Although I made it seem very simple there it took me very nearly an hour to remove his innards. It didn't take me half that to do Gregory from beginning to end. So at the end I was a bit fed up about the process.

However no much, as this was all Saturday. Now lets rewind a week to last Sunday, Gregory has been removed and dealt with. This left me with two chickens, one of which was a rooster. Now I could have left it at that and we would eventually have got some more hens but the neighbours may not have been overly happy about the noise.

Knowing I was doing Boniface this weekend meant that I had to get me some replacements soon. The rule of thumb is that you should always add as many new hens as are already in the colony to prevent bullying and possible death for the newies.

Well on a miserable wet Sunday afternoon we went to get replacements. I had already decided we would get three. They would be smaller than Pious and Boniface so I figured weight of numbers to make up for it. Then they would have a week to settle before the rooster was removed.

So back to the lady who supplied us the originals. Now I don't have a thing against her, she warned us plenty that at the young age we may get a rooster although she did think she had separated them already.

Well this time we plumped for some older birds. 16 weeks to be accurate. We plumped for two Black Rocks and a Rhode Island Red. Two of the first four were Light Sussex and the others were white rocks. White rocks are a Light Sussex, Black Rock cross, I thought they were pretty but the Black Rocks are stunning. They are starling like in colouration. The have that blue green purple opalescence in the light that is amazing. The RIR is just red, but ginger red.

So some piccies then? Why of course, although I took quite a few so apologies.

This one is Linus, she's a Rhode Island Red and already my favourite. RIR's have a great personality apparently, they are friendly and curious and don't mind being handled so much. Good birds to have around kids.

This one is Hilarius, one of the Black Rocks and the chest plumage is amazing. The colouring of the body doesn't come out in any way that does it justice here.

This is Giovanni Paulo, or JP for short, yeah I know but given the names so far I am amazed you are even questioning it!

The three of them together investigating some of the greens I had thrown in for them.

Another one of Hilarius showing off to the camera.

Linus being curious as is their nature apparently. Every photo I tried to take of her she came right up to me so it was hard to get one in focus, and if I was trying to photo one of the others then she was round me looking at what I was doing, getting underfoot and between my legs.

One for you to see the difference between Pious on the right and Boniface on the left, funny how we assumed that Pious was a late starter rather than the other three were all boys!

Feathering here around Boniface's neck is a give away as are the wattles. He was just starting to get tail feathers and you can even see his spurs starting to develop. Check out the size difference between him and the little guys either side!

The three newies settling in and finding the food like moving coop happens every day to them.

One more of my favourite, curious hen.

Now I am mindful that Linus is so curious, she is the first out on a morning and straight into the food. She comes up to you and you can reach down and pet her with minimum clucking and carrying on. This is exactly what Cornelius was like, so I will be keeping an eye on her just in case.

There was a bit of hassle the first day, they had a few hours to adjust to the run and coop but the two old ones did a bit of bullying it has to be said. Boniface mainly just lurked and looked big but Pious was attacking and chasing them. But with two feeders and waterers she couldn't be everywhere and chase them all at once so fairly quickly they got into their order.

That night though both Boniface and Pious were guarding the door to the coop and stopping the other three getting in. Maybe I shouldn't have but I intervened at that point and physically pushed them out of the way so the little girls could get in. Predation isn't really a problem, exposure is so I wanted them in the coop, also it took the others ages to get used to going inside, I didn't want these learning bad habits.

I'd cleaned the coop out that day and forgotten to put the roost bar back in place so when I went out the following morning they were all curled up in a pile in the corner of the coop. A few days later and everything had settled down although they were separating on the roost. I am not too bothered about this but come the colder weather Pious may suffer now she is on her own.

They are the most amazing little creatures and I am thoroughly hooked on keeping hens. I don't quite want to be out in the run with them anymore but I can watch them from the window quite happily.

So it was hard to stay unhappy last weekend and even this Saturday went easier as there is a full flock back on Broccoli Acres.

Yeah the world is good. Now all we need is an egg. Pious is long overdue, but I reckon the stress has probably knocked her back a bit. I would like to see an egg this side of Christmas though but wonder if she doesn't start before the clocks go back will she start at all this year?

