Willow withies for weaving

Willow stand last weekend - before it's haircut

Willow cutting day arrived with a beautiful sunny start and much less wind than yesterday so I wrapped up warm and filled the flask whilst J loaded up the tools and we headed up to the plot.  I love this job each year, not only is it very much a free crop but it's also a relatively quick job that can be done no matter what the weather has been like for the preceding week. The original withies were given to us by a fellow plot holder who worked clearing canal and river banks following a flood about eight or ten years ago and we popped them in not really expecting them to do much - it was the wrong time of year, we grow on sandy soil and the planting place used to be the road-stone heap for the rest of the site before we took on the plot. The withies really wanted to grow though and now we have a wonderful shady screen for our shed, a seemingly never-ending supply of bean poles & weaving material and a great wildlife stop-over to boot. Even this year the stand of willows have put on around 15ft of growth and in previous wetter years the poles have been known to be over 20ft tall!

Last year's sticks dried & ready for use

Cut pile growing

Some of the smaller (5ft and under) whips will be going to the hospice with me this week for use in the craft corner - the person in charge has already looked out simple to make stars and hearts ready for adding to folks Christmas piles. I've also popped a few short sticks in the pile in case anyone wants to make fairy wands!

First bundle ready

Drying pile

J turned some of the bigger whips into a couple of circular plant supports for me to use in the garden here and these join the sweet-pea wigwams and Christmas decorations he's made in previous years. We stacked the rest of the crop on the plot to start drying out (never use fresh cut willow as a plant support as it has a tendency to grow into a lovely little willow tree!) and brought some smaller whips back for me to play with over the next week.

Half way there

Job done!

A wonderful day made even better by my first spotting of a raven circling overhead - it's croaking call was unmistakable and such a joy to hear!

One of J's large plant supports and my mini hoop effort

November plotting part 2

Last Saturday we took a trip to the plot so J could collect some of the fallen leaves ready to make that magical ingredient that all organic gardeners treasure - leaf mould. The perfect ingredient for mulches, potting composts and seed sowing in the Spring, it takes a year or so to rot down and can't be bought in any store. 

Whilst he raked and swept and filled a cubic metre compost bin with the finest autumn treasure, I took a little stroll along the path and collected pictures of the creamy hazel catkins and russet coloured alkanet leaves, the last of the fading blue cornflowers and deepest pink sedum and the bare skeletons of the wonderful old gnarly bullace that sits in our hedgerow and the apple trees dotted across the plot. As I pottered about and then snuggled up in the car under my blanket to wait for J to finish I started to feel a bit like Frederick the mouse gathering colours and feelings whilst all the other mice gathered grain and nuts for the winter but rather than weaving stories I hope to use some of the photos to help my painting efforts over the coming months. December is nipping at our heels and the seasons are definitely turning - tomorrow is willow cutting day...

Whirlwind Week

Not quite sure where the week has gone! The weekend was fun - J potted up the pansies grown from seed and then shuffled a few of the pots around outside so we'll be able to see them flower from the back door later in the winter. He also popped a couple of seed feeders on to hooks in the front porch so I can see the birds from the front room. These are a lovely addition to the repaired stand in the back garden so I can add garden bird spotting to my list of winter distractions. Hopefully they'll find the feeders soon and I can pepper future blog posts with cheery pictures. We also started a new jigsaw but this one may be even more of a challenge than the previous ones - it's an impressionist painting with all the fuzzy colours that that implies - it'll keep us busy for quite a few weeks I think!

I've had a couple of medical appointments this week with some good news from the consultant on Wednesday - looks like my current treatment is working and keeping the cancer under control so I'm on an even keel for a while with no treatment changes for the next few months if all goes to plan. Hopefully this means I can focus on improving the strength in my back and legs and getting out and about a bit more. Actually Wednesday was a really good day - I had the chance to play with some glass paints at the hospice and came home with a little tealight holder that I had decorated with an owl. This was really therapeutic and quite simple to do once we had managed to get the template positioned on the inside. Then I could trace round the edges with a liner and fill in the spaces. I'm really pleased with the result but you can judge for yourself as it's in the last of this week's snapshots.

Preserving what we grow

One of the joys of growing our own is knowing exactly what has gone into our food but one of the downsides can be the peaks and troughs of harvests, battling with gluts in the good seasons and lost crops in the bad - just 3 garlic bulbs this year despite full germination and a really healthy looking crop early in the year. Voles, mice or birds - you decide!! To counteract this and spread the bounty we use a mixture of methods - traditional freezing; jamming and our current favourite dehydrating. After several years of using the little round dehydrator we bought online for under £30 we invested in an large 9 tray Excalibur machine about 3 years ago and boy has it earned its keep. Onions, garlic, tomatoes, leeks, apples and plums have all been through the machines and given us homemade stock powders and crunchy fruit nibbles plus, with the addition of various berries, super delicious fruit leathers which have proved popular with friends and family too.

