So what now?

I took down the decorations today.
Not because I wanted to but because some nice twist of bedroom emergency means I now have a futon in my kitchen... it was either the tree or I slept standing up...
To be honest, the last week hasn't been so peachy... Xmas day aside... in fact most of December has been blah and by the time the big day rolled up most of us had been ill, were ill or were shortly to get ill.
I know we're not the only ones.
The truth is, I'm finding I view the run up to Xmas with more dread than excitement now.
On the 1st of December I put up a white board with every date till the 25th and was horrified to see that we had something "xmasy" nearly EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!
What with school plays, carols, pantos, shopping, parties, decorating, wrapping, baking, work.... The kids were so tired by the time school kicked out that its like the immune system goes " uuuuuuuuuuuuuuggghhhhhmmmmrrrffffppppmmmm...plop..." and dies....

Am I the only one who feels rail roaded into being Xmasy and jolly and full o festive cheer for the best part of a month?
Its not even like these are our plans, mostly they're school or village things.... and then you feel mean for thinking like that.

OK people... am I a grinch for wanting to disappear for the whole of December?
To have a quiet, understated, yule celebration and then creep back in the dead quiet of January the 1st?

Tell me I'm not the only one?    

Merry Xmas Blogger

So that's Xmas over for another year.
Was it a good one?
Sadly we've had Norovirus in the house for the last ten days, although thankfully Xmas day was drama free with only Middle child being a little sick in the morning. But lets face it, its not Xmas if you can't lay in bed all day watching movies and putting Lego together ;)

We still had a good time though and I was pleased as anything that lots of the gifts I gave this year were either made by friends or relatives or I managed to pick up second hand.

Sadly I didn't get round to taking pictures.

Here's a few from the day itself though :)

Our little tree, its over 30 years old and still going strong. Decorated in the main, as always, by  the knitted decorations my mother gave me a few years ago.  

Mince pies :)

Home made "posh" chocolates,.  

Mushroom and cashew pate.

Reaction shot to the big box of 2nd hand transformers and transformer DVD's. 

Redmills "Cheatin' turkey roast" was a big hit!

"Merry Bloody Xmas"

Anyway..... 2013.... I have high hopes.

The veggie garden had a major overhaul last year and will be ready to plant up properly this year. We have plans for the house and possibly even a business venture.

Watch this space... blogging will resume in earnest ;)   

      

Rug.

I suffer from a lack of rugs in my house but, rightly so, am always wary of buying them as a) they're an expense I can't justify and b) invariably with 3 kids, 3 dogs, a cat and a husband, they get filthy.

Anyway, the other day I was in an proper old fashioned hardware store, mooching about while his-self looked at bolts or nails or fecking armadillo polish, I don't know...  when I wandered into the carpet section.

They have  small selection of carpet to order and big blocks of samples.    

My eye fell on a shelf in the corner full of samples from discontinued ranges.

So... guess what I did next?

First pick 6 tiles of similar density.

Next, grab a heavy duty needle and some string and stitch the tiles together end to end. 

Now, put by the fire and watch various small animals gravitate towards it.

Gonzo approves of frugal ruggage..... 

So yeah. The idea is if it gets dirty or SOMEONE (points up) pee's on it, I can just snip the string off one square and shove it in the washing machine.

One large deep pile checked rug: £3.00 

Insert pithy Autumnal title here ;)

Broke ground on the new veggie garden today.
The other one really hasn't been great to work with. Its too far away from the main house and therefore tools, seeds, water etc, its a mish mash of beds that, having been put up over time, are just scattered randomly about the place.
We talked for a long time about moving  the veg garden... After all its a commitment, a lot of work and , well, we already have one!! 
It really had run its course though and now its time to move on and treat the garden less as a hobby and more of a lifestyle.
In planning the new garden I have some fairy non-negotiable points.

• It has to be close to the house.
• It has to be easy to maintain.
• It has to be easy to care for the ground around it.
• It has to be sheltered AND sunny.

We decided on raised beds again, but have learnt from last time that if you're going to raise them then RAISE them.... 6" off the floor is stupid... you may as well not bother.
We're also making all the beds the same size, this is so that we can build some frames, some in glass/plastic and some in netting to use with any of the beds, rather than having to make heath robbinson contraptions when needed!!

The old veggie garden isn't to be completely abandoned though.
The tractor tyres will be used to plant fruit bushes in, the whole area will be fenced in to act as a forest fruit garden and winter chicken run!

Today feels autumnal.
As I type this I have chili bubbling away in the slow cooker, I can hear the squeak of our poor abused trampoline outside as the youngest two play in the afternoon sun.
The dogs are snoring and across from me is the lovely sight of  this stack of logs waiting for the fire to be lit later :)    

Most of the day I've been thinking about ...shhhhh..... XMAS!!!
Too early?
Not if your budgets tiny and you hope to make/find all your presents this year!!
A quick look online this morning yielded a surprising amount of good ideas (and a hysterical amount of awful, awful things!), and I now have 5 pages of a note book full of ideas for gifts and a heap of bookmarked tutorials and recipes.
Anyway, below are a few links to get you started.... will post more Xmas stuff in a few weeks!

