Back to normal?!

Well the time came, as I knew it would eventually, for me to go back to work! I can't say that it's been an easy transition, in fact it's been harder than I thought.  Having lived in my safe and tranquil rustic bubble for 3 months it's been very difficult to accept the reality of this "new normal".

Anyway by last night, having done all my hours for this week I found myself running on empty and desperate to get back to my old lockdown routine. 

So today started with picking soggy strawberries in the rain for breakfast, home schooling around the  kitchen table, picking lettuce and radishes to go with boiled egg salad for lunch, picking blackcurrants with the children when the sun came out this afternoon and hanging out the washing by the apple tree. Home made, home grown rainbow chard slice for tea, followed by an amble with the dogs  and a chat with the hens before putting them to bed. Now I feel normal again, OK those of you who know me will probably agree that I've probably never been truly normal but I'm most definitely not "new normal"!

It's a bake off!

Home schooling continues, so yesterday when the kids asked if they could bake I set them a challenge.  I gave them the easy blackcurrant recipe I shared in one of my earlier blogs, but instead of sticking to blackcurrants told them to use any combination of fruit they could find in the garden.  

Daughter chose a combination of blackcurrant, gooseberry and strawberry  whilst son chose rhubarb and strawberry.  They both also decided to "go large" and use large muffin cases and also ended up using about 1/2 cup more fruit than the recipe, so using up all the fruit they'd collected. 

The results were great, and I really couldn't choose between them, strubarb is one of my favourite combinations but the tartness of the gooseberry and blackcurrant against the sweetness of the strawberry also worked well.  Which one would you choose?

Sewin for tea...

The benefits of being a flyfisherman's wife - finding this in your fridge when you get up in the morning! That's tonight's tea sorted then. 

A simple country life

A lovely dessert tonight, home grown strawberries and cream "best strawberries ever mum!", praise indeed. Served up in the same dessert dishes my grandmother used 40 years ago, surely the archetypal image of a simple country life.

But what is a simple country life really? Is it growing your own, keeping livestock, crafting, cooking from scratch....?  I guess a country life is whatever you want it to be, but a simple life is not as easy to achieve as it may seem.  

Having been forced to stay at home recently due to Covid 19 lockdown it has made me realise that my life was far from simple. Juggling school, work, after school activities (yes almost every night!) , play dates, homework, meetings, packed lunches, quick suppers, dinner money, fundraisers, days out, you get the idea, always on the road and always late to everything! Often there never seemed enough time to just sit and breathe.... but in hindsight this was mostly  my own making.

  

Maybe a simple life is making the most of what you've got and refusing to get on the roller coaster of modern life. Yes it looks fun from the side lines but once your on and your head is spinning, your stomach is churning and your feeling sick all you can do is hang on until it stops. 

So now the rollercoaster has stopped and I refuse to get on again! Yes I will have to go back to work and the children back to school but I don't have to ride the rollercoaster! 

Growing up fast!

So the meat birds are growing fast and this week they've moved out of the warm and secure confines of the rearing shed to a fenced off area of the veg patch.  It's lovely to see them exploring their new environment and enjoying more freedom.  It always makes me nervous though as they're more suseptable to predators and the elements now  and have to start thinking for themselves, which isn't easy when your brain is the same size as a pea! We've had a few thunder storms this last week and having heard thunder and the heavens opening the other day I ran outside to check on them and was pleased to find that they had at least learnt to seek shelter.

With the children still at home, they are also having to do some thinking for themselves and have been very keen to help with the birds, which is great to see. Learning how to grow your own food and understand the process is such a valuable lesson. 

Them Pesky sparrows!

After noticing something had been nibbling at my beetroot and chard leaves I turned to Google for some help to find out what it could be (what did we do before Google?!) With plenty of eggshell around them and no slime trail visible I didn't think it was slugs, so what could it be?...... Sparrows apparently, and with plenty of bird life around the place this does seem likely so project bird scaring has begun....

Really Easy Blackcurrant buns

So I've been trying to eat out of the freezer recently and it's amazing what I've found down in the bottom of  that very deep freeze...... Last week I found some home grown belly pork and we haven't even kept pigs for five years!  Needles to say "waste not want not" and after a long and slow cook we had delicious melting belly pork with crunchy crackling, mm-mm..... Anyway, this weeks frozen treasure was some blackcurrants.  I gently stewed some with a little sugar to sweeten to have with my porridge for breakfast but kept some back to make these really easy blackcurrant buns as a lovely tea-time treat.


Ingredients

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup sunflower oil

1 1/2 cups S.R flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup blackcurrants

Demerara sugar

* Line a muffin tray with 12 small paper cases.  

* Gently whisk egg, milk and oil together to combine.

* Add sugar and mix.

* Sift flour and salt and fold into the mixture.

* Fold in the blackcurrants.

* Spoon into the paper cases and sprinkle with a little demerara sugar.

* Cook at Gas 6 for 20 mins

 

Update from the veg patch

Being on the side of a hill and 300 metres above sea level, I never plant much in the veg patch before 1st of May and in light of the late frosts this year it was a wise decision. Despite having kept a veg patch in one form or another for the last twenty plus years, I still count myself as a very amateur gardener; but whether it be by luck or judgement I usually manage to grow some veg for the kitchen and enjoy the challenge of trying to use up as much of this as I can to feed the family. 

This last few weeks I've planted up most of the raised beds with plants started off from seed in the potting shed and also with some seeds sown directly. We have now eaten all of last years leeks and the overwintered purple sprouting broccoli which has served us well this Spring.  I'm pleased that the strawberries, gooseberries and black currants are all looking promising and the rhubarb has given us a few crumbles already. 

So now after a long, dry and sunny spell the rain arrived yesterday and has for now at least given me a respite from all the watering.  

  

Hens and chicks

So that was May......and despite not having to do the normal activities of life like going to school, work, etc, it's still been busy here.  Day old table birds have arrived and although we have a rule that nothing we eat should be given a name, one has been nicknamed "shit head", can you guess which one?!

We had planed to get some nice point of lay hens in this spring but since we couldn't travel far we  opted to get a few ex-commercial laying hens in.  They have settled in well and so far keeping us in eggs.

Stay at home!

Hello and welcome to my first blog! So why have I started on this blogging journey? Well, having spent the last 8 weeks at home due to the Covid 19 pandemic, I have come to realise that I was taking my life a little for granted.  With countryside views, nature on my doorstep, a little veg patch and a family to share it with, what more does a girl need? So this is my attempt to reflect a little and inspire me to get the most out of this rustic country life of mine.