The rain continues to fall, sometimes  drifting  from a thatch of monotonous  grey,  sometimes hammering down from dark  thunder clouds, which rear into the sky amongst the bright cirrus. I revel in these heavy downpours and their interruption by the warm sun which turns the air thick with vapour. During such an episode this morning I observed an immense rainbow arching up from the hill on which Blantyre Prison sits, behind its high fence. No doubt, amongst the lifers soon to be released (as they all are up there) there is long buried treasure  soon to be liberated  into society. Though I’m sure a few are irredeemable, all of the convicts I’ve met as they’ve stopped to buy  honey or ask advice about growing rhubarb (not made up) seem good men, full of talk about family and loved ones, to whom they must be particularly precious.

The plum crop has been poor this year save for a late, yellow variety which are ripening now and it is these which I have turned to for drying and the provision of prunes.

Plums ready for drying in the Rayburn

Describing the advantages of ‘dirty weather’  for  shooting geese a couple of days back appears to have been evocative, because yesterday was filthy! A proper autumn day, fretting winds  tugging  impatiently at the first dying leaves accompanied by torrential rain which plastered them to the sodden ground. We certainly needed the rain, as vegi patch and fields alike were becoming rather parched. The sudden soaking will have the field mushrooms pushing up in the old plum orchard and,  as we do every year, Em and I hope for a bumper crop to fulfill our culinary fungal fantasies (of which there are many). There will be other fungi of course, many of them quite delicious, but for every day use the field mushroom picked while the gills are still salmon pink, takes some beating.

Last week on a warm day I closed up my eleven hives for winter. The queen excluders all came off (to help the bees  move around each hive freely in their winter clusters) as did any empty supers, of which there were many. Despite the warm weather lately and the apparent availability of flowers such as clover and ivy, all of the colonies were very low on stores. Without intervention most would  perish  over the coming months and I have begun to feed sugar syrup, nearly 20kg already and I’ve only just started! It’s amazing how multiplying even quite a modest requirement by eleven soon adds up!

The pickers have been through the orchard in the valley and in these days of thriving apple juice and cider sales the majestic standards had been scoured for fruit. A few years back we all bemoaned the terrible waste,  as tonnes of unwanted apples were left to rot amongst the local orchards, but at least there were always plenty to stock the larder! Thankfully the pickers appear not to have been blessed with much height and as health and safety has done away with steps and ladders, the upper reaches of some of the trees still hold a few fruit. The cookers will keep for a while there, ripening to a rosy blush in the Autumn sun, but the red eaters are already spoiling and I have cored, ringed and dried several trays for storage.

Dried apple

The geese are abroad. I hear the wild cry of greylags in the half  light of dawn and in the pinky dusk, and on occasion see the distant skeins, which even at such range traverse the horizon with incredible speed. At night the rude honking of canadas  wheeling  into the lakes bellow the cottage rouse me from sleep and return me to it’s embrace dreaming of those powerful birds flogging into a heavy gale and towards my gun poised and ready. They are here to gorge on the spilt grain and beans scattered over the arid stubbles and in years past large skeins would set up regular flight lines between field and roosting lake, allowing for ambush buy the hardy shooter. Dirty evenings, thick with driving rain whipped on by a ferocious wind were best, forcing the birds low and into range. I have pursued these wily, exquisite creatures for over a decade now and as testament to there canny natures, have still only bagged a handful. In recent years the stubble is ploughed in so quickly that the geese never seem to establish any real patterns and I am left to wonder at there comings and goings, mocked morning and night buy their distant calls.

Whilst Autumn and early winter is mainly a time of converting the summers stock into meat for the freezer, there is an exception. Now is the time we traditionally buy in our weaner pigs, to take advantage of the free food associated with the season, acorns, wind falls, chestnuts, waste cereal crops and so on. This is important, as the cost of buying concentrate for our pigs  would make the whole exercise  of keeping them rather expensive and as we maintain our lifestyle largely buy cutting down outgoings, eating pork just wouldn’t add up! After trying several different breeds over the years we have settled on large white, crossed with a traditional pig such as a saddle back, which we find gives the right balance between meat and fat in the finished carcases. Although we appreciate a good bit of fat (and value it to produce lard for our pastry) with a feeding regime  were the pigs receive large quantities of carbohydrate rich food with less protein  than a commercial ration, the traditional breeds can become excessively flabby. This years newcomers are Oxford sandy black, large white crosses, a first for us.