We'll just have to wait.

I'm signed up

2010-10-07T18:46:00.000+01:00

I've seen the 10:10 thing around in a few places.

I was vaguely aware of what it was.

Then they made a little film that seems to have upset everyone.

Now it is a little OTT to be fair, and it's easy to see why the detractors and naysayers have jumped on board. Protest has got quite vocal in some places.

However it is over the top, in no way factual at all. It is reminiscent of many comedy sketches and shows, and personally there have been plenty of times when I have felt that just being able to remove people from the planet would sort out the mess a treat. Particularly when someone is carping on about what they have just had to spend on something they didn't really need.

Not only that but to me inaction is the same as killing yourself, if you get blown to bits first you've just gone quicker is all.

Now for the record I come down firmly on the fence in terms of the arguments, cases are made on both sides that can be backed up equally well.

But that is just the arguments. In practice I will not sit idly by because if there is a problem by the time we can prove it, we will not be able to stop it. Having studied environmental engineering my head is screwed on right in these matters before you judge.

It's like this, you could argue with absolute truth that a place on a train track is only used maybe 0.5 percent of the time, the other 99.5 it is not in use. That does not mean that it is advisable to build a house on the train track.

Put another way, regardless of whether there will ultimately be a problem or not the maths is firmly on the side of do something.

In a simple risk analysis.

Do something - everything gets better - Live

Do something - nothing changes - Live

Do nothing - nothing changes - Live

Do nothing - things get worse - Die

So we have 3 chances to live, two of which would need action. The odds of survival in the do something categories are 100%, in the do nothing it's 50 50.

So I'm with 10 10, its 20 20.

10 4?

But I appalled at how quickly big companies have ditched them, currently EAGA, SONY and KYOCERA are among those who clearly only want to align themselves to a marketing strategy. I will be doing my best to avoid their products then.

Only O2 have stood by them and come out and said, "10:10 is an independent organisation and we don’t ask for editorial control over the content of its campaigns." Good on O2. I may have to think about whether they are worth going back to on this strength.

So if you haven't seen the film, I would suggest not watching it unless you are amused by things like South Park and some of the more visceral Monty Python sketches (think Live Organ Transplants from the meaning of life). Even if you don't want to sign up to the 10:10 group then at least read what they have to say and think about how you could implement tiny changes that would make a big difference.

Come on all, lets not get blown to bits!

Don't judge me.

2010-10-06T23:05:00.000+01:00

It's hard to try and convey your personality or your real self in the virtual world.

I am by nature a private person which is obviously a contradiction not lost on me!

I am also aware of how odd I am. Now I don't mean that I am eccentric walk down the street with my pants on my head or that I am the sort of person who will tell everyone 'I'm mental me! Totally mad!'

I'm just odd, not of the normal mold. I'm feeling this more and more of late. We got rid of our telly some while ago and more and more now I can't join in the conversation at work. I am pretty much on my own in my beliefs in the day to day circle of people I mix with. We have conversations that end with a certain look. There is nodding and onomatopoeia in all the right places but its the equivalent of an answer machine to me.

More and more I feel judged as well. Nobody means it but that doesn't excuse it.

Now I'm not maudlin about it as I have a wider circle of friends who quite admire what we do and the good people of the bloggy community who are with me one way or another as well.

So how do I present my oddness? Music has always been important to me, from as a child listening to the radio with my mum on a Sunday morning to loosing my virginity to a Belinda Carlisle album, to my daughter pulling on her mortal coil to Five to One, thirty years to the day after the Lizard King died. They all add the memories.

So here are a couple of choices, listen to both if you like but please listen to at least one of them.

These are both bands that I will have seen by the end of the year, one is Italian Power Goth for want of a description and one is Glaswegian Contemporary folk.

Get one of these playing whilst you read the blog, this has just been preamble!

Heaven's A Lie - Lacuna Coil

Old Old Fashioned - Frightened Rabbit

I see things kind of simply. I don't mean that I am simple, without wanting to sound conceited I am very intelligent and very intuitive, that is I can apply the knowledge I have in new ways.

But I see things as they are, or at least most of the time.

Just lately I have been lucky enough to receive an abundance of free meat.

Now if I were to tell you this is one of the leanest and healthiest meats around, that it is tasty and easy to cook with, you would be with me.

If I were to cook it an offer it to you and you tried it you would most probably be with me, so long as you like the dark meat on chickens.

If I were to tell you they are two corners off a squirrel I probably lose you about there.

However, every week at the farm about half a dozen of these are shot as they are pests and vermin.

Until we turned up they just went in the bin, a life ended and wasted all because they dig up the stuff we plant.

So every week I bring a bagful home and butcher them just enough to remove the back legs, as this is all that has any eating on it.

Likewise, I have finished two Roosters and have a third one to dispatch this weekend.

This is were the judging tends to start. I've been quite lucky, m'Lady almost had a screaming match at work with it. So we don't tell people any more.

But we are no different to the farmers who do this for a living, we are no more culpable than the checkout assistant who serves you in the animals death, but we are that much closer to it that it seems to revile people.

The last Rooster lived to be 24 weeks old before he was finished. That is an epoch above the 40 days that an average supermarket broiler gets and still more than double the free range ones from the farm who live a minimum of 70 days.

The squirrels all ran free and lived good lives (hopefully, I've no actual proof) and their death needn't be wasted. The Buddhist in me couldn't abide the needless killing.

But this is just another thing I struggle with. People to whom death is delivered from a great distance, hermetically sealed in plastic for a couple of quid cannot understand how I cannot kill a slug but have butchered my own chickens and happily eat the meat. They cannot understand how I value and respect the life.

To me it is simple. The bird was always raised to provide food. It's purpose in life, regardless of whether it chose it, is to feed me. The slug just happened to be born a slug and was hungry, that our lives are at cross purposes is no fault of the slug. You could as easily say I am trying to grow my vegetables where the slugs live and feed and that I am the pest.

To those who happily support the abuse and slaughter of the broiler chicken, I am the strange one.

Because I chose not to eat anything that has come from too far away I get odd looks, and because I don't buy the very latest thing or watch the current wave of tat reality show or whatever is the vogue, I am the odd one.

Well at least on that last point we agree!

Hope you liked the tunes, but I hope more they give you a little insight into me.

Giveaway.

2010-10-06T22:07:00.000+01:00

Hey all,
I have a freebie to give away.

This week we got an EAGA shower smart through the post.

Now we are not sure why as we didn't order it but still it arrived!

Now this little device goes in the line to your shower and saves water apparently. Totally useless to us though.

As it is unwanted it is free to a good home. However please check it is suitable for you first as it is not designed for use with electric showers, just mains water driven ones. These can be passive or pumped but it must not be an electric power shower type.

This is open to anyone, if you are interested let me know by putting a note in the comments saying so and I'll pull a name out of the hat in a week or so.

You will have to be prepared to give me an address so I can post it, but you can trust me, I have a beard.

The final reckoning.

2010-10-06T22:00:00.001+01:00

Well it's there.

Back of the net, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It made it, weighing in at a not so shabby 5lb 14 ounces!

So it has officially been added to the totalizer, and the final figure is 106lb 1ounce.

So in the end, we got there. Oh I had my doubts, but I also had my hopes. There are still a few cut and come again cabbages in the garden but these are mainly providing the chucks with winter greens and I think it will stay that way so we don't weigh those in.

So I now have my target for next year.

106lb divide by 10 is 10lb (rounding down of course) add this to the 106lb and next year my target is 116lb. Now at the beginning of this year I thought that would have been easily doable, now I'm not so sure. Still we'll see, I have bigger plans for next year.

As for this guy? Well I am swapping him with the one my mum and dad grew. I gave them a spare seedling and it put out a monster, more than they want. In truth I only want the seed out of it but I don't mind a surfeit of pumpkin muffins as well!

Good news and bad.

2010-10-03T22:54:00.000+01:00

The good news is, your air bag works...

Old joke and a bit crap I know but thought I would bring it in gently.

Today we finally did it!

Look over to the right there, yep just there beneath the picture of a pair of scales and you will see that we broke the barrier today. 100 lb and 3 ounces with the pumpkin still to weigh in.

