Forging ahead

This is a post I have been dying to write for a very long time. After nearly three years of careful planning and precision strategizing (read: much flapping, scratching of heads and wondering just what the hell happened to our lives) we are nearly ready to launch our new business. This week we, as they say in the trade, ‘soft launched’ our new brand, The Forge, on social media (warning: shameless plugs to follow shortly). So no turning back – it’s now all about building the buzz and the right kind of image so that when we officially launch in January we are inundated with bookings.

All of this means that of course from now on my blog needs to portray a picture-perfect image of our ‘organic rural idyll’ where we, and I quote, “combine modern comforts with back to nature experiences” – and that means I couldn’t possibly begin to share with you the fact that…

……this week my husband narrowly escaped death when he nearly toppled the tractor on himself lifting the recently dispatched pig on the front bucket. It turns out that stuffing your porkers full of barley and tkids' leftovers turns them into right old hefty buggers. Cue the humiliating phone call to the neighbouring farmer to bail us out. Again. Suffice to say, there’s a very large ham and a bottle of something nice heading their way this Christmas.

Oops

Help!

…..or that my kids now point blank refuse to eat our organic, home-grown cavolo nero kale, turning their noses up at this in favour of the 99p frozen peas from the supermarket. Ditto my soup, when I actually get around to making any, is dissed in favour of Heinz Tomato every time. Why do I bother?!

Snow way I'm eating that Mum!

Organic, homegrown roasted pumpkin and spring pea soup with coconut
and a hint of chili, finished with creme fraiche and a sprinkling of fresh
homegrown coriander - OR - Heinz Tomato. No contest, apparently.

….or even that I recently took delivery of a massive case of wine (from one of those deals that seems to come enclosed with every item of mail these days). There is no way I am relying on the dodgy, brownish raspberry vodka or sloe gin I made here from the land a few months ago for all my festive inebriation.  Na ah. I definitely need something very tasty and very alcoholic and from very far away (preferably Australia) to see me through this yuletide. Although I can’t help thinking that getting said case delivered on December 1^st was a bit of a mistake…hiccup….

I don't think they sent us a full box (ahem...)

And I definitely couldn’t mention that my big hairy Scot of a husband, famed for his love of the cold and the great outdoors, surviving on nothing more than a few rabbits and the odd dandelion leaf, and washing only on every fourth full moon, recently spent pretty much three days straight in a sauna in Lisbon, showering on average seven times a day. Perhaps not quite the image we are trying to portray here at The Forge, but oh so bloody needed after the past few months of hard graft to get this place ship shape and ready for the spring.

So there you go. Full disclosure and all that. From now on my posts will be wholesome and squeaky clean and ever so slightly nauseating. Maybe.

And now for that shameless plug. You would make me a very happy woman if you could like, share, comment or follow our social media sites – links below. It’s a sign of the times when all I want for Christmas is some social media love. Oh ok, and maybe a nice fat Australian Shiraz. Merry Christmas everyone!  

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Cockerels and screams

Halloween may be over but there have been a fair few scenes around here of late that would not look out of place in your average Hammer horror movie.

Take the other morning for example. Husband sits bolt upright in bed and first words he utters to me are not,  “ Good morning darling, did you sleep well, a cup of tea perhaps cherie?” but rather “I Need A Killing Week”. And who says romance is dead?!! But rather than fleeing for the hills as some wives in similar situations may have done, I merely grunt a vague agreement and go on about my business. You see, the remaining two pigs are definitely starting to outstay their welcome (given the amount we have spent on pig nuts and flaked barley you could probably purchase all the pork in the entire country and still have some change leftover for a dirty kebab) and then there have been some pretty gruesome scenes up at the hen coop too….

Fight night

…“Mummy, why is that cockerel all red?” Turns out that four fully grown cockerels can’t actually co-habit with each other after all. Every time we walk past the three junior roosters are finding even more precarious perches to escape the wrath of Big Dot, who apparently has taken on somewhat of a Judge Dredd role in protecting his women. Blood and feathers everywhere. Time for some segregation and fattening up for Christmas methinks…. 

Is is safe to come down yet?

Then we arrived back from a recent trip to Scotland to a putrid smell of rotting flesh on the backdoor step. Now, our cat is not known for his good table manners but this was far worse than a bit of dried up Whiskas Fish Supreme he had overlooked. Oh no. After some rooting around my husband proudly produces by the tail the half-rotted carcass of the most enormous rat you have ever seen that clearly our puss had put away for safe keeping for a later date, a la Hannibal Lectpurrrrr…. (sorry).

Anyone seen any fava beans and a nice chianti?

