Harvesting between the showers

A barrowful of potatoes, fairly blight free, scab free, wormhole
free and fork hole free

The seasonal cycle turns and another milestone of the year passes. We are heading into autumn and so  harvesting of the main crops begins. The forecast for this next week is not good and so I took advantage of a dry day to start taking up the potatoes. I was going to write digging them up but some of them didn't need digging up. This year we tried a different approach, in winter and early spring of this year Ian put some of the manure from the alpacas on the ground and then in late spring he put in the potatoes by making a hole through the manure pile to the hard soil underneath. Alpaca manure is not as strong as other manures and so can be put directly on the garden. Later on in the year, as the potatoes poked through I and one of our helpers put old hay around them to encourage them to put out more roots and keep the weeds at bay.

The dark rich soil and not a bad
return, with each pile coming from
one original potato

To harvest the crop I took up the hay and found the potatoes, as some were on the surface of the soil just under the hay. It was then just a matter of sieving with my hands through the deep black soil to find the potatoes. The soil, despite all the rain we have had was rich and crumbly and so easy to find the potatoes. One group of potatoes though were a bit more rooty with weeds, which made it harder, so Ian used a fork to take those up, while I forked over the other beds for stray potatoes and any roots before covering up with hay again. It was much less stressful than in previous years as it didn't feel like a major exercise to organise, especially now all the gardening is done out on our land - we finally gave up the allotments last year. I got started on them and when Ian had finished doing what he was doing, he joined me to help.

The boys, by and large behaving themselves. Mr. P (our black
alpaca) was up to see the girls again, but was rather
disappointed, they were not having any of his advances. We
are fairly sure they are all pregnant now.

Another milestone that happens about this time of the year is escaping animals. They all seem to make an attempt at it. With the alpacas it is usually because one of them decides to start eating over the fence and so the electric fences get switched on more at this time of the year to remind them of their limits, but it isn't usually a big deal. This week it wasn't our animals that were the problem initially, it was our neighbours cows. They have escaped a few times already and that is why our other neighbour wanted to put up a fence last week. Well they escaped again this week and caused us a bit of a problem this time.

One layer of panelling completed. It will stop like this for
the time being, as we don't need the extra room yet and it
works better like this for a barn.

It had been a rather pleasant day to start off with too. Ian had been putting up the panelling around our newest alpaca house at last and he ran out of nails, so he needed to take a trip into our village to get some more. I had been doing some computer work and fancied a break and so I suggested a trip to the bakery, where we had a nice cup of cocoa and a pastry. On the way back Ian saw the neighbours cows out and so when we got back, as I went to go hunting for mushrooms he did some investigating.

I'm not sure if this is one of the edible ones
or not, so I took a photo to compare. 

So now picture the scene. I am wandering through our forest hunting for mushrooms. There are so many delightful looking mushrooms, and plenty of the edible ones that I know well enough to pick. Some are huge, chanterelles were also now appearing in different places to the ones where we know they grow regularly. The mushrooms were here, there, popping up everywhere. I love mushroom picking, as it is a great excuse for a wander around the forest, meanwhile……

Our winter squash collection is growing

Ian is not having such a delightful time. He had spotted that our neighbours cows were now in the road, he tried to phone our neighbour and couldn’t get through. He drove up to see her and on the way spotted three rather familiar faces - our sheep. Not where they should be but on our other neighbours land. He tried to phone me, again and again… my phone was back in the caravan. Whoops!

Finally apples from our trees in our small orchard, well more
than about three like we had last year. 

I got back to the caravan and discovered the number of missed phone calls. I rang to find out where he was and what the calls were for. He wasn’t best pleased. Our sheep are out, the neighbours cows seemed to have broken the wire, or freaked our sheep out. Either way our sheep were across the road and not where they should be. I had to set off to find them armed with a bowl of feed.

Maybe not so clear as I had hoped, but I love
the Cross design in the middle of
the courgettes

I saw them on our neighbours field but realised that the fence we had agreed to was now between me and them, somehow they had got through. I found out they must have just worked there way around it and so I trundled around to entice them back. I had to do this slowly to give Ian time to re-build the fence in a different area as it needed moving anyway.

We are gorging on grapes at the moment

At first the sheep were happy to follow, but when they realised that I wasn’t giving them much food from the bowl the older female in particular was starting to look towards going somewhere else. It also started raining. I had to keep moving. At one point she was quite determined to move off in a totally different direction. She then heard a sound and stood listening, she could hear Ian across the road hammering posts. She knew what that sound meant, it meant food! She started to trot off. Yikes she was heading for the road on her own. I phoned Ian and told him I was going to have to move to get her attention again. He wasn’t finished. 