Last spring I planted the pig run with jerusalem artichokes, taking advantage of the well cultivated soil left by the previous occupants and now the enclosure is a positive jungle. It’s hard to get a gyms of the spotty youngsters through the steams, but the satisfied grunts and slapping of piggy lips tells me they are enjoying their new surrounds. On this, their second day it is hard to imagine that those four small beasts will ever clear the little wilderness, but in a fortnight every steam and leaf will be devoured and then the rooting will begin in earnest and continue until every knobbly tuber is found.

Killed several sasso cross indian game meat chickens yesterday, which all look well grown a meaty. A partial success in my efforts to breed better table birds, for despite the  carcases having good conformation, three chickens died last week from suspected hart conditions. Commercial meat birds such as sassos are notorious for their short life expectancies and it will be back to the drawing board next season to try and produce heathier stock which can survive a slower rearing.

New weaners beside Jerusalem artichokes

Arriving early at my parents house this morning I noticed the first frost of the season. The flattened divots nestling amongst the tussocky grass of the back paddock where mealy white and closer inspection reviled  leaf blades toothed with minute crystals.The sky was  bright with an unmasked sun rising with the promise of another warm day and as I inhaled the chill air, laced with the smell of fallen bramleys I felt a rush of excitement. When being a countryman is the day job, it is these moments which remind me why it was worth forsaking career and money to follow a passion.

The evening before last was spent lamping with H around the shoot and neighbouring land. Rabbit numbers are well up on previous years and myself and two other guns (not all shooting at once) accounted for around 70 bunnies. The sport is fairly exciting with H, thanks largely to the death defying platform bolted to the rear of his land-rover, on which the shooters are required to stand. There are precious few hand holds back there and slightest hill or bump sends one lurching back against the ‘safety’ rail, which yields with a less than reassuring ease! B also bagged two vixens with a display of rather fine shooting. One at over 200 yards straight in the chest and the other in the instant it stopped trotting  in response to my squeak (squeaks  made by the mouth or a device to imitate pray are often used to attract foxes).

I left Chris last Thursday with the vast majority of his roof done. Every stop had been pulled out and then some to get the job  complete, but the thirteen hour days payed off.

Back home things are distinctly autumnal and clearly I am not alone in feeling the change. My inbox is awash with foraging course enquires and every weekend from early October to early November is now pretty much booked. I enjoy the fresh mornings, they fill me with a boyish enthusiasm as I think of the pleasures ahead; mushroom harvesting, waiting for graylag geese beneath a harvest moon, ferreting, roost shooting and many besides. Despite the dismal start to the gardening year, our hard work and perseverance prevailed in the end. We have eaten well from the vegi patch throughout the summer, filled the freezer ready for the hungry gap early next spring and now the next generation of crops have begun. A harvest festival display of squashes are heaped on the picnic table drying, red splodged borlotti bean pods hang among the withering vines and primrose yellow leaves of the dying plants and the smooth red cabbage hearts look fit to burst  from the tired summer foliage. We have lost much produce to disease and animals, but another year passes without the need to buy vegetables and that to me is success.

My parents left for Oz this morning and last night we ate a final meal together before there departure, the recipe for which is worth remembering.

Roast vegetable pilaf topped with zesty Orange pork

Em likened the texture more to a risotto, as the sweet roasted squash lends a creamy richness to the dish, but the warm spices, interacting with citrus  flavours definitely puts the meal somewhere on the other side of the Med for me.

Ingredients

cubed winter squash                                                                                                                                                                                                      diced onion                                                                                                                                                                                                                        garlic roughly chopped                                                                                                                                                                                                   plumb tomatoes roughly chopped                                                                                                                                                                           courgettes cut into chunks                                                                                                                                                                                             ground cumin                                                                                                                                                                                                                   ground coriander                                                                                                                                                                                                           paprika                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 seasoning                                                                                                                                                                                                                           vegetable oil

pork loin sliced and hammered out (chop eyes removed from chops and hammered out)                                                                paprika                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Orange zest                                                                                                                                                                                                                        seasoning

cooked rice

Method

1. Place all the ingredients from the first group into a large baking tray, mix and put into a hot oven. Roast, carefully turning the vegetables periodically for about one and a half hours.
2. Coat the pork with paprika, zest and seasoning and put to one side.
3. When the vegetables are cooked and ‘dry’ i.e all the liquor from their cooking has evaporated, fold them into the cooked rice.
4. Flash fry the pork in a hot pan until just cooked through, slice and arrange on the vegetable pilaf.