Indeed, despite the cat’s best efforts, it is beginning to feel like a rodent invasion. I lie in bed at night woken up by the sound of mice in the roof, apparently learning to tap dance whilst wearing the clogs they picked up on their latest cheese run to Holland. And up at the hen coop there is a veritable spaghetti junction of superhighways between the rat holes and the hen feeders. Even more fuel for my husband’s much anticipated Killing Week.

And of course he chooses the exact moment when I am on a videoconference with my US colleagues in Texas, discussing the travesty that is gun crime and the insanity of people owning guns at all, to start sorting out his high-powered rifles in the background – in full view of my gobsmacked team. Perhaps having the gun cabinets positioned directly behind my desk is not the best idea… Just as well I now work in Inclusion and Diversity, and acceptance of all backgrounds is wholly encouraged. Even those with somewhat eccentric, rural lifestyles. I hope.

Here he comes...

And as if the guns weren’t enough to give any poor unsuspecting passer-by the heebee jeebees, he has also had a chainsaw pretty much permanently appended to the end of his arm as we clear lots of brush and trees in readiness for our new road. It literally goes everywhere with him – thrown in the back of the car as we collect the girls from school, hidden under the table as we have lunch, pride of place in the front seat of the Landrover. Ever ready for that spontaneous massacre. Or perhaps just trying to outwit any would-be thieves. If this turns out to be my last blog post you’ll know the answer. 

If the foonds are nay richt...

A wise old Scottish man of the woods once told us that “if the foonds are nay richt” then you are doomed to failure. He was referring to foundations and making sure you get these right before you do anything else.

It’s been a phrase that’s been ringing around our heads a lot these past few weeks as we really start to ramp up the next phase of our project. That and “shit just got real”. There’s nothing like some rather large numbers and frightening financial forecasts to focus the mind (and freak out the soul!).

But no better time of year for it than a new term. As our eldest daughter skipped off happily to start the foundation phase at the local school, so too we (quite literally) bought a new pencil case, sharpened our colouring pencils and opened our new books before staring vacantly at  the blank pages, looking for inspiration for our new name and logo. Fortunately, we’ve enlisted some professional help, working alongside some creative hipsters whose definition of ‘foonds’ involves terms like ‘mood boards’ and ‘basecamp concepts’. It basically involves them sending us loads of stuff to look at and us saying “don’t like it” and “want that one" A LOT. As long as they don't mind us being high maintenance clients I'm hopeful that we're laying the building blocks for something awesome. Watch this space…

But there’s no point in having some state-of-the-art branding if there’s nothing to actually brand. So it’s been full steam ahead with the platforms for the bell tents and the composting toilets. Much sawing of wood and hammering of nails as we design these things for the first time, using as our guide the oracles that are Pinterest and YouTube. First rookie mistake was constructing something so large inside the barn that we couldn’t actually get it out again. Even more tricky was transporting the thing to the top of the field (now affectionately known as ‘Bell End’, the end of our land where you will find all the bell tents – thank you to our inspired Facebook friends for the name). Yet slowly but surely things are starting to take shape and it is actually starting to feel very real.



And we're off


 

Taking shape...



Especially now we are in discussions with a company to build a road, yes an ACTUAL FREAKING ROAD, across our land to get the punters from the gate to aforementioned Bell End (don’t worry, I’m sure our design agency will advise us against this as our working title…., or perhaps not. It might increase the number of Google hits exponentially…?). You wouldn’t believe how much shale and stone you need to build a road. Somewhere in the region of 600 tonnes. WTF?! I can’t even fathom what that looks like. But apparently you can just scoop it off your own hillside et voila! Job done. It will make such a difference – rather than re-enacting the Bear Hunt, every time we welcome guests (swishy swashy, splishy sploshy, squelch squerch, etc. etc.) and playing a game of ‘will they, won’t they’ every time someone attempts to get their flashy, low-slung urban motors up the hill, it will be like the M6 only probably faster (given our recent experience of motorway queues and closures). And with a car park. An actual CAR PARK. And not just one but TWO. We've even been wandering about, arms outstretched, working out whether we have enough room to turn a bloody bus around! Yowsers. Nothing has ever sounded more grown up or scary.

Squelch, squerch

 


Room for a bus?



So fair to say the new term has kicked off with a vengeance. Whether or not all of these foundational plans are ‘richt’ or not, time will tell. But one thing is for sure, I'll bet if our dear old Scottish friend was still with us today, he would be telling us to go for it – better to have a given it a shot than never to have tried at all.  

Mid-life crisis

Since my last blog post I have had a ‘significant’ birthday. This would in part explain why I’ve not posted for a while, you see the old grey matter is not what it used to be and well, since passing this particular milestone a few things seemed to have changed. This is what I have found out about myself since turning *whisper* forty…..

