Harvest

It's started. That madness that eventually follows the scouring of seed catalogues and the planning of the hedging rotation. The fruits and veg, both wild and domestic are indefatigably, exhaustingly, here.
Today I have pulled and laid out to dry all the onions and shallots - enough for a great wodge of the year if drying advances more quickly than rotting. I have beheaded the globe artichokes and produced jars of artichoke bums in olive oil. I've picked cultivated raspberries and tripwire hazard blackberries and the first crumble of the season is in the oven right now. The runner bean chutney glints at me, the colour of tawny cat's eyes. Yellow courgette soup is in the fridge. Field mushrooms sit fatly in a pudding basin in the scullery for tomorrow's breakfast.
It's the start of the wild-eyed frenzy of grey rabbit activity. The hording and stockpiling, the harvesting and salting, the preserving and sweetening. Puddings are back on the menu. Vinegars are to be made. The orchard has to be checked regularly to make sure the damsons, gages and plums are caught before wasps, squirrels and birds ravage the lot. The apple crop is going to be huge, but the bottles and the crushing and pressing gear are all waiting.
We turn from bemoaning the empty shelves to wondering how we can find room for just one more jar. I don't wander anywhere without trug, colander or plastic bag. And the ducks I've been rearing for meat have started to reach the age of freezerhood.

A golden thing

Those holy hand grenades of Antioch, as our golden globe courgettes are known, have attracted something extraordinary. It might be bog standard to those who know, but I don't know so it seems all the more mystical and otherworldly. This gilded thing, this glowing preciously metalled, wrapped in gold leaf insectish creature was sucking goodness from its host veg. What happens now? Is it a butterfly in the making?
What is it? Click on the photo to enlarge.

Bat splat

Remember this? I'm truly grateful the llama didn't make his mound on the windowsill. But the bats don't show the same reticence.
The front of the house and two of the windows are crusted and splatted with flying rodent (are bats rodents?) guano.
The photo shows the upstairs window sill, above which is the bat cave entrance. I hear hundreds of them squeaking and scuttling about in the loft, they then stick their arses out the hole, do a quick poo and then fly off into fly-munching land. Charming habits.
Most nights two or three whirl above my head in the bedroom, and each time you find a picture askew you can bet a bat is snoring behind it. I wonder if the bat splat is any good on the compost heap?

When your world suddenly shrinks

Sheep shorn, they are moved into the orchard to graze down the long grass. The llama isn't allowed in as he can kill a fruit tree at twenty paces; not by spitting but by mercilessly peeling off the bark with his buck teeth. So he gets left in the field that now needs topping to remove the sharp tall growth unfit for haymaking, and that can cut the soft part between the toes of the sheep as they walk through it.
The tractor goes round and round as Humphrey mews in distrust. He sits right in the centre, watching his patch of long, semi-camouflaging grasses get smaller and smaller. He decides that the tractor is boss and then swiftly stands and steps sideways into the topped area, peering over the gate to check all his ovine friends are close by. Satisfied, he starts to nibble the cut stems.

Mopsa makes hay whilst the sun shines

Don't know what it is about hay but the dogs just adore it. They roll in it, burrow through it, toss it about and play with it. They drape it over their ears and stick their snouts deep into it. It's as if they inhale life, summer, pleasure and delight with every happy whiff. Puppy behaviour is at the fore. It's wonderful to watch and be part of.

Committed

Well, at this very moment the hay fields are being cut. Five days without rain are being forecast, but whether that'll hold true, who knows? But waiting for the possibility of another clump of wet-free opportunities is a chance that cannot be taken. So in a few days, all being well, I will be humping small bales onto trailers, off trailers, into the Dutch barn and crossing all digits that any rogue precipitation is short and mild. If things don't go so well on the rain front it'll be wrapped into large bales for haylage, which the sheep don't really like. Apart from lambing, this is the most worrisome time of the year.

