If you listen very carefully you can hear Sid talking to me at the start....
In this clip Sid climbs a tree but ( unusually for him!) makes a bit of a mess of it and gets embarrased!
I do love our cats, they make me laugh and cheer me up no end. I am very aware that they love playing in the wood and our garden, too!
Friday, 5 December 2008
What are we?
This post was sparked off by someone asking me on the phone recently what I did for a living and how we sourced our income and food.
It was quite hard to answer that question..and it has set me musing.
We live at Compost Mansions ( not a mansion at all, btw, just a detached, 102 year old rather ropey house in need of lots of work!) on a smallish pension income plus what small amounts I occasionally earn as a self employed Environmental Educator
(working mainly in the school system so basically bugger all money! and a lot of what I do is as a volunteer) and apparently we are well below the national average income for our size of family………
BUT because we grow so much of our own food and do repairs to things ourselves if needed, do all our own gardening, DIY, decorating etc, don't take holidays, or live a consumerist driven lifestyle, we have apparently more than the average amount of money available to spend, on such "luxuries " as buying local organic meat and veg and dairy products. (As an aside, since when did proper food become a "luxury" item?)
And it made me wonder about where we fit in, when they asked about job descriptions...
are we full time smallholders…………I guess? …or maybe we are not? …….. we do not have any full time outside jobs, and we mainly spend all our time maintaining the place we live in to provide us with food and shelter? so *I* guess we class as full time smallholders even if others/DEFRA don’t.
So….that's what I said we were.....smallholders....
BUT the thing which has triggered off this particular post, which I have found recently, is the number of people who seem to think we should be doing MUCH MUCH MORE with our land and are saying so to my face, or by email....and sometimes quite rudely!
- for example we should apparently have more hens,( I already have 14!) keep pigs, goats, cows etc, grow corn for flour and harvest it and grind it ourselves, keep sheep and spin their wool to make our clothes by hand from the wool, and basically I have had it said to me that we should be much less reliant on buying stuff from shops and make ALL our own clothes!
A few have said I even should be utilising the clay I have said we have in the garden, to make our own pots.....rather than buying plates etc. (This wasn't said in a " why don't you take up pottery", kind of way, either...)
Setting aside the rudeness of telling me how *we* should live our lives...
when I certainly don't tell THEM how to live their lives.....
I tend to try to consider comments like this even if I think the person is barking mad..... ( rolls eyes)
So. Hmm. Yes, we could have many more animals, to kill and eat...but just because we could, doesn't mean we want to or should.
I have killed and eaten chicken I have reared myself in the past and intend to do it again in the not too distant future ( watch out no 2 cockerel!) and I would like to rear a couple of pigs for meat...
and I do like making clothes and want to have a go at spinning my own wool and knitting it into something...
BUT
I have other things I wish to do with my time rather than be a full time stock keeper, spinster, knitter, produce maker etc etc ...and so does Compostman! IF TSHTF I could (and would have to) do all this stuff.....and so would Compostman! but at the moment we have the luxury of not having to do all of it...in the Western world and in my personal life.
We are not quite into "Survivor" territory YET! ;-)
At the moment at Compost Mansions, we are largely self sufficient in home grown veg, fruit, eggs and wood for the wood burner..as well as making our own wine, cider, jam, pickles, and drying/ freezing surplus stuff to eat later on.
We make some of our own butter, cheese, yogurt etc…IF we had a house cow or goat I could make all of it..but we don’t have such an animal ( yet!) ….so I don’t.
We have our own water and sewerage supply/treatment plant…and so we do not rely on utilities for those…..but we DO rely ( at the moment) on external electricity..we are not yet “off grid” but that is the next BIG project! AND we have the know how to plan and install it all.....
we buy our meat from within 10 miles at a farmers market…and we get other stuff from it at the same time… but we could raise and kill our own meat if needed....
I get flour from a localish supplier and we make all our own baked goods...and NO I do NOT have enough land to grow our current requirements for corn! we would need a MUCH bigger area of clear field to grow enough wheat to keep us in flour for a year.
And if I had that extra land I think I would be growing other crops....
so …we have a long way to go by many folk’s standards..but compared with virtually all people in the UK I think we are VERY self sufficient! Nearly all of our bought in food ( which is not much) comes from within 20 miles, and most of our meat is within 5 miles and the veg comes from 50 feet away, if from our garden!