1. I can’t see

Nothing like treating yourself to a new pair of glasses for your birthday. Turns out my old pair were woefully underpowered for my ageing eyes. Agonised over whether to splash out on the snakeskin-patterned Jimmy Choo numbers, but balked and opted for something a little more demure (read: age appropriate). Only trouble is now I keep forgetting to go and collect them from the shop. Turns out my memory is shot to shit too…

2. I can’t hear

Or rather I can’t stand background noise all of a sudden. Which is somewhat unfortunate as my husband’s mid-life crisis is currently manifesting itself through the playing of 1990s Acid House music at a million decibels throughout the place, which sends the kids loopy and makes my ears bleed.

3. My teeth are falling out

How the hell can this be happening? I’m over the hill and my erupting wisdom teeth are making the others all wobbly. The dentist says it’s nothing to worry about. I think he’s given up on me to focus his time and attention on younger patients who may actually still need their teeth (as clearly I’ll be on the dentures before long).

4. I have grey hair

As my kids delight in pointing out to me. “Mummy, mummy, why are your hairs all white?” I tried to mask the greys by enthusiastically painting our garden wall white on the day of my 40th birthday so as to have a valid reason for all the white in my hair. Think the excuse is now starting to wear off…

You're my wonderwall

5. I can’t do early flights anymore

Forgetting that we were no longer young carefree globetrotters who think nothing of taking flights at 3, 4, 5 in the morning (and embracing my husband’s Scottish careful/tight-arsed approach to budgeting) we bought two 6am Ryanair flights for our recent trip to Spain. Hand on heart probably the worst decision of our lives, with two kids under five. It took us all of the holiday and the week after to recover. By which point we needed another holiday. 

Lost and barely awake...check out those wrinkles

But it’s not all bad. Looking on the bright side…

6. I’m apparently immune to chicken pox

As we emerged from the deep collective fog of no sleep and the horror of budget airlines, what we assumed to be mosquito bites rapidly descended into chicken pox for our eldest daughter. On Day One. Of our first (and perhaps only – given the logistical nightmare of leaving a smallholding in the height of summer) family holiday abroad. And so began a month of poxed up children and minimal sleep. But somehow I escaped it all, despite the fact my mother tells me I’ve never had it. Bionic woman? 

7. I can run all day

No mid-life crisis would be complete without some lycra-clad mad exercise regime. My days of running fast it would appear are over, but I now inexplicably seem to be able to plod along for much longer, albeit at a much more pedestrian pace. I spent my birthday morning trotting happily for 3 hours up a local mountain and got myself nicely lost for a couple of hours each morning in Spain (anything to escape the pox!). 

Slow and steady - on the 825m summit of Cadair Berwyn

8. I can drink like a fish

Does someone flick a switch when you cross the threshold into fortydom? Having been such a hopeless lightweight since having kids, I suddenly find myself able to drink (almost) like the good old days*. I think having lots of wonderful friends to stay over the summer has definitely helped my rediscover my vino mojo. And lose my self-control. Sometimes it feels like the weather is conspiring against me on my days to ‘be good’ and abstain. How can I resist a nice cold beer after a day working hard in the garden on a glorious warm sunny evening? Especially as my slugs get to enjoy a Becks every night as I set their traps. Why should they enjoy and not me? Is this the slippery slope into alcoholism….?

*the one exception to this rule is Leffe Belgian beer, which, being my tipple of choice in my 20s, I opted to drink on my birthday. I promptly fell fast asleep after only half a bottle.

9. I love junk food 

And it’s not just the booze. I seem to be finding a million and one ways to de-healthify (oh yes, that is a word) all the bloody kale and chard and other nutritious, antioxidant-rich rabbit food which we have been growing all year. Thanks to a steady stream of visitors bringing their inspired recipes to what effectively has been a two-month long party we now feast on deep fried kale, broccoli fritters and chard cooked up with hash browns. Greens have never tasted so good. Or been so bad for you. And I love it. I wonder if this is what they call ‘letting yourself go’? 

10. I have a hidden talent for flower arranging

I’m not competitive (much) but the highpoint of the summer for me just might be winning a trophy for flower arranging at the village show, plus a ‘Best Exhibit’ rosette and a staggering £2.50 prize money to boot. If it all goes tits up, perhaps I have found my true calling…

The winner of Class 253a Vase of Mixed Garden Flowers (Novice)

So there you have it. Not so much a crisis as a confirmation that I’ve been pretty much living in middle-age for a good while already. I think I could probably give most 60 year olds a run/brisk walk for their money on the veggie growing, chicken fancying and jam making front. If anything it’s a constant source of surprise to me how I can only be 40…!!

Pancakes, perfume and pizza

Sometimes it takes the visit of a friend and her young family to help us take stock and really appreciate the lifestyle we have created for ourselves. Rather than charging around trying to fit in as many jobs as possible whilst constantly risk assessing the situation as my kids get bored and start entertaining themselves with axes, chainsaws and the like, we have spent the past week showing our friends what our place and the surrounding area has to offer: a much-needed break from the sometimes seemingly monotonous daily routines.