Farming - a glamorous profession

33 acres of grass off the farm are now tucked under plastic, a couple of miles away, pickling in their own juices to make lush silage for next winter to feed hungry cows.
If you ever wondered what happened to the car tyres that aren't turned into chi-chi playthings, the answer is that farms everywhere can never have enough of them to hold down the enormous sheets of plastic that keep the air out of the silage clamp.
I wear gloves to load the telehandler grab with the tyres (you can see a load at the far left of the picture), eyes out for rats curled among the sun warmed rubber. Last year I found toads, but no joy today. I do get nicely splashed with the ancient rain water and mud that slops inside the tyres; a free face pack.
Week after next, if the weather does as it's told, there will be much ado about haymaking.

Fairs and such

Nothing like a country fair for putting a gleam in the eye and a pain in the pocket. Last night I was at the private view (champagne reception, natch) for the Contemporary Craft Fair down at Bovey Tracey, where us bods in the arts get to swig fizz alongside those with loose wallets and great taste.
In previous years I've been tempted by the jewellery and have returned with yet another chunky one-off bangle, but I have enough, and this time was there to admire the furniture in particular, purely as a voyeur.
And it being fair season, it was off to the Royal Cornwall today, where in utter contrast to Bovey, the stuff in the massive craft tent was nothing to do with craft and everything to do with mass produced tat, but there were plenty of other marvels to enjoy, including some wonderful artisan work if you kept to the smaller stalls.
Although cattle and sheep outside of Cornwall were kept away because of Bluetongue precautions, the livestock was still wondrous to behold and smell (clean, well cared for and warm). And continuing on the strangely coloured proboscis theme, a blue-tongued skink was doing the rounds, as was some species of skunk (skink/skunk, all the same to me).
The high quality of local food was at the fore; yummy Cornish produce was highlighted - lots of wine, cider, beer, cheeses, chocolate, meats of every variety including beautiful salamis, asparagus, preserves, puds, clotted cream and more.
The sheep shearers and the pig handlers competed furiously, one Gloucester Old Spot hurtling happily across the ring, oblivious to its owners cries.
Prizes were awarded for this and that, and the commentators were so well briefed that it sounded as if they knew every competitor and their animal personally.
And then there were the tractors - most far too large and serious for me, but there was one, a refurbed Massey 35 that looked like a Noddy car in agricultural garb, that I could happily give barn room.

Pull!

Having fun should come with a health warning. Yesterday I had a lot of fun, and today I am suffering , and it has absolutely nothing to do with alcohol.
Summer has finally and belatedly arrived, and so an impromptu party for friends and neighbours was conjured out of thin air, the vegetable patch and the local butchers (no time to thaw adequate heaps of home grown carnivory). There was a whirlwind of hay turning, mowing and topping. There wasn't time to get the lawnmower out, so the tractor and its mega mower danced across the garden too and we just ignored the tractor tyre tracks it left. Bowls of edibles were produced, and then a borrowed clay pigeon trap was set up.
It is many years since I've used a shotgun, but as the afternoon shadows started to lengthen, I took my first shot since arriving on the farm. The explosion in my ear was literally deafening. My ears rung and shut down for a few daze making moments. When my head steadied I ran off to fetch the ear defenders, and then settled the gun back into my shoulder. With the decibels more under control my body had the capacity to consider the recoil as I thundered out half a dozen or more pathetic attempts to catch the birdy, but the wind caught them each time and I didn't have my eye in to anticipate as needed.
As folks arrived we drifted into the garden and ate our fill, talking until it was too dark to see each other.
This morning I have a bruised right tit and armpit and my shoulder is stiff with surprise. I can't wait to have another go.

Pink bits

All over the country there will be people with pink bits, red bits, raw bits and sore bits. Lulled and depressed by a damp, grey summer, the warnings about skin cancer and protection from the sun have drifted into oblivion and the Ambre Solaire has long ago been relegated to the back shelves at the chemists where athletes foot powders, support bandages and personal aids with product logos from times past normally sit and sulk.
April sun brought weeks of shorts wearing, brown knees and freckled cheeks, but the sad return to winter pastiness means vulnerability, and consequently after two days working outside with inadequate supplies of sun block, I have pink bits. My décolletage is neither nut brown nor creamy white. I clash with Barbie. I am starting to itch. In a few days I will peel. The look gets less and less attractive as time passes. Just like the chemist's also rans, I too am heading for a sulk.