Rather than Te$co...
Sorry...I am rambling on a bit now I think? but I find it strange that it is those who (I think) have NO idea, how difficult it is …to do any self sufficient stuff…....who are the ones who seem to be the most vociforous in telling me that we should be doing *MORE*!
I DO feel sometimes, that some people read my blog or talk to me just to be critical.... BUT they have NO idea of the realities of trying to be even moderately self sufficient in this day and age.
Do other bloggers out there get this? People with no clue, telling them what to do?
I find it amusing, annoying and a bit baffling by turn, I must admit...
Sorry...rant over now....
;-))
It was quite hard to answer that question..and it has set me musing.
We live at Compost Mansions ( not a mansion at all, btw, just a detached, 102 year old rather ropey house in need of lots of work!) on a smallish pension income plus what small amounts I occasionally earn as a self employed Environmental Educator
(working mainly in the school system so basically bugger all money! and a lot of what I do is as a volunteer) and apparently we are well below the national average income for our size of family………
BUT because we grow so much of our own food and do repairs to things ourselves if needed, do all our own gardening, DIY, decorating etc, don't take holidays, or live a consumerist driven lifestyle, we have apparently more than the average amount of money available to spend, on such "luxuries " as buying local organic meat and veg and dairy products. (As an aside, since when did proper food become a "luxury" item?)
And it made me wonder about where we fit in, when they asked about job descriptions...
are we full time smallholders…………I guess? …or maybe we are not? …….. we do not have any full time outside jobs, and we mainly spend all our time maintaining the place we live in to provide us with food and shelter? so *I* guess we class as full time smallholders even if others/DEFRA don’t.
So….that's what I said we were.....smallholders....
BUT the thing which has triggered off this particular post, which I have found recently, is the number of people who seem to think we should be doing MUCH MUCH MORE with our land and are saying so to my face, or by email....and sometimes quite rudely!
- for example we should apparently have more hens,( I already have 14!) keep pigs, goats, cows etc, grow corn for flour and harvest it and grind it ourselves, keep sheep and spin their wool to make our clothes by hand from the wool, and basically I have had it said to me that we should be much less reliant on buying stuff from shops and make ALL our own clothes!
A few have said I even should be utilising the clay I have said we have in the garden, to make our own pots.....rather than buying plates etc. (This wasn't said in a " why don't you take up pottery", kind of way, either...)
Setting aside the rudeness of telling me how *we* should live our lives...
when I certainly don't tell THEM how to live their lives.....
I tend to try to consider comments like this even if I think the person is barking mad..... ( rolls eyes)
So. Hmm. Yes, we could have many more animals, to kill and eat...but just because we could, doesn't mean we want to or should.
I have killed and eaten chicken I have reared myself in the past and intend to do it again in the not too distant future ( watch out no 2 cockerel!) and I would like to rear a couple of pigs for meat...
and I do like making clothes and want to have a go at spinning my own wool and knitting it into something...
BUT
I have other things I wish to do with my time rather than be a full time stock keeper, spinster, knitter, produce maker etc etc ...and so does Compostman! IF TSHTF I could (and would have to) do all this stuff.....and so would Compostman! but at the moment we have the luxury of not having to do all of it...in the Western world and in my personal life.
We are not quite into "Survivor" territory YET! ;-)
At the moment at Compost Mansions, we are largely self sufficient in home grown veg, fruit, eggs and wood for the wood burner..as well as making our own wine, cider, jam, pickles, and drying/ freezing surplus stuff to eat later on.
We make some of our own butter, cheese, yogurt etc…IF we had a house cow or goat I could make all of it..but we don’t have such an animal ( yet!) ….so I don’t.
We have our own water and sewerage supply/treatment plant…and so we do not rely on utilities for those…..but we DO rely ( at the moment) on external electricity..we are not yet “off grid” but that is the next BIG project! AND we have the know how to plan and install it all.....
we buy our meat from within 10 miles at a farmers market…and we get other stuff from it at the same time… but we could raise and kill our own meat if needed....
I get flour from a localish supplier and we make all our own baked goods...and NO I do NOT have enough land to grow our current requirements for corn! we would need a MUCH bigger area of clear field to grow enough wheat to keep us in flour for a year.
And if I had that extra land I think I would be growing other crops....
so …we have a long way to go by many folk’s standards..but compared with virtually all people in the UK I think we are VERY self sufficient! Nearly all of our bought in food ( which is not much) comes from within 20 miles, and most of our meat is within 5 miles and the veg comes from 50 feet away, if from our garden!
Rather than Te$co...
Sorry...I am rambling on a bit now I think? but I find it strange that it is those who (I think) have NO idea, how difficult it is …to do any self sufficient stuff…....who are the ones who seem to be the most vociforous in telling me that we should be doing *MORE*!
I DO feel sometimes, that some people read my blog or talk to me just to be critical.... BUT they have NO idea of the realities of trying to be even moderately self sufficient in this day and age.
Do other bloggers out there get this? People with no clue, telling them what to do?
I find it amusing, annoying and a bit baffling by turn, I must admit...
Sorry...rant over now....
;-))
Thursday, 4 December 2008
More hen stuff
Sweetiepie and Ginger in action!
Sweetiepie should soon come back into lay I think, as she is now squatting for us again...
This is an outraged Attilla, who was in the middle of laying an egg when I opened up the nest box lid! I put my hand under her to feel for any other eggs and she dropped her egg right into my hand, all hot and a bit sticky.....( sorry, that may be TMI for some folk!)
So far I am STILL getting 3-5 eggs per day from 5 laying hens, and we were building up a LOT of eggs!
We were the proud possessors of The Compost Mansions Egg Mountain, which had reached the mammoth proportions of 40 eggs... that is A WEEK days of 5 plus eggs a day....a couple of weeks ago!
We were forcing ourselves to have eggs, even if we didn't really want them..( shall we have boiled eggs for breakfast? do we have to? YES! we will get another 4 or 5 today so we need to eat some !)
So....its a good job we had a couple of cakes to make last week, plus a quiche AND I have found some friends who want to buy my lovely girlys eggs.... :-)
(Heh heh I give the friends some, or feed them eggy dishes when they visit...and then they want more...I tell you..more...they are hooked...cackle cackle cackle.......)
Anyway. Sorry. Where was I ? Oh yes. So..ANYWAY we no longer now have an Egg Mountain at Compost Mansions and I now have a steady contribution towards the (ever increasing!) feed bill. Which is good. As money doesn't grow on trees you know (well the paper for it does, but YKWIM.)
And on the subject of feed for the chicks.....I have had SUCH fun ( NOT!) trying to get Organic Growers pellets for the chicks recently!..When they get to about 8 weeks old the chicks are meant to switch from being fed Chick Crumbs (very small ground up high protein feed...) to an intermediate pelletted feed called Growers/Finishers pellets...which they are meant to have until they get to POL...( or until they are killed for meat)
Thinks..when do cockerels get to POL ;-) ?
So....could I get my local "countryside" ;-) store to get the order right? could I hell...but...after 4 weeks of lots of messing around I finally have a sack of the appropriate pellets...which the chicks now don't want to eat....( sigh)
They would rather go and steal the "big girls" layers pellets.....or the cat food...or ANYTHING really! Bloody teenagers....
BTW.....anyone know what adult Cockerels are supposed to eat? cos they are NEVER going to lay eggs.......so layers pellets seem a bit..I dunno....wrong, somehow... ( that's a rhetorical question, btw...I don't really need an answer.....although if you feel like it, go ahead!)
although knowing my lot, I bet the two cocks will have a go at layer's pellets!!
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Abandoned!
Well it finally HAD to happen...
Sweetiepie has left the chicks and gone back in with the other hens in Cluckingham Palace.
The hen you can hear in the background to the chick video clip is her making her normal noise, she stopped going " bok, bok bok, as soon as she went back in with the others.
The Sweetie six looked a bit lost, ..............
but are all OK about it now!
They have adopted ME as "mum" and are following me around, shadowing my every move outside.....
:-))
Sweetiepie has left the chicks and gone back in with the other hens in Cluckingham Palace.
The hen you can hear in the background to the chick video clip is her making her normal noise, she stopped going " bok, bok bok, as soon as she went back in with the others.
The Sweetie six looked a bit lost, ..............but are all OK about it now!
They have adopted ME as "mum" and are following me around, shadowing my every move outside.....
:-))
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Sunrise on a frosty morning
The last photo is of the rising sun hitting a willow tree by the pool...such a magnificent, vibrant amber colour !
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