For example, whereas it takes around an hour of cajoling, shouting and, invariably, some kind of bribery to get my kids to put on a pair of wellies and dawdle (whilst moaning very loudly) up the short hill to feed the pigs and the hens, with two other little girls on the scene they are literally falling over themselves to get there first and then squabble over who gets to put the pig nuts in the bucket. Ditto the dog who has been largely ignored for the past two years and all of a sudden there is never a moment when he has either a lead or a small child hanging round his neck.

It also gave me a well needed kick up the arse to get away from my computer and checking my phone for ‘critically important’ emails every three minutes and actually start focusing on being a good (or at least better) mum. So one day this week I surpassed myself by making pancakes for breakfast without once losing my cool or muttering anything about the sake of foxes under my breath as my kitchen disappeared under clouds of flour and puddles of milk. Almost. And I actually managed not to destroy a frying pan or any other piece of kitchen equipment. Get Me. 

The Great Welsh summer - 3 jumpers and a coat...

Of course I had forgotten that a breakfast consisting of largely white carbs dowsed in alarming amounts of maple syrup and topped with sugar is a recipe for total disaster. Especially when your Supermum ideals have led you to book tickets on a charming little steam train down the side of the lake. All was going well until said steam train broke down. “First time this has ever happened in 150 years”, said the overly cheerful guard. “We’ll be getting going in no time”, he said. “Wrong coal”, he chuckled as he continued to poke his smiley face in through the window of our carriage. Meanwhile, the temperature inside the carriage is by now approaching 30c and we are togged up in three jumpers, coats and scarves to guard against the -5c wind-chill on the lakeside only hours early (God love the Welsh summer weather and its four seasons in one day). To boot, our kids, confined to the carriage of a narrow-gauge train carriage of what can only be described as toy-like proportions got increasingly more hyper – launching themselves off the seats, trying to poke their fishing nets through the roof before finally launching an all-out war offensive with their various soft toys before one (of course, the most favourite) sailed merrily out of the open window and onto the tracks opposite, just like the dog in There’s Something About Mary. Fortunately, Mr Smiley Guard was on hand to save the day, just before the train shuddered back into action.

Toy train - not so much fun in 30c heat...

Undeterred from our steam adventure/trauma we spent the afternoon in a soft glow of floaty skirts and pretty flowers, selecting the nicest smelling petals from the garden from which to make perfume. In my new Zen Mom state I tried with all my might to ignore the trails of destruction being wreaked upon my garden and focus instead on the bucolic sight of creativity and engagement happening in front of me. And lo, not an hour later each little girl, beaming with pride and excitement, produced a vial of slightly brown liquid smelling a bit earthy and putrid, but from which they were not to be parted for the rest of the holidays (even insisting on taking it on the plane home).

Roses - before the mashing started...

To round off our day of full-on Enid Blyton parenting I handmade (YES HAND MADE, if a bread maker doesn’t count) wholemeal pizza dough and then had each child design their own face pizza topping using homegrown vegetables (and ok then, a fair few shop bought ingredients but who’s counting?). Wow, my creativity really knew no bounds by this point. Having dispatched the kids back to their stations in front of the TV (well, come on, you wouldn’t want this to be too nauseatingly wholesome would you?!) I then set about cooking their masterpieces. Only I slightly cocked it all up, somehow setting fire to the grease-proof paper and then wrecking their beautifully arranged pizza faces so the end results was less Mr Happy and more a charred Edvard Munch. Oh well, the kids seemed not to notice, and wolfed down the lot, before quickly falling fast asleep. No wait, that was the parents... And the summer holidays have not even begun! Heaven help us…

Pizza masterpiece - pre-conflagration

A day in the life

Sometimes the contrasts in my double life of country bumpkin slash corporate whore seem just a little bit surreal. Check out this one day this week for example….

5am. Up and out with the dog for quick blast up the hill, desperately pleading with him to try and squeeze one out as a matter of urgency, what with, you know, my somewhat pressing schedule an’ all. Throw some food to the pigs, taking care not to get mud all over my face as I perform the precarious task of filling the water trough up whilst balancing over a 12-volt electric fence. (I’ve got it wrong and had the mother of all kicks off this fence before – it’s not the kind of wake up call you need at 5am believe me).

Mind the fence!

6am. Hurriedly change into clothes newly purchased on the internet this week. Try not to think about how much I have spent and how I still don’t look at all ready to be seen in public. Fail to notice tags hanging down my back until much later in the day. Apply makeup very badly and sneak out of the house trying not to wake everyone and face the sorrowful questions from my girls asking me where I am going with a suitcase and an inordinately strong waft of perfume at this ungodly hour in the morning (well you have to mask the eau de piggy somehow…).