Making the best of it

Pragmatism ruled this weekend. Unable to get the hay dry enough to bale, the help of farmer friends with large bale capability was enlisted and succulent haylage was baled and wrapped. The field was rolled up and tidied away for another year.
Returning the favour, I had my first experience of covering a silage clamp, and with a party of folks tugged old tyres out of heaps for weighing down the plastic sheeting. Not much was said about the foot and mouth outbreak - everyone was too fearful of the consequences of the return of the 2001 devastation.

Making hay whilst the sun shines

It's 9.30pm (which is why the photo is rather dark) and I have just got back from a working afternoon in Truro to find that Long Lands has finally been mowed into incredibly neat strips of incredibly long grass. You can see how the tractor tyres have marked the soft ground. Haymaking has never been this late - usually it's the last week in June or thereabouts - and the extra month of growth, more than lush with all that rain, means that the amount of the stuff is likely to be Dutch barn bursting. The tricky art of turning and twizzling now starts, to get it ripe for baling. The chance of avoiding a wetting is minimal, but hopefully it will be a short shower rather than a drowning, and the hay will be of reasonable quality to keep the sheep in health over the winter. Long Lands is the main small bale hay field for the home flock, the other 20 plus fields to be rolled into big round bales as hay and haylage and taken off the farm. But this year the species rich Lower Quarry Heads will also be made into meadow hay, and it should provide a more varied forage for the ungulates. Time to hoik out the gloves and talk nicely to the arm and thigh muscles in preparation for the big hay hauling.

Reasons to be cheerful - part 6

Reasons to be cheerful - part 5

I could put my hand out and touch them - but I won't. I think there are six of them, but can't be sure. When the parent swallow goes off to find food they all rest their chins (do birds have chins?) on the rim of the nest. When mum arrives back they open wide their yellow maws. She goes off to seek further refreshment and the wide-mouths shut, Zippy fashion.

Creature feature

Bats are a part of life here, and with the young podding, the odd one or two fall from the rafters or get left behind by mum, hopefully (doubtfully) temporarily. They drop from the gap above the Aga into the kitchen where the warmth lulls them stupid, or their mothers fly into the bedroom, just missing the bat entrance to the roof by inches. I have seen three youngsters in varying stages of development in the past fortnight. They are strange creatures, truly prehistoric in their ugliness and fascinating in their otherness. I think this is a young pipistrelle, no more than an inch long, completely bald and clinging to the green oak cladding of the outdoor stairs, awaiting mammary satisfaction and a furry back to climb on. I hope this bat baby finds what it's looking for.

Midsummer madness

On midsummer night you should do something fabulous, and as the stuff on the box is positively appalling tonight, you are going to have to make your own entertainment. The suggestions made to me so far include "sprangling our mangelwurzels" and "spurtling our furtleberries". If you have any idea what these might be, please feel free to share. Alternative activities include: looking mournfully at the drenched hay field; having to water the veg in the polytunnel, because no matter how hard it rains, the rods can't penetrate plastic; hunkering down with a good plate of nosh and the DVD of Casino Royale. Daniel Craig wins hands down. Also hands up, behind his back, etc.

Walking the dogs

Mightily peeved at nature since scooping the remains of the baby nuthatch off the grass this morning. Need a walk to get the brain back on forward motion. We head across the farm to the wood. There is a full size roe deer, bouncing through the long grass. The dogs pretend to pursue but turn back at my call, and we plunge into the thigh high purple moor grass in the patch of culm. I count 24 orchids, a fluttering of butterflies, Bird's Foot Trefoil that will soon show its flowers, in fact all kinds of everything. I feel the stress drain out of me, literally through my feet into the boggy patches of watermint. Perhaps it will make the plants grow even more lush.