We pulled the remaining carrots from the garden and as I was tidying the old pepper plants out of the green house I found a pepper both the slugs and I had missed!

Just enough between them to top us out which is great news as it seemed to have become an unlikely event at one point. I have to say it is a bit of a limp home in the final reckoning though. When I look back over the year at two onion crops that didn't do anything, a beetroot crop that didn't do anything, a parsnip crop that didn't even germinate. Peppers that didn't germinate or succumbed quickly and all the slug damage I sustained including two other pumpkins!

The list goes on a bit but you know what, I don't care if I limped home like an asthmatic ant with heavy shopping, fact is I made it. And I learned one shed load this year. Next year will be different and it will have to be as I have set myself a ten percent year on year increase which actually means each year I will have to grow a larger amount more to sustain that. With me? Well 100lb this year means 110lb next year, an extra 10lb. 110lb next year means 121lb the following year, an extra 11lb.

Let's just back up to the bad news though. The carrots.

Well not the carrots themselves but the reason for wanting them. Look over there to the right, just below that fabulous 100lb 3 ounce bit!

Check out the chicken total.

Yeah, we needed some extra veg for a roast dinner.

Sadly another one of our original four was a rooster, right up until 9 this morning when he became 3 3/4 pounds of sustenance.

I have to say I won't miss Gregory as much. He was always a bit stand offish, didn't have the charm and personality of Cornelius. He also took us a bit by surprise as a rooster by turning up very late.

At 24 weeks in fact. The same signs though, the neck feathers looked different, he was huge and the strange crowing couldn't be ignored. Not exactly a cockadoodle but close enough to get by in conversation. Plus he was starting to get spurs.

Now I am aware that in a female only colony that a hen might step up and show roostery traits. But dear Gregory showed pretty much all of them. Including the noisiness Early in the day.

Although he may still have been a hen, I apply Occam's Razor.

If it looks, sounds and acts like a rooster, it's a rooster.

So we were down to just two of the originals. Wee Pious and the much less wee Boniface. In fact significantly less wee. Are those spurs as well?

Yes they are, in fact the other morning when I went to open the coop and let them out, I let down the window flap expecting the crowing I could hear to be Gregory. Indeed it was, but imagine my surprise when I realised Gregory and Boniface were taking it in turns?

Suddenly a lot of other things clicked into place. Although Boniface hasn't really got a comb, the wattles are huge and really red. There has been an awful lot of squaring up to one another in the run which I previously thought was dominance issues being sorted but now realise was prelude to Mad Rooster Deathmatch!

Of the four, only little Pious, who was originally my favourite, but looks at us like we are filth, will be with us next weekend. She is a hen, I am sure of it.

She has a different collar on her neck and is much much smaller in stature.

Today I couldn't face doing another one. Life has one way or another been a bit crappy of late, and having to cull my little flock hasn't really helped that improve, no matter how tasty or whatever else has happened.

When life is against you it really is against you sometimes.

However, there is no time to be maudlin and self pitying, and I didn't go into this with my eyes closed either, roosters were always a possibility. It's just pure bad luck, a freak of birth as it were. And even if I had wanted a rooster I couldn't have kept three, they would have killed one another.

No time to sit still either, there was a major amount of tidying to be done today and for the first time in ages everywhere in the house looks neat. I sorted out a lot of my junk and tidied the hallway, and a clean house makes me feel better.

And there is another part to this little saga for me to tell, but that my friends is for another day.

I also did this...

2010-10-01T19:03:00.001+01:00

Take one old t shirt and some spare material paint, make yourself a stencil and paint.

Allow to dry.

Iron for five minutes

Wear.

Laugh.

Or at least that's what I did.

Don't make me send Chuck round!

I don't want to you to think I have a problem here...

2010-10-01T18:55:00.002+01:00

I spent last night with a marrow.

Right pick yourselves up off the floor and get your sordid minds out of the gutter.

It was in the kitchen (stop it!)

So I started with this lot, yes there are tights and gaffer tape, I'm aware this isn't getting better.

Using some fairly elementary tools I took the end with the stalk off the marrow and scooped out all the seeds, or at least I think it was all of them!

At this point the photos run out cause it got a little hard to manage the job and take piccies!