9am. Make the ferry to Ireland just in time. Make (what I hope to be) convincing small talk with truckies whilst standing in the queue for coffee about the state of the roads in Ireland and what a f*!king joke it is the time it takes the port staff at Holyhead to load and unload the artics (truckie speak for articulated lorries I later find out). To be honest I had completely no concept of time standing as I was with my eyes firmly glued to my phone desperately genning up on the latest thought leadership in digital management (see below).

2pm. Mad dash across Dublin for emergency hair cut at Toni and Guy in Dublin’s trendy Dundrum district. Attempt to sound down with kids as I point at various styles in the ‘look book’ describing them as 'rad', ‘sick’ etc. In reality, the only sick I am feeling is from the dreadful coffee from the massively inappropriately named Stena Superfast Ten ferry. Despite all the pumping music and strobe lighting (were hair salons always this intense?) hipster Steve takes nearly TWO HOURS to cut and dry my hair! WTF! I know the Irish are laid back but really?

Can you make me look like this so I really make
an impression with the senior leadership team?

4pm. Hour late for meeting with crackshot video crew flown in from Chicago especially for our event. Shake hands with the ex-news producer from Fox news and make terrible joke about Anchorman movie and immediately regret it. Spend an hour wandering around state-of-the-art all-glass  office in the so-called Silicon Docks during the only hour the fecking sun shines in Dublin all week and nearly pass out in the heat. Hope to God someone has opened the polytunnel so my tomatoes don't do the same. Nod intelligently as they run through a litany of complete gobbledygook terminology – B roll, booms, steadycams, sizzle reels (sounds well dodge) - and hope to Christ it doesn’t rain on my hair before it’s my turn in front of the camera (postscript: it does rain on my hair. A lot. I look like Diana Ross in the final shoot).

Lights, camera, action!

6pm. Check into 5-star Intercontinental hotel.  Phone home to check in and make sure the new hens are not being bullied by the old hens and have enough to eat. Remind husband the mega-strength slug pellets are on the beans and cucumbers so keep the dog and kids away. Don’t forget to water the tomatoes. Check the birds are not in the peas. Close the polytunnel. Check the geese. The list goes on.

 

8pm. Dinner with the Editor-in-Chief of one of the world’s leading business publications. Dig deep to try and regurgitate all the erudite political commentary and digital management thought leadership I have been trying to inwardly digest from my phone during taxi zig zags across Dublin. Judging from his polite nodding and wry smile I have badly muddled my concepts so he steers the conversation to his daughter’s driving test before we land on common ground discussing smoking various types of meat in a Green Egg (turns out he has the same model as us). Who’d have thought that I’d have been discussing our little self-sufficiency project with one of the world’s leading business journalists. Surreal.

The future for all smoked meat, apparently

11pm. Collapse into bed and watch re-reruns of Gardeners World on the 75’’ screen TV, scribbling down a list of all the jobs I need to do in the polytunnel when I am back on the hotel’s watermarked creamy-white notepaper, whilst adding the finishing touches to the CEO’s keynote speech on my laptop at the same time. Open the balcony doors of my suite to hear Phil Collins belting out ‘Another Day In Paradise’ at the Aviva Stadium next door and fall asleep hoping to enter a slightly less incongruous life in my dreams.

That screen is as wide as my polytunnel (I checked)

Postscript: You will be pleased to hear that the event passed off without incident and the CEO did not end up discussing the black fly on his broad beans nor did I do a Naomi Campbell and go arse over tit whilst being filmed walking around the office in my new, incredibly uncomfortable stilettos (note to self: never wear brand new 4 inch heels for a two-day summit which involves walking approximately 10 miles over five floors each day – my feet may never recover and my wellies have never felt so good). I also managed to survive without my daily dose of fresh, home-grown veg, swapping my greens for the black stuff, because as we all know, Guinness Is Good For You. I applied the same principle as fruit and veg guidelines, opting for 5-a-day, you know, just to be on the safe side. Slainte!

Strong and stable

What all vegetables need at this crucial point in their growing cycle is strong and stable support. Beans, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, whatever your genus, you cannot truly thrive and make it on your own in this world without some kind of solid structure to show you where to grow and keep you on track. Or so say all the guidebooks and social media feeds. What is actually happening in reality is that everything is clamouring over each other to be the most dominant vegetable on the patch. Either that or they are failing to show up at all.

