Welcoming Winter

There is a feeling of  winter approaching already. The nights are getting cooler and growth in the garden has slowed down. The bees are starting to evict the drones and eagerly forage midday for any available pollens and necters.

Everything is slowing down, and that sounds wonderful to me!
The pigs are hopefully going to the deepfreeze next week. They have escaped twice now, once by jumping the wall when I didn't feed them quick enough and the second time was by breaking through their gate!

The war against weeds goes on pause till the spring, and much of the seasons produce is in jars in the larder or in the freezer. The boys are settled in school now which leaves the house quieter during the day.
We have started to light the range every night, the kitchen has become cosy and warm again.
As the nights close in quicker, we are doing less outdoor work. No more weeding till 10pm! I am now in bed by then. We are moving in to a restful period, a time for craft projects, reading and attending bee-meetings.

I do look forward to winter, I will enjoy the restful slower pace. A life lived following natures rhythm.

The role of the homemakers

The role of the homemaker has fallen over the last few decades. 

It's social standing has been downgraded from a once important and honoured role which greatly influenced society, to a place where shame and embarrassment follow such a statement!

The pursuit of 'easy' has replaced craft, beauty, pride, homemade and comfort at home. There are now easy meals, easy flat pack furniture and easy childminding as they sit in front of the tv, game or tablet.

We now live where the tv is the most important feature of a room! And as a direct result social education of the youth, the most important form of all the educations has been lost, dwelling only now in oldest of the generations.

The answer to people's loneliness is to put the tv or radio on at all times to have background noise, and in some homes both! But that only distracts loneliness. People, community, family and neighbours are the true solution. 

Everything that is done outside the home is done for the betterment of the home and home life. From farming, to factory work, labour saving inventions, restaurants and even war. But if home life is gone then what use is any of it other than as a distraction.

Home life is the start of everything and the end, it's all we truly have. It is the foundation of society and culture. It shapes our youth and therefore shapes the  future of our society and culture. That is indeed power!

I believe that education with children should be based primarily at home. We send our eldest to our local school where he can build ties to his community but I do not expect it to be his only form of education. He needs to learn so much more than what can be learnt at school. From cooking and baking, how to milk a cow and weed the garden, a love for reading and self education, diy, value in people and community but to name a few. 

What do people do with all the time they have saved by not keeping a home, as it does indeed take time. Do they better themselves or others? 

They do not, life without a home is dull and wanting. They distract themselves with tv and media, holidays to escape to and dreams of living it all on retirement when they finally will have the time.

People are tired when coming home from working all day, so they sit in front of the tv in the evenings. It is in fact the highlight of their day!

Their day has been so dull that they feel the need to reward themselves. A six pack or a takeaway or both. Their is no joy for living.

A home is were you feel a belonging, to the building, the place and the people. It is were people gather for good food and beer and the door is always open and visitors are always welcome. 

It is lovingly made of human hands. 

Rhubarb & Ginger Jam

I have received more rhubarb from neighbours! I am beginning to wonder why we are growing our own!

I find that elderly neighbours that still live in the traditional farmhouse with orchard and veg patch have so much spare fruit that they hate to see wasted but are not able to use/save it all. 

Either because they are not as young as they used to be, or mostly because the increasing yield of the orchard is too much for the decreasing family living there.

They love to see somebody make use of it, especially a young family with 'mouths to feed' than let it rot into the ground. 

And in return they get some jam, a bottle of wine later in the year, some tarts for the freezer or even a jar of our honey. 

So to make use of this additional rhubarb, I have stewed off half of it and put into the freezer, I also made some tarts and made a dozen jars of rhubarb and ginger jam.

The pigs are doing great! They have gained a great deal of weight and have become very friendly!

They eat a great deal and love the jersey milk. They would try and go through a wall for that milk!

While they eat a lot, they are working out cheap to feed. We get two 2 gallon buckets a day of waste restaurant food from hubby's friend. We give the pigs all waste veg material from the veg garden before it eventually makes it way to the dung heap. We also feed them a few kgs of rolled oats soaked in jersey milk. 

Several neighbours leave buckets of waste food at our gate once or twice a week for the pigs. We feed it, wash the buckets out and then return them to the neighbours backdoors later in the week!

The pig run, which is still not finished, should be this weekend. We have the foundations poured but we need to build the wall and hang the gate. The materials have been ordered for tomorrow,so hopefully it will be completed this weekend. I am eager to give the pigs more space and buy in another two weaners.

The kids made me smile!

Christopher had his last day of play school today. I went into collect him at noon and I received a collection of his work during the year, mainly paintings and art and craft work.

I had a little giggle when they showed me his drawing for 'home/family'.

The cow has an udder and all!  

May Updates

 Mama Moo finally got to go out to good grass this morning thanks to our lovely neighbors. We only have a couple of small paddocks here as the farm cottage and lands were sold separately. So we have the kind use of much needed additional grazing.

 The polytunnel has recovered from the 'flood' and there is plenty of growth although slow and delayed by the poor weather!

 Everyday this week I have been making mozzarella.  We love it and are using it in pizzas,cooking and salads. I will do a post on it next week.
We are having lots of fun outside and this morning our eggs that are due tomorrow started hatching, much to the children's delight.

Flooded polytunnel in May!

After milking this morning, I went and did my usual. Feed the hens and chicks and then went to check on the polytunnel. I was shocked this morning to find I could barely get in the door without wellies as it was flooded.
My first thought; oh sh@t! I must have left the hose running. I ran to turn it off but it was already off.
I then opened the door and looked in. My heart sank. There were pots and seedlings floating/ drowning inside.
I walked inside slowly while my shoes and socks were filling with water and rescued the pots and trays of seedlings. I put them up onto shelves to let them drain.
Now before you ask, we live in a house on a hill! And it's May ! Summer!
And the forecast for the rest of the week : rain and more heavy rain.

The cow has been inside for the last few days and I reckon for another ten. It might be June before she is let out to grass altogether. She would do too much poaching if she were out now.
This is depressing!
I have a 5 gallon stout & malt brew to start today and a gallon of fresh milk to turn into mozzarella .
Oh and three very active,busy and entertaining little sweat-peas as my assistants!
Which made me reflect on this poem...

Hand Prints On The Wall

One day as I was picking

the toys up off the floor,

I noticed a small hand print
on the wall beside the door.

I knew that it was something
that I'd seen most every day,
but this time when I saw it there
I wanted it to stay.

Then tears welled up inside my eyes,
I knew it wouldn't last
for every mother knows
her children grow up way too fast.

Just then I put my chores aside
and held my children tight.
I sang to them sweet lullabies
and rocked into the night.

Sometimes we take for granted,
all those things that seem so small.
Like one of God's great treasures...
A small hand print on the wall. 

Unknown

Ciabatta Bread

Ciabatta bread is very popular in our house. It never lasts more than a few hours once out of the oven. Which for me is a delight!
It feels like a good job well done when my boys get excited for the timer on the oven to sound or for me to come in with the mornings milking so they can scope out the warm creamy foam.

I started the 'bigga' or sponge yesterday for the ciabatta. This was a wet mixture of flour, yeast and water. This was covered and left overnight.

By the morning it had doubled in size and was full of air holes.
I then added more flour,salt, honey, yeast and water and covered again and left it for a few hours when it had doubled in size again.
As I don't use scales, I have no idea of measurements. I just add till it looks right!

By now it is very stretchy and full of air holes. Empty onto floured surface and divide in two. Shape and put on the greased tray ready for the oven. Leave for another hour to rise again.

Bake on a high heat 220c for about 30 mins. Enjoy!

We have done so much weeding this weekend that the garden is taking shape and we finally managed to move the chicks out into their own coop. I am nervous of how they will do. I do hope that they are hardy enough!

Beeswax, honey & oatmeal scrub soap

I finally got around to making some soap yesterday!
I made 18 bars so it should last us a while. I used lots of lemon essential oils in it and it smells divine. I can't keep my nose out of it ;-) but I need to let it mature for another 4-6 weeks.
I found that my sensitive skin has improved enormously since moving to homemade for my face. But at €4 a bar, I prefer to make my own and use them generously for hand washing and bathing for the whole family.
I got this recipe out of a soap book I have,'the handmade soap book' by Melinda Coss.

Recipe:

10oz/283g veg fat
12oz/340g olive oil
10oz/283g coconut oil
2oz/57g beeswax
11oz/312g spring water
5oz/142g caustic soda/lye
2oz/57g oatmeal
2 tbsp honey
1tbsp essential oils

Grease your molds ready for use.
Put all oils into saucepan and melt.
Add lye to water and stir till dissolved. .
Let them both (oils and lye) cool down to an equal temperature between 49-60•c.
Pour lye into oils and stir occasionally until it starts to thicken.
Add honey, oatmeal and essential oils and then pour into molds.
Rest for 24hrs to harden.
Using gloves, remove from molds and let cure for 4-6 wks.

Homemade lip balm & AI'ing the cow

MamaMoo kept us up all night bellowing last Monday, so I figured she must be in heat. Hubby rang the AI man on Tues morning and he came out to us shortly afterwards. We had the choice of a freisin or angus straw so we picked angus.
We put her up the crush and sure enough she was well 'on'. Fingers crossed that she takes! I should be on the look out for heat in 18 days.


I collected the veal yesterday evening from our butcher. We got back three boxes of meat. We were disappointed as it is very lean. We will fatten a jersey calf next time. We got back about 140lbs of meat and some yummy corn beef that we had last night. I have to be very careful with cooking it, as not to make it tough and to use lots of added fats to help.





Our chicks are getting quite big now. They are starting to get annoying in their cage now as they are so messy and scratch food/bedding into their water constantly.
It will be time for them to move out into a coop soon. They still have a heat lamp on at night. The next batch is due on the 12th.
I have been doing a lot of gardening this week. The weeds are trying hard to get ahead ! Argh ! We have being swopping/sharing a lot of plant and seeds with friends. It's a great arrangement for all.
I made cheese and yogurt last night and I plan on making more cheese today.

I made some homemade lip balm during the week. It was very easy and it will last ages and smells wonderful.
A table spoon each of the following and melt together. The add essential oils and allow to cool.
Olive oil
Bees wax
Coconut oil

Now I really need to get around to making more soap for the house !

Sprouting, Bees & Chicks

I started sprouting some chickpeas and kidneys beans a few days ago. I was not expecting them to sprout but was delighted when I noticed them sprouting this morning. I took pity on the beans and planted them in the poly-tunnel, lets see if they grow. The chickpeas will be used in salads this week.

The garden is coming along well and we have our first peas. What a delight! We are harvesting spring onions, herbs and spinach everyday. The brood beans are all in flower and the seedlings are growing strong and will be planted out shortly. The only problem at this time of year is the weeding!                                           We opened up the hive on Saturday and while it is strong and doing well, it is very delayed. They haven't used the super that was added three weeks ago. We had expected that to be laid up already. I have a feeling it is going to be a slow year!                                                                                                                         Our chicks are doing great and are under a heat lamp during the night.  We have eight now and another batch of eggs in the incubator that are due on the 12th of May.                                                                            

I will be making more homemade soap and some peppermint lip balm during the week. So I will follow that up wth a blog post.

Milking machines

I went into our butcher on Tuesday to collect the calf's offal, liver, heart and tongue. For now we will put them onto the freezer. Our butcher was disappointed with the calf. He was far too lean and as a result he won't be able to hang him long. Maybe ten days at best. We usually finish a jersey calf and they are wonderful. They fatten well and therefore can hang a month and make very tender eating. Yum!
We won't finish a friesian again. I forgot to ask for the hanging weight. I'll think of it when we collect him next week. Hopefully!

We decided to move from disposable nappies to washable nappies. We only got them yesterday so it's early days yet but so far so good. I'll keep you updated on that as it seems like a great economy to the household budget after the initial capital investment.

I got delivery of hive parts and frames today. I had ordered them before I realised we had lost the last hive. I might not need them this season after all.



I bottled off the rest of the ginger beer yesterday and started a batch of lager. We now have a selection of mature stouts, beers and ales. We bought about 60 swing top pint bottles a couple of months ago and they were a great investment. The head/gas on each pint is great. We are very pleased on how this is working out.












Mama moo the cow has being holding up milk all week. At the start of the week I was getting a cups worth at milking and this morning I milked 4 litres. I felt like i won the lottery. The calf had cut up her teats much worse than I can expected. We are using lots of udder balm while milking (ignore the socks ) and we are not using the milk for the house yet until everything heals up. The dogs and cat are delighted with this arrangement.

We are going to start using a milking machine. I do all the milking here and it leaves me tied down while if we had a milking machine hubby would be happy to milk, and friends and neighbours.
While we would like a milking machine we don't wish to pay for one! They really are very expensive for a portable single unit.

Our neighbours both have old delaval milking units, with the help of another good neighbour we are stripping both these systems to hopefully get one functioning unit up at our place. The men were busy last night testing the units and planning the process and on Saturday we will hopefully have a working milking machine that we expect will cost maybe €100 for replacement rubber and parts.
I'm so excited about this. I always wanted a milking machine!
My job for today is to clean up this milk bucket ( in the bath )and then bring it to our co-op for them to replace all rubbers and tubing. I'm so excited!!

Our Philosophy

It is not something that formed overnight, it evolved over years and continues to do so. It is in constant change as life changes and gives us new challenges and experiences.
We used to be asked often about our lifestyle choices. But that has greatly changed over the last few years as the economy worsens. What was once alternative is now moving mainstream. People congratulate us now and delight in an invitation of dinner and homebrew.

My hubby was in his late twenties when he was diagnosed with cancer. We had two children then ages 2years and a six month old. This experience changed everything for us. It made us question everything and every choice we had made. That was a very good thing. While we did the whole smallholding thing previous; I was from a farming family, hubby and I kept hens, veg garden, horses, milking goats and pigs prior and during his treatments, we were living a stressful life called the career race. We were busy people, kids, careers, big house and big cars, just as society produces.
We had purchased a few years earlier a cottage that was next door to my father's farm. It had not been lived in for a long time and the floor boards and roofing had rotten through. We had intended for it to be a holiday home but we then decided to renovate it with the intention of it being our family home. A brave decision. moving from 2000+ sq ft  to 900sq ft cottage. We were able to renovate it using savings and although we had a small mortgage for the site purchase, we kept our debts levels very low.

While our cottage is now finished, there are still plenty of jobs to be done outside. And they will be done as time and money allow.
Some people felt that we moved down in the world and indeed we did by societies standards. But using our values as a measure, our standard of living has sky rocketed.

We have so much freedom and choice now. We no longer need two incomes to live comfortably.  At the moment hubby is working full time and prior to baby girls arrival, we both worked part time. This is such a wonderful freedom and means work is enjoyable as it is choice and not a chore.

We can eat very well while spending very little. It is not our goal to be self sufficient or eat only what we produce at home but rather the freedom to eat better than what we could otherwise have afforded for the quality.

The health of our family has increased, no stress, very strong emotional bonds, great food and plenty of outdoor activities.
We have plenty of leisure time, to pursue hobbies, read books and cook good food. We have invested in what really matters to us and that is family!
Our house is our home, we are homemakers.