Sweet Lightning and other squashes

Sorry about the lack of blogs of late, but as I said things have been rather busy! I’ve just returned from four days in Chaily, East Sussex where I was helping a friend re roof a stable block. It’s a wee bit larger than I had remembered and I’ll be back next week to put the six and a half thousand odd tiles back on the now newly battened roof.

Last Saterday, before I went off I spent the whole day cooking and selling a monumentally sized curry for another fried (that makes two whole friends!) at his music festival. The ingredients to fill my 72l capacity potjie pot with beef curry came to just under £300, but as that provided around 220 portions at £6 a go that’s not half bad. Often it’s lamb or pork spit roasts I’m doing at events and in comparison using the potjie is pretty chilled out. Once it came to the boil (I must have been watching it a little too hard, as it took nearly three hours to do so) a very low fire kept the huge vat of food blobbing away gently, (rather like the hot mud wallows one sees on documentaries) and all I needed to add was the odd stir. Though I say so myself, the curry was a hit and it was a very enjoyable 19 hours spent chatting to drunk girls, winding up the festival staff and generally being a nuisance. The pot was finally emptied at 2am.

A watched pot never boils!

Life is hectic, time is short, but I just wanted to add a quick blog to say that a two man team from ‘Video Jug’ came to film me foraging and cooking with wild foods today. They were extremely professional and I’m hopeful that the results will be good. When complete the short films will join thousands of other ‘how to do it videos’ on the ‘Video Jug’ web sight. I’ll provide a link when they go up so you can all have a good laugh!

Jo the lovely producer faces a grilling in the office tomorrow, as during filming the spare tripod was stolen!

Rain brings the filming inside

It’s a topsy turvy kind of life I lead sometimes, so while the rest of the nation were contemplating how best to relax over the bank holiday weekend, I was busier than ever. On Saturday I had a mother and son team attending a bespoke ‘rabbit and duck preparation course’, learning how to slaughter, prepare and butcher both creatures. The whole thing went swimmingly, helped no end by them both being good company and they left full of information and enthusiasm.

Sunday was spent helping Charlie make and  erect a few bays of cleft rail fencing ready for his ‘In The Woods’ music festival next weekend. Rustic aesthetics were everything for the job, which was just as well considering that the long dead chestnut tree which we had available for splitting the rails from was twisted as hell. The finished article was certainly ‘artistic’, but will no doubt serve its purpose of preventing drunk (or worse) festival goers from sliding down the steep clay bank.

Yesterday saw me squeezing back into my corset (have I mentioned I cross dress with the excuse of being a Morris Betsy?) to dance at the ‘Lord Ragland’s’ annual onion festival, which is as the compare said, a bit of English eccentricity, the likes of which is all too rare these days. Two pints on an empty stomach ‘relaxed’ me into the role and I preformed my duties with the grace of a true lady; meeting young children who were just dying to speak to ‘that woman with a beard’, posing for american tourists who wanted a snap of a genuine weird Englishman and finding whitty retorts to the general light hearted ridicule which very much goes with the job of being a betsy.

The first blackberries have reached perfection now and whilst Em gave a singing lesson in the cottage, Gabriel and I headed over the road to find some food.  He cottons on fairly fast, especially where eating is involved and after watching me pick the dark lumpy berries for a while he waded in. Within moments “Lesson one of blackberrying – they are armed,” was fully comprehended.  Falling headlong over a trip wire height bramble runner he landed, palm down on a bevy of thorns and erupted into heart felt tears. Recovered and blooded now (literally, but only a bit) in the art, he watched again and at my invitation stepped, cautiously this time to a low bunch of berries. Gabriel has an endearing way of squatting on his haunches, then putting his head to one side when he wants to look under something and having contemplated the leaf covered morsels thus for a white, he extended a chubby hand towards them. ‘Pull harder’ I suggested after the carefully closed finger and thumb came away empty and this time he plucked a blackberry clean away from it’s stem and thrust it quickly into his mouth. Approval was instantaneous and immediately the hand came forward again.

An unforgettable moment for me and a little moving that for the first time my son has actually taken part in something with me and not just played around the peripheries. Admittedly not many berries found there way from Gabriel to the picking container, but what a feeling to be foraging with my little boy!