Next I put a spoonful of yeast in the bottom of the marrow, then start packing in the sugar. I actually added half a mug of warm water towards the end as this help melt the sugar down so I could fit more sugar in the hollow.

Then I put the top back on and gaffer taped it in place and put the whole thing in the leg of an old pair of tights. I've now hung this up over a bowl and in a few weeks or so I'll check it to see if it is going soft. A bit after that I'll punch a hole in the bottom and drain out the fluid. Then put that in a demijohn, scrape as much of the flesh into the demijohn and top up with water.

Leave that to ferment, rack of the must and stand for a year and hopefully I will have a few litres of Marrow Rum in 12 months!

Or I'll lose my eyesight but in for a penny!

No I don't have an alcohol problem I am just stockpiling honest!

...I would still plant my apple tree.

2010-09-28T23:12:00.001+01:00

Sadly Mr ML King the world is already a shit tip, and I wonder why I put so much effort into caring when so many others go on f**king it up for everyone else.

Cheery intro I know but it's my blog and that's just how I feel at the moment.

Because I have chosen a lifestyle that aims to be less wasteful, and am working slowly down to zero impact, it means I rarely rest or get down time.

Recent weeks especially have driven this home with so much to do in terms of the harvest, trying to manage a house and work a full time job as well.

It was so much simpler when I just ignored things and lived how I wanted. Sometimes I really miss those days. Vegging out in front of the telly watching some crap and turning off.

So what changed? Absolutely nothing, except the rest of the world.

Suddenly everything has to be now. We can't wait for a single thing to come to us, we buy it from further away. If our phone is 2 days old it gets replaced. New computer? If it's out of the box get rid of it, it's obsolete.

I am finding a real anger with those around me who are not like minded, and in my day to day life it is many. I know there are lots of like minded souls out there so this isn't some maudlin crap but I don't see you guys every day, I have to justify my lifestyle to some blind hypocrite who would rather bury their head than realise the damage they are causing.

I mean the checkout girl at the supermarket tonight couldn't believe we didn't need a carrier bag and had to question us. There we were with three whole items and only four hands between us.

I try not to preach but a man gets to thinking that maybe it's the time, becuase no one seems to realise.

Trouble is we as a species are lazy. You can pitch the solutions in anyway you like but if it is going to take a bit of effort then why should the proletariat give a flying one?

People would rather spend the cash.

I'll lay it to you straight here, I'm on the wrong end of not having slept properly for a week or two (I'm an insomniac, have been for years, look up short sleeper, that's me), I work a job that sits like a fat cow across the train track of my beliefs and I ache from the efforts of keeping up the lifestyle.

Fortunately I inherited a bloody minded streak that is wider than a dozen of me, so am not for giving up but by all that is good and proper it would be easier some days to stand back and let the whole world go to hell.

But that isn't me, and never will be. So I've ranted a little bit, having been absent for a few days, that was a little rude but to be fair I am over it. Like I said my blog.

The weekend held a bit of a surprise for me. One that took its toll on shoulders too narrow to carry the earth as it sometimes feels like I am doing.

I went to the farm as usual and these were waiting for me.

This is the windfall from the trees that don't get used and tend to rot and waste. I rogued out the ones that were already rotting or mouldy and they were another crate.

I don't know if you can visualise how many apples are actually here, I got a surprise I can tell you. Maybe this next one will help.

This was me trying to wash them. I've pulled a few more bad uns out into the bucket.

Now I've no idea how big our bath is but I am guessing it's more than the odd gallon.

Pulping them brought up it's own set of problems. Be royally f**ked by a rhino if I was going to cut and dice and core these. So I found a bin with a roughly flat bottom and an 8 foot length of american white ash left over from my attempt to make a long bow.

Daughter looked on and indeed was chief apple wanger, the slog was hard but the result was good.

Thankfully that very week we had just taken delivery of a fruit press...

Sadly it was about as fit for purpose as oven gloves made out of copper ,or indeed any heat conducting material. Ladies calm yourselves, I know I have the body of an adonis.

The little press is about 5 litre capacity but if you fill it to the top it is bloody hard to do anything, so about half to two thirds full gave best results.

I had a lot of practice to figure that out.