Strong investment in steel

The peas are looking spectacular. Even if I do say so myself. After years of watching them end up in a knotted and mice-munched heap after my hopelessly inadequate pea sticks have collapsed under their weight, this year we have invested heavily in the supporting infrastructure, buying galvanized steel mesh for them to grow up. Get me. The tommies and cucumbers are also looking pretty good, building up a head of steam in the polytunnel to launch themselves up their carefully constructed cane supports. And as for the asparagus – it’s just up there, proud and erect with absolutely no help from the audience. But just as my horticultural hubris was reaching its peak, I’ve had a few timely reminders that I am, in fact, no Percy Thrower.

Upstanding members

Take the climbing beans for instance. Usually the most fool proof of any vegetable that literally anyone can grow. They even wrote a children’s fairy tale about them for gods’ sake, they are that prolific and easy to produce. So I got cocky. I got clever. I thought I’d get ahead of the game, set myself up for the long growing season ahead. Planted a load of them in April and watched as my gamble failed spectacularly in early May with a completely un-forecasted hard frost of -4c. Who would have anticipated such a turn in the weather after getting sunburned the previous week? Anyway, brushed myself down, restored my confidence somewhat and then gambled on my beans again, this time planting them on black plastic and constructing elaborate structures from garden canes for what I fully thought would be the inevitable climbing bean landslide. Ha. Once again, how wrong I was. Turns out black plastic + lots of rain basically provides an 8-lane super-highway for slugs and snails who have munched every single last bean. Should I just roll over and resign myself to my bean-free future, leaving one vegetable patch empty and marooned next to all the others? Or do I have the grit and stamina to stick it out for another term……? Time will tell…

All the supports, not a bean in sight

Other plants are now starting to catch up from behind. My strawberries, wrenched from their former outside bed where they were running out of control, have been re-homed and reordered in the polytunnel and, after a few shaky months, are now starting to re-establish themselves, even producing some tasty red fruit. And the beetroot is proving to be an early leader this season. We’ve been munching tons of the stuff - raw, steamed, roasted and boiled. But I fear it’s turning us red from the outside in. My hands are now permanently stained red a la Lady Macbeth and I’ve just about overcome the horror of thinking there’s been some catastrophic hemorrhaging or prolapsing disaster every time I visit the loo. As for the kids’ nappies – well that’s a whole other story. We’ve had to put the nursery on alert to avoid any panicked phone calls half way through the day. I console myself with the thought that all this beta-carotene must be for the greater good. I hope.

Strawberries - back from the brink (maybe)

Getting back to our roots

So it would seem that roaming around the hills of Snowdonia can give you a warped perception of what you are actually capable of achieving.  When I am up there in the mountains I have all these great ideals of how my vegetable patch will look, with lovely neat rows of prolific, healthy crops and not a weed in sight. The reality of course is a barely controlled chaos, unpredictable conditions leading to some young crops steaming ahead and others just plain letting you down. It would seem that no matter how much planning and preparation you do, there’s always something to take you by surprise. And all that time spent trotting around admiring the views could have been better spent trying to get a handle on the weeds who seem hell bent on opposing my grand plans. I’m even considering joining the dark side, putting aside all my wholesome and organic principles, to start using chemical weed killers and slug pellets just to get ahead. Maybe it won’t come to that and I can start to love and nurture my chaos just the way it is, random assortments of weeds and all. 

I AM INVINCIBLE!!!
(until I get off this hill, the endorphins wear off and reality kicks back in)

Curiouser and curiouser

Regular readers among you will be well aware that Google and YouTube have played no small part in our great voyage of discovery into this rural living lark. This week however, I think we have even managed to bamboozle Google with questions that seem to get more random by the day. Here is just a small selection of this week’s highlights…

SEARCH: How do you stop geese from jumping on your trampoline?

[Honestly, it is like the bloody John Lewis advert out there every morning, with our three new feathered friends leaping around on the kids’ trampoline, when they could have the run of 20 acres of lush green fields and a beautiful infinity pond (complete with landscaped garden and relaxation space). Why, just why? Another shit shoveling duty to now add to my ever growing list….]

Our dismal attempt at a goose deterrent

SEARCH: How do you remove a wheel from a tedder?

[In a bid to raise some funds to finance our ever more elaborate projects we have started to auction off random bits of equipment which have been lying about the place since we moved in. One such item was the tedder – a piece of equipment used to get the cut grass into a line ready for baling (so I am told – and no, Google was none the wiser either.) After three days of scouring videos on the internet to find out how to remove the wheel underneath to fix it, my Dad rocked up and got it off in less than a minute. Perhaps proving the adage that digital is no match for good old fashioned hands-on experience.]

WTF is that?! 

SEARCH: Where can I find a matching pew from Salem chapel in Porthmadog?

[We have managed to lay our hands on some rather lovely old church pews from a Welsh chapel down the road. They will look bonzer in the new kitchen. Except they don’t quite fit. And you try getting your hands on a matching-opposite-corner-type one from this specific style used in North Wales circa 1870. Gold dust I tell you!]

Any ideas where we can find the rest of this?