For those of you unfamiliar with dehydrators J made a video demonstration a few years ago for Transition Loughborough and it's up on Youtube for all to see:

Apple chips keep for years and are great for munching on and for adding to cakes as part of a dried fruit mix and even for re-hydrating for pie fillings. It's a great way to save freezer space for those things that really need it or for home made ready meals.

Fruit leathers are wonderful chewy treats that are incredibly easy to make and are really expensive to buy in the shops.  Simply make a fruit puree either with or without sugar or other flavourings such as vanilla or cinnamon and then spread thinly on the dehydrator sheets and pop them in for around 10-15  hours depending on the atmosphere. The longer you dry them the crunchier the finished product - we like them on the chewy side. You can then break them up or cut them into strips and roll them up. If you can keep them away from friends and family they will keep for a really long time in air tight containers for a zingy hit of summer sweetness throughout the dark months.

 

Vegetable and savoury fruits such as tomatoes dry easily and can be used for all manner of soups, stews, sauces and casseroles. The allium family dry really well and can be stored in jars as crispy flakes or ground into a powder to use as a flavouring. The garlic chips pictured here get popped into a pepper grinder so we always have just the right amount of garlic on hand without the hassle of sticky fingers and any waste.

Most of the time our beans can be easily dried in their pods on the plant, the dehydrator is also useful for finishing off the process or for using to dry off in particularly wet years. This gives us a ready supply of mixed beans for soups, stews, burgers and bakes throughout the winter and let's face it- nothing beats a nice warming stew on a crisp cold day!

The power of a song

After reading today's post from Suffolk Sue over at "The Cottage at the End of the Lane" I started to think about the music that sparks memories or emotions for me. So here is a selection.

My Mum and Dad taught my sister and me to swim back in the early 1970s, it was a small pool at the place where they worked with a really echoey plastic roof but we were always  accompanied by a Roger Miller cassette tape. The Buffalo herd song always makes me smile on the rare occasions I hear it on the radio and I have been known to hunt it down on Youtube, just because - Happy times!

My teenage years were the 1980s - Duran Duran, Adam and the Ants, Nik Kershaw and Howard Jones kicked off the fun and provided the sound track to my middle school years then came high school and Simply Red, Sting and INXS. 

Then came university and the joy of live music and big city living  The Mission, the Sisters of Mercy, All About Eve, The Waterboys, The Levellers, Hothouse Flowers and Fairground Attraction mixed with soft rock, Indie music and a thousand and one other influences from shared houses, gigs and nights out. These are just a few of the favourites and there could have been so many more...

The Levellers proved to be a stayer and led me back in to folkier folk songs over time. Unfortunately I can't find a shareable copy of The Boatman on youtube as that one reminds me so much of when J and I met in the mid 90s. For a long while we shared a dream of owning a narrow boat - until I realised just how claustrophobic I get - but shared joy in the song remains. But this one  - "One Way" also expresses a sentiment which I believe in to this day:

So much fun - thanks to Sue for the inspiration.

Meatfree doesn't have to mean expensive "fake meat"

We've been vegetarian for years and dip in and out of vegan cooking too both intentionally when we feel we've overdone the dairy a bit and unintentionally, just because you can easily make really tasty meals without animal products in them at all. Looking around the supermarket at the weekend I was amazed at just how many of the products in the shiny updated vegan and vegetarian section were actually just fake meat products - "steak" pies; "sausage rolls"; "chicken" and vegetable pies and really expensive fake meat products at that. Now don't get me wrong, if you like these and are happy to pay for them fine but I'd hate to think that anyone toying with becoming veggie or even just reducing their meat in-take for health or environmental reasons, were put off by the costs of these foods or felt that a meal could only be tasty and satisfying if it looked and tasted like meat. So here's a quick and easy recipe that should give you a filling "Meatfree Monday" meal that tastes great and doesn't cost a fortune.

For other ideas please drop in on the expert at super cheap healthy food Jack Monroe (@bootstrapcook) who even has a whole section dedicated to vegan food on her website for folk who want to extend meat-free to completely animal-free without spending a fortune doing it.

Carrot, Feta and Spinach pie

For a 9x9ish pie dish for 4 good sized portions.

Shortcrust pastry - I use 200g dairy free margarine rubbed into 400g of plain flour and sufficient water to mix into a soft but not sticky dough but you can use ready made if you want. Chill for half an hour or so to make it easy to roll out and less likely to overstretch.
Divide finished dough into 2 approx. 1/3 for the lid and 2/3 to line bottom and sides of pie dish.

Any leftovers can make quick and easy nibbles/ jam tarts/ fruit turnovers/ pasties or cheese straws....

For the filling - Mix the following ingredients in a bowl:

1 large carrot grated

1 small onion chopped and lightly fried

4 small potatoes sliced thinly and parboiled

Approx. 100g cooked spinach, chopped

1 200g pkt feta cheese diced (you can also use cheshire or wensleydale just add salt to the seasoning)

2 tablespoons green pesto - you can get a good Vegan one from Sacla

Either 2 crushed garlic cloves or approx 1/2 tsp of Garlic powder

2 teaspoons dried Thyme

Black pepper and salt to taste (if I'm using feta I don't bother with salt!)