Summer fiction

Each year as the weather warms, my brain cells atrophy and go all teenage girly. In the autumn, the grey matter rehydrates and becomes more discerning. But those summer months of utter non-intellectuality are to be enjoyed, because that is when the bad fiction gets stacked by the bedside and devoured in steaming heaps. There is always a two-inch thick bonkbuster special or chicklit surprise on the kitchen table or by the bog to be munched through in 'spare' moments. Picking through the Oxfam book stock becomes a fortnightly addiction, and the local market provides 3 for £2 if you have time to browse between securing the week's cheese and veg supply and haring back to the desk.
It often starts with a re-read of a Jilly Cooper, although this year's temptation was freshly printed and bought cheap cheap at Paddington station. At the moment I am chewing through (why? shoot me now with a stone-age weapon, she is dire) Jean M Auel's Earth Children series. There is a heap of Georgette Heyers (first time for me) that I failed to wade through in adolescence. I do have some limited standards though. Jean Plaidy, Danielle Steel, Dan Brown, Jeffrey Archer (arggghhh!) and Terry Pratchett are permanently OUT. The distinctly classier Barbara Pym, Paul Auster and Philip Roth do rub shoulders with my current trashy stuff.
Many years ago, at a house warming party, the woman I showed round first gasped at the Jilly Coopers piled next to the complete, unmatching sets of James Joyce and Henry James. She spent the next hour commenting on and showing other people my apparently bizarre (and I must admit alphabetized) book collection. What she saw was my summer stock put to bed with the rest of the library - and at what I think is over 3000 books, I suspect it is becoming something of a mini library. My catholic reading is something I see reflected on friends' bookshelves. The more rigorously informally educated they are the more eclectic their collections and the more I want to prise their gems out of the vertical. In my head I am a book snob. In my heart I am a book slut.

Des res for otters

Some days you do something that you suspect will be an absolute one-off. Yesterday was one of those. It was beautifully sunny, with the sound of bale wrapping coming at you from all sides, with neighbouring farms taking note of the dreadful forecast for the following day, and getting in their hay and haylage as fast as mechanically possible. But most of my day was spent in shadow, on a slope, underneath ash and oak, building a log cabin. Not any old log cabin but an otter holt with four internal chambers; bedroom, nursery, and two reception rooms (or perhaps kitchen, bathroom, office and conservatory). The holt was built with mega logs three and four layers high, kept back from the mighty hedgelaying last winter. You have to be careful that the internal rooms interlink - no panic chambers here - or you get a space with no way in (also no way out). The holt was covered in long poles of ash and willow, and the whole covered in twiggy branches and wired down to keep it stable. There were chainsaws, sledge hammers, pruning saws and loppers, logs, poles, stakes and brashings, midges, red ants, hornets; the usual macho outdoor stuff.
There are otters locally; this is Tarka country and I have had their spraint crumbled educationally beneath my nostrils to release the pungent fishy odour. The prospect of otters mating and producing young on the farm is in the category of "one of the most exciting things I can imagine". Turning away from the new housing plot, it was good to imagine that sanctuary might have been provided for a pair of first time buyers. I only apologise for having taken so long to build the off-plan dream.

Three little birds, pitch by my doorstep...

...singing sweet songs, and gathering beakfuls of mud. The House Martins are at it again, and scooping mud and fallen cob from the derelict barns, softened by regular applications by the humans with water from the watering can. They swoop, they scoop, they build. There are about a dozen House Martin clay nests clinging to the wall below the roofline of the house. If you are into design, you can arrange the colours of the nests by changing the type of mud clumps you put out for them, so you get striated nests in variable muddy colours. Haven't yet gone the whole hog and added cochineal or woad, but am tempted. The only thing that holds me back is that when it rains I am likely to find blue and red streaks running down the whitewash and the conservation officer might not approve of that kind of makeover.