SEARCH: Is there a Rightmove for bees?

[Nearly 7 years after receiving it as a wedding present, we have finally set up our bee hive. Not having a clue what we are doing and not willing to fork out to buy any bees, we’re hedging our bets on a passing swarm just passing by and taking up residence in it. We've gone all Farrow and Ball shades, lots of fresh flowers and location, location, location. Fingers crossed it does the trick...]

Deceptively spacious, characterful beehive, no chain

SEARCH: Can chicks smell?

[Every morning after I’ve been out for a blast of fresh air with the dog I go and say hello to the chicks who come peep-peeping towards me and then recoil in horror as they get close to me in my sweaty running kit. Either they have a super sense of smell or I pong a bit more than I think!]

SEARCH: What won’t a pig eat?

[0 of 0 results. We’ve all seen the Italian gangster movies. Nuff said. Let’s just say you don’t want to be slipping over and breaking anything while you’re in their pen.]

FEED ME! I'd have you! And anything else for that matter...

SEARCH: Do pigs have milk teeth?

[A bit disconcertingly, we keep finding teeth in the pig’s water trough. They are either subcontracting to the local Tafia (Welsh branch of the Mafia) – see above - or they are losing their own. Considering making a necklace, Crocodile Dundee style….]

So all in all a bit scary how reliant we have become on Google and how lost we feel when it turns out the internet is not always so up on random bits of old farm machinery and animal husbandry. This is the kind of information that is passed down generations by word-of-mouth and hands-on learning. And as good a reminder as any to sometimes put down your phone and the iPad, roll up your sleeves and work it out for yourself!

Quid pro quo

We are rapidly learning that bartering is the way the real rural economy works. Over the past few weeks we have managed to get our hands on all kinds of stuff as well as crack on with the big jobs around the place without having to spend a single penny. Check out these recent coups…

1.5 pigs = 2 haunches of venison + 1 hare

Some fellow smallholder friends had been helping a mate ‘sort’ his pigs out and they had one and a half pig carcasses left over. Having just butchered their own pigs they were already drowning in their own pork products so they gave the lot to us in exchange for some game from the freezer. We are now 100 sausages richer and have a bit more real estate in our freezers. Cher-ching.

Free pork - don't mind if I do...

1 discounted piece of farm machinery = 3 geese

Preparations for our new glamping site continue apace with the next step being to install running water in our top field. Apparently to lay the pipes you need a ‘mole plough’ (nothing to do with the little furry beasts apparently – just something that goes underground).  The hard-nosed farmer flogging this particular piece of equipment refused to budge on the price, but instead offered to throw three geese into the bargain, after our kids had spent an hour chasing them around the field while said deal was being negotiated. Enter stage left our new guard dogs (although so far they have done less guarding and more lounging about by the pond – starting to see why he might have wanted rid of them…)

Boo!

3 days hedge clearing = 5 Easter eggs + 20 bottles of beer

Nothing like inviting the family up for a ‘relaxing break’ over Easter and then, as soon as they walk in the door, handing them a pair of heavy duty gardening gloves, a pitchfork and a pair of firelighters and asking them to clear and burn great swathes of overgrown hedges and trees. All in exchange for copious amounts of chocolate and beer. Labour doesn’t come cheaper than that.

Nothing like a relaxing Easter break...

½ tonne rhubarb = 8 broad bean plants + 2 days free child care

The one and only thing growing in the veg patch at the moment is the rhubarb which is trifid-like in its prolificness this year. Unlike everything else which, after a late, sharp frost, has given up the ghost meaning we have to start sowing all over again. So I’ve been offloading great armfuls of it to my folks in exchange for bean seedlings (which they cleverly protected from the sub-zero temperatures) plus a hand with the kids so I can crack on and attempt to play catch up after Jack Frost has wreaked his trail of destruction.

Just add custard

1 foot across the threshold + a pulse = 3+ dozen eggs

We have finally reached 100% production with all 8 hens now laying religiously each morning, some even producing double yolkers (so by rights you could argue for a 120% return at the moment). Alas poor Boom Boom (our aged matriarch of the coop and the last hen we inherited when we bought the place) turned up her toes up this week, but then she hadn’t laid an egg for months and had been looking ‘peaky’ (hen speak for death’s door) for some time. The upshot is that we are now drowning in eggs and anyone who shows the faintest gesture of goodwill has multiple egg boxes thrust upon them before being allowed to leave the place.