Spoon filling into pastry lined pie dish and pack down well. This mix should be just enough to fill the dish to the rim level if packed down well and give you a really chunky filling pie that even the most ardent meat eater should enjoy!

Cover packed filling with pie lid, pinch edges, trim and make a steam hole in the top.

You can glaze the lid with beaten egg or a little milk (soya milk works too!) but I tend not to bother for everyday pies.

Bake for approximately 30-40 minutes on Gas Mark 6 until pastry is golden brown.

Serve hot with green veggies or salad or just on its own.

This re-heats well in the oven for next day's lunch too!

Potting up time

We've been dodging showers and looking forward to Spring this weekend as J got busy planting up the bulbs I bought earlier in the year. So into our pots went the beautiful whites and yellows of Narcissus Snow Baby, Sweet Smiles, Twinkling Yellow, Moonlight Sensation and Baby Boomer with the mix of pinks and purples from Tulips Hemisphere, China Town and African King plus a little orange pop of the crocus Orange Monarch. A little pot of last year's Crocus Joan of Arc' and Narcissus Tete a Tete joined them. The Alliums Nectaroscordum and Atropurpureum went into the ground to mix with our roses, wallflowers and verbena bonariensis.

The bulbs arrived wrapped in paper and cardboard - a wonderful plastic free delivery from H.W.Hyde's.

And are now nestled in peat free compost in pots outside our front door just waiting for Spring. Happy thoughts!

Fiendish puzzles for fretting minds

It's been a week full of medical appointments and scans so J has worked from here for the week so he can be around to help me to and from the hospital as needed - his bosses are wonderful and have been really accommodating so he doesn't have to use too much holiday time up when I have busy weeks like this. This also means our evening downtime has been shared so the jigsaws have been out in force! A lovely neighbour has loaned us a couple of Wasgijs - we'd never heard of these before but they are a real brain test - you don't make the picture on the box but have to work out what the picture is from the clues on the box and the scene that emerges as you begin to put the pieces together. In this case it was what was going on behind the photographer from the point of view of the groom. Now spacial awareness isn't one of my strengths so getting my head around this took a bit of trial and error but the one we did this week was based around a wedding and proved to be great fun. I won't attach a picture of the finished article so as not to spoil it for anyone else (and also because the picture I took came out really shakily!) . The box though doesn't give anything away so here it is:

The second one is Christmas themed so we're hoping our neighbour will let us keep it until next month and we'll do it when my Mum comes up to stay. I've also got a feeling we might be hunting for a few more of these when we next do a charity shop stroll.

They provide a brilliant distraction for a fretting mind and this one gave us a wonderful giggle when we realised what the story was!

November bookshelf

As predicted it didn't take me very long at all to read the two Lucinda Riley books in my e-pile and now I'm holding myself back from buying the next one which was published on 1st November - I want to make a bit of headway on the pile in the house before buying or borrowing any new ones and I just know that as soon as The Moon sister comes into the house I'm going to have to read it!

First up in this month's reading pile is A talent for murder by Andrew Wilson. This crime story is an imagining of the events that led up to Agatha Christie's famous disappearance in 1926 and I'm currently just about to start Chapter 5. A new author for me, this is one of the Mr B's subscription books I mentioned in a previous post and so far it is proving an intriguing read. 

Next up will be the wonderful and amazingly prolific Nora Roberts' Shelter in place - this is one of her stand-alone novels and I'm assuming it's going to be the same treat to read as all her books are. She has another due out next month and I'm a few behind in the series she writes under the pseudonym J.D Robb so will not be short of treats over the coming months! 

Adriana Trigiani is an author I have dabbled with on the past and this one is her 2005 novel Rococo from the Hospice's book exchange - I need to read this, pop a little review in it and pop it back on the shelf for someone else to find. Several years ago I read and enjoyed her Big Stone Gap series so it will be interesting to try this one and see if my tastes have changed at all. 

My non-fiction book for this month is also from Mr B's list and is by Wendell Berry - The world-ending fire is a collection of essays published just last year. According to the incredibly useful website Fantastic Fiction "With grace and conviction, Wendell Berry shows that we simply cannot afford to succumb to the mass-produced madness that drives our global economy - the natural world will not survive it." I'm looking forward to trying this but have a feeling my brain will need to be fully awake before I try and expect to need to read it more than once!

November Bookpile

November plotting (picture heavy)

Popped to the plot this morning to take a load of cardboard up ready for bed mulching and so that J could plant out our garlic cloves and autumn onion sets. Whilst he got busy sorting the bed out I harvested the last of our beans, some peppers that had miraculously survived the frosts and some spinach beet. I may also have spent a bit of time taking in the scenery, watching the birds (long tailed tits and corvids abounded but moved too quickly for my camera!) and taking lots of photos.

Since my last trip up there we have acquired new neighbours in the field behind us:

Despite the frosts there are still a few flowers in bloom:

 And the hazel and currant hedges are adding their own Autumn twist to the day:

As the clouds thickened it was time to head for home for tea and toast: