What a wet year!

It's been incredibly wet this year and our fields have really suffered for it.  

We invested a lot of time and effort creating hard standing areas and shell paths for us and for the animals to get them out of the mud and to try and preserve some of the ground. 

 

The horses have come in for the winter and the sheep are still 'on-holidays' with the Ram so the land is having a good, well deserved rest. 

Let's hope we have a better summer in 2013!

Sausages

It's British Sausage Week this week! Ours are Welsh does that count? 

We keep our traditional pork sausages very simple by using just the basic (and best) ingredients! 

Here's what goes in to our sausages... Home reared Pedigree Welsh Pork, rusk, water and seasoning. 

The sausages are then handmade and packed by us. 

www.tysiriolpork.co.uk

Eating Seasonally

How hard would it be to eat seasonally for a year...?

What would the health benefits be?

What would it mean to our local producers? 


These are some of many questions I've been asking myself recently. I'm considering trying to eat and feed my family with only what is fresh or available locally and monitor the benefits. Will it be hard work? what will the benefits be? I stumbled upon a Sophie Dahl book recently and it inspired me seriously consider just that!

We started the process by the children and I gathering blackberries from our smallholding for the past few weeks. We have made pots and pots of blackberry jam and this past weekend we attempted our first 'Blackberry Syrup' which we've been using as an alternative to squash (it was delicious). 

So now I want to try more...

For years we have had Rosehips growning in the the garden and fields and I've never known what to do with them. I'm ashamed to admit I didn't even know they were edible! After speaking with my 80 year old aunt (Aunt Peg) she advised me that I could also make syrup out of the Rosehips and that she and my Father drank the syrup as children when thier parents couldn't buy squash. She also told me that you have to wait until the first frost before you harvest them. Apparently that is when they are at thier best. She's got 50 years more experience than me so I'll take her advice. That's next on the list to try so I'll post how we got on. 
   

The ewes have gone to visit the ram... his name is Roger

A few weeks ago Martyn and I went to visit friends who had bought-in a new Pedigree Lleyn ram. We went with a view to hiring Rogers' "services" for our Lleyn flock of ewes. Our friends are approx 2miles from our small holding, now that is buying local! 

Roger is only 18 months old, so it will be his first season of tupping. Roger will be wearing a harness that incorporates a wax pad, so there will be a visible mark on the ewes if they have been covered.  We'll be visting the ewes regularly to check on them and look for signs of the wax on their fleeces. 

Seashell Paths

Today we're making the most of the fantastic weather and are working on creating some paths and hard standing areas, in preparation for the winter months.

Shells are a great idea to use for this. They are a local 'end of life' product from a local producer. So you're recycling a local product and they sound great when you walk on them!

Ta da!! here's the first load in place. 

It is amazing how much lighter the area is. The shells reflect so much light upwards. 

Gammon, Bacon and maybe air dried ham.

This year seems to be flying by, I can't believe it's August already! It seems like just a few weeks ago that Martyn and I were saying that we'd like to try making some Gammon and possibly an air dried ham or two in the Summer... well, it's summer and time to make them! Our pig comes back from the butcher on Thursday and we'll start to prepare the meat to make, Bacon, Gammon and maybe a small aired dried ham. It'll be at least 6 months before we can try the ham!

Biker Boys

Here are our boys... being boys. We've sent this off to You've Been Framed! The boys love the programme and have said that they would love to send a video in one day. Lets see if they get on the telly :)