Do-it-yourself Xmas  

100 home made gift ideas

Easy Homemade Xmas gifts

Homemade Christmas gift ideas

Permaculture Day

Nettles are your friend: Soup, greens, tea, pesto, and amazing fertilizer. 

Did you know its still August? Damn....

Permaculture means letting things grow freely. In this container dandelion leaves and strawberry suckers.

The little tree that started it all. Eight years ago he took root in the wall and we laughed at the little sapling that grew there. Getting big now!! 

Wild Alpine strawberries.

The potatoes in the blue bucket grew in the muck heap two years after being originally planted!  

Raspberry suckers.

Tiny new leaves on this rescued blueberry bush. Hope for next year. 

Miss Biko on mouse patrol ;)

Chickens and Permaculture.

Here on the croft we try and keep our little flock as chicken led as possible and only ever hatch eggs when a hen wants to sit.... and does little blossom ever like to sit!!
The hen is a mega mum..... although we're thinking of renaming her pram face as when her chicks are a few weeks old she likes to do her best to get back to getting laid by her foster son (eww)!

Anyway, as the flock stands we have one ex commercial layer (Sally... knocking on a bit now), two hybrids (Hillary and Nimah) given to us by someone who has surplus, Fluffy legs the cockerel, the two youngsters blossom hatched in April from her own eggs, and now two chicks from the hybrids eggs.     

Currently the flock stands at nine, which is as many as I want for the orchard to house comfortably.
In the medium term though we plan on expanding the flock and splitting it into two.
From a permacultre point of view though we're busy re configuring their runs and housing.

One of the main things we want to do is have as many plants in their runs that  they can eat as possible. This means more berry trees/bushes, herbs and salad leaves.
I also want to make areas that attract bugs/slugs ... this way between what they "forage" and what they get in veg scraps, bought in food should be kept to a minimal.



The plan is to have the chickens in the orchard from early summer to late autumn and then give them the run of the (nearly finished) fruit garden over the winter and spring.
This means they get to finish off any unripe/damaged fruit, scratch about for hibernating bugs and in the spring make a start on weed seedlings before moving back to the orchard.

(in all fairness its only an orchard in name as there's only two trees left.... *sigh*

Anyway, In the meantime, here's some pics!

The new broody run which means the chicks can go outside from day one, safe from cats, crows and the other chickens!! big enough to stand up in for easy maintenance.

Relearning for the future. Food storage solutions.

One of our biggest challenges in our small house with limited storage and space, has been storing fruit and vegetables.
Our teeny tiny fridge is really only there to keep open cartons and things that HAVE to stay in the fridge (ie leftovers to be used the next day) here really isn't space to store fruit and veg to feed five people for a week.
I experimented with several storage places but fund they either sped up decomposition or were so "hidden" that I often forgot I even had them till it was too late!
So seeing as I really wanted to re-embrace Various Shades of Green again, I hit the internet for food storage  solutions.
Sadly most searches came up with "in the fridge" for the storing of most vegetables, salads and fruit ... which was annoying.

HOWEVER!

Lucky me, I stumbled across No Tech Magazine and THIS amazing article about Korean artist Jihyun Ryou's  project on traditional methods of storing foods that her Grandmother used.
PLEASE go and read it as its fascinating!

Anyway, while mid term, we'll look into making some of these storage solutions, I decided to take the basic ideas behind them and try them out myself in the meantime, along with a few other tricks I found along the way.

Tomato and courgette kt at room temperature but humid bu placing a dish of cold water under this colander. 

Lettuce and brassicas stay fresh when kept in a small amount of water....  

A small X cut into the base allows water to be absorbed, tricking the plant into thinking its still growing!

Carrots seem to store better standing up, although packing vertically in sand would be a better longer term solution.

  

I've been absent from here...... Some of it has been because I've been working on other projects, but mostly I'd got to a point where I felt I had nothing relative to say anymore.
The garden here was really pretty neglected the last 12 months. Some of this was to do with the weather (terrible terrible wet summers and late/early frosts), some of it was because I was working... tending other peoples gardens for money.
It was only really a few weeks ago that I realised how ridiculous this was .... what was the point in looking after other peoples gardens for a little money rather than tending my own and growing food.
Seriously, didn't this go against EVERYTHING?

So, currently we're designing and building a real permecultre garden rather than just traditional veg plots, although they will be a small part of it.
We're working hard to find as any native trees, bushes and plants that we can rather than trying to grow "traditional" fruit and veg.... We're in the NE of Scotland, growing tomatos and cucumber without a heated greenhouse is ... if not impossible... at least difficult and at best hit and miss.

Anyway for those that are interested, here's a  pictorial run down of the last year before I crack on with starting this blog up again properly :)