As you can see from this sequence, there are blocks to put in, then I have to screw a chaser down onto the blocks. This took ages, and then having squeezed as hard as I could, I would then have to let it be for a few minutes while the pressure eases then I could do some more, so back into the pulping then. I found that apples that had been pulped and left to soften, pressed better and let out more juice.

Something a little like this.

At peak flow I had to be careful not to have juice every where. I know it looks a bit grim there but it should clear nicely over time. Plus it tasted amazing. I had a little juice left over at the end so I bottled it and we drank it this week.

All told I produced nearly 6 stone of left over pulp which sadly mostly went in the bin. I fed some to the girls but they can only eat so much and I had nothing to mix it with in the compost so it would just moulder. I was tempted to go and empty it across the way in the wilderness but the daft thing is if you get caught you are in trouble despite the fact the trees there would have loved the extra feed. I abhor waste but I suppose I had already saved a bathful of apples and the juice therein.

On saturday night I finished pulping at midnight, and it was 1 am before I had finished cleaning up. On sunday I was up at 8.30 as I had to get the bath emptied so we could all have showers before we went to a childrens party. So a couple of hours in the morning and then when we got home at 8.30pm having dropped The Daughter off I had to start again.

But the result?

That's about 30 litres of apple juice right there, all waiting to be fermented, all local and all processed by me by hand. The Daughter and m'Lady both took turns to do what they could and it would have been a bitch of a job without them, but it was manpower that sorted it ultimately. I'm powerful thankful of the help mind!

This is now sat upstairs getting started on the fermenty thing. In about 6 months I should have a cider that is about 6%. It had better be bloody worth it. I still have a 5 gallon fermenting bin full of apples which I need to process into juice but I really can't face it at the moment.

This is where I came in at the start. I am tired and aching. I work all day then come home and do stuff all night. On saturday I spend most of my day helping out at the farm because I take the community aspect seriously, and in fairness as a reward I get a bathful of apples free. On sunday we gerally have to do all the household crap we haven't had time to do any other time.

But there is no downtime anymore. I go from the slog I hate to the slog I love, because don't get me wrong, for all the effort I would not have changed the process for the world. Put it this way, I know which job I need to get out of my life.

But when the supermarket is so close and cider is so cheap...

Shit, I care too much to even go there.

And always will.

As a side note on cider making go and read Time Flies by Murphyfish and see how he does it.

Maybe take a few minutes to read the rest of his blog as well, it really is quite spiffing.

'Adam was but human ~ this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden.' - Mark Twain.

The last hurdle.

2010-09-23T18:25:00.000+01:00

Tonight we panicked.

We have very little time to get things done on a Thursday with various commitments. This will correspondingly be a brief blog!

We discovered we hadn't sorted anything for tea (so much for living deliberately) so resorted to good old 'Ifit'.

To pad things out I sent m'Lady to get a couple of carrots out of the garden if there were any.

Turns out there were a couple that frankly surpassed my expectations.

So now we have crested the 99lb barrier. There are no more obstacles between me and the finish, just a 15 1/2 ounce home straight. I'm going to call the pumpkin Devon Loch!

On a side note, I seem to have acquired an awful lot of new followers very quickly. I have always tried to pop over and read all my followers blogs. I will try and get to you all in time.

Which it has to be said is a precious commodity!

Slight Return

2010-09-22T18:50:00.001+01:00

Well tonight I thought I would visit a topic that seemed to prove more popular than I ever thought it would.

A minor celebrity in fact it seems if a recent comment is to be interpreted as loosely as possible!

So here we have the much requested (well Frugal Queen briefly enquired but we call that 'poetic licence') return of Beard Night.

Now I know this isn't the beginning of the month and it's been a while but to be fair, there stopped being any noticeable difference in the photos so I didn't see the point.

So see this as the first of one or possibly more Specials!

Well Beardy Lovers everywhere, feast your eyes.

What a beauty!

It has now reached a level where children stare, although in fairness when I have hair nearly at my arse as well, this isn't really a change. People come up to me and say 'Nice Beard' and other complementary things, and they are genuinely complimentary.

Pogonophiles everywhere just smile because they understand.

Beards rock.