364 days of hard labour = 1 day at a health spa

Not so much a barter so much as a negotiation to escape for 24 hours with my girlfriends for a day off the chores and the shit shovelling. After a wonderful day of pampering and relaxation, I did however try to offset the guilt of abandoning my dependents (not to mention the eye-wateringly expensive bill) by half-inching a few of the free apples from the health spa to bring back for the pigs. Given their enthusiastic oinking and chomping on the super posh fruit I think I may have been forgiven for my short absence…

So you see, regardless of what happens in the General Election and Brexit and our (apparently) shrinking economy, all you need is to master the art  of bartering and striking up a good deal and you will always come up smelling of roses. Or perhaps just a little bit of sausages. 

Spring/summer collection 2017

With the arrival of spring and the mercury heading back into double figures for the first time in months, my husband decided it was time to embark on the smallholders' equivalent of a new wardrobe or in our case, a new set of farm animals to furnish our freezer with in the coming months.. The first Friday of the month is pig market day around these parts. The monthly gathering of seasoned pig farmers and those gullible suckers who haven’t a clue but fancy themselves as the archetypal smallholder. You can almost see the former rubbing their hands in anticipation as they see the newbies rolling up in their unblemished stock trailers, freshly printed (and totally incomprehensible – to them) livestock papers in their hands. My husband had pretty much been counting down the days on his calendar to this momentous day and on the long-awaited morning assembled my father, somewhat seasoned auction-goer, and a good friend from the Bar (the law type, rather than the other, although fair to say they have spent a fair amount of time propping up the other type too) with, quite understandably, zero experience of pig shopping. So off they all went, only to come back a few hours later with three lovely looking pink piglets and much laughter and guffawing. Turns out in the heat of the moment, my husband had misunderstood the pricing system and ended up paying for each pig what he had intended to pay for all three. Doh. Rookie mistake. There is some farmer from down the road now sporting a rather expensive new pair of wellies and the very latest in farmer chic overalls this season thanks to us. We’ve named our new collection Prada, Chanel and Gucci, the most expensive piglets in Christendom. And as if that weren’t bad enough, in our recent mini heatwave my husband thought that his new pride and joys were getting a little sunburned so asked me to get out there with my ultra-expensive Vichy Factor 50, to stop their little pink ears from getting any pinker. Seriously?

Meet Prada, Chanel and Gucci...

Having settled our new gold-plated pigs into their new sty and checked them approximately every 20 minutes, the following morning brought yet more new additions to the family. After 21 days of massively irritating clicking every 9 seconds, our incubator appears to have done its job. We came downstairs on Saturday morning to find a small beak protruding from a shell and pecking its way out. It is little short of miraculous watching this tiny, bedraggled form wrestle its way out of its shell and into the world. The kids were captivated, (CBeebies did not get a look in all weekend, their noses pressed up tight against the incubator instead), but not quite as enraptured as the grown-ups who couldn’t quite believe this had actually worked (previous attempts having all ended as duds). And it turns out watching chicks hatch is a little bit like making popcorn. After the first kernel pops nothing seems to happen for ages and then all of a sudden it all kicks off and it’s like Armageddon in there. Same for our chicks. You turn your back for a few hours and come back and there’s loads more hatched, all clambering over each other like drunks at the finishing line of the Grand National. What has had us baffled though is the colour of the chicks in relation to the shell they emerged from. Where we had been expecting a nice little yellow ball of fluff from one of our Light Sussex hens, they were coming out black or stripy. Awkward! Something you’re not telling us you naughty hens?!

Hot chicks..... a grand total of 14 hatched into the world

As if all these new arrivals to the place weren’t enough, our daughters have taken to adopting the many tadpoles swimming in the ponds around the place to be their ‘pets’, catching as many as they can in jam jars and making ‘aquariums’ for them with an assortment of stones and leaves. The whole kitchen looks and sounds like a sodding menagerie. You can’t move for something hatching, tweeting or wiggling around. 

Does my tail look  big in this?

And finally my husband decided to treat himself to an egg this Easter, a Big Green Egg. For those of you less familiar with this season's fashions in big brand American barbecues, this thing looks like something from outer space, an alien pod or cocoon perhaps (why is it that that particular film seems to become all the more appealing to me the closer I get to forty!). And it is bloody huge. You could fit all of our aforementioned pets and ourselves in there and close the lid and live out the next nuclear winter no probs. And not content with just one supersize barbecue, he came home with TWO! After the whole pig debacle it was a bloody good job he got a significant discount on these – when I casually perused the prices on the internet I nearly fell off my chair. But despite my concerns that in buying this we may have jinxed summer 2017 forever, for once the weather gods have been smiling upon us and we have actually managed to use the thing for three consecutive nights – we’ve cooked (venison) burgers, steaks (of course, venison), even pizza (yup, you guessed it, venison pastrami) on it, although admittedly last night it was my husband out there on his tod, shivering into his tongs as the rain hissed off the grill. Turns out that just because you have the mother of all barbecues it doesn’t mean you live in the South of France. Enjoy the sun while it lasts folks - and Happy Easter!

This year's Easter egg