I started to move to a safer crossing place away from the corner where the trucks coming hurtling along. I didn’t have much time to listen, I had to keep moving to keep the sheep behind me. I went across the road the sheep thankfully followed but then hesitated at the edge, reluctant to make the way over the rise onto our land. A car was coming! Fortunately it encouraged them in the right direction. Ian was trying to lay the wire, the posts were hammered in.

A picture from back in mid-August in
the paddock where they escaped from.
Madam who was not convinced by my
feeding occasional bit to her is on the
left

I took the sheep into the centre of the newly enclosed area and I started to drop feed to keep them interested. The lambs were fine with this, but madam was not. She expected a full bowl and that chap over there was one who usually provided it, so off she goes to Ian. Too late she and the lambs who were now following her crossed the one strand of wire. Ian managed to encourage them back in but when they realised that Ian was trying the same trick I was, whilst I was trying to wire up the fence in Ian's place they decided to take off up the hill. Smart!



Our friends who made a rather nice
wine from these are collecting these
ones to have another go at making
wine with them. They are going to take
all of them. I tried ours and it is still
a bit rough - will keep us in mulled wine
over winter though

Ian was worried they would freak out the alpacas. I headed on up with the remaining feed, over the hill to see the sheep trying to head towards the alpacas - you know the big sheep with the long legs and necks. The gate was open on their old paddock though, I managed to get the sheep’s attention and went into the paddock. This time I put the bowl down and let them eat it all, while quickly covering the gap with the wire. I also realised at this point the other gate was still open, so had to nip back behind the wire, re-close it and then head up to the other gate before they noticed. Fortunately they were still too interested in the feed.

Eyre enjoying cleaning out the pot of sour cream ready
for recycling

At least now the sheep were penned in and the alpacas did not freak out, although Brencis kept making a noise as if to say what are these strange stunted alpacas? I was also by now saturated. Good job my new raincoat arrived the day before. After finishing off making our mushroomy meal we headed on into the caravan to change and eat. Farming can be exciting, but not always quite the kind of excitement we want. Still everyone was fine, the sheep under control and we dried out, so no harm in the end.

The sun does shine sometimes

Carrots, squash, onions and grapes ready for
roasting

The rest of the week was fairly mundane. I have been marking work, working on my paper, and harvesting beans and tomatoes. Ian has been moving fences, writing updates for our alpaca adoptees and pumping out the well again. We are pleased that we have found the well now gives us about 75-85 litres of water a day up to about 700 litres or so, when it then starts to slow down. Mind you, it has been wet just lately, so of course that might help. I'm glad we don't have the sort of escapades our sheep put us through every day of the week.

A slow process

Two small hay stores, each holding about 30 small hay bales

This week we have mainly been focussed on getting the harvest in. Ian has continued to bale hay and he managed to bale another 23 off the ski hill. The number of bales was just under half what we got in mid-summer from an area about three times bigger. Just shows how little grass there was after the drought in summer. We wouldn't have cut then but there were a lot of weed plants starting to flower and we didn't want them to set seed, but it is a good job we did. Little did we realise we would still be trying to get hay in two and a half months later. He also cut some grass around an area we call the lake, it often floods in spring and hasn't been dry enough to cut until now. The type of grass that grows there is not good for feed but good for bedding and dries quickly and that was a big bonus.

No the barn is not on fire, just the sun shining through.
Perhaps it was just a little dusty. 

Despite all the cutting and baling we still are not sure we have enough and so when a friend offered to sell us some we decided to buy some in. It was meant to arrive on Sunday, but unfortunately there was a problem with the tractor. It isn't a big issue as they are large bales and can stand being outside anyway. Not like our smaller and more manageable hay bales that will need covering when the rains come again. There was a set of bales that hadn't dried well and were put in the barn, so we have taken them out and put them in the new hay store where they will get more air circulation. We had to ditch a few of them though, unfortunately. We then put the dry bales from near the lake in the barn.

Heave ho! The things you do on the farm

Nibbling on the willow trees. The sheep had already nibbled
on these but the alpacas can get higher up. It makes the place
look more like a park. I think we have a bit to go before we
look like Capability Brown has designed it though.

We have an apple tree on our land that is probably the result of a bird or wild animal dropping seeds, as it is in a really random place for an apple tree. This year it was actually covered in apples, are are many apple trees this year. The taste and texture is unusual, it reminds me a bit of a pear but it is definitely an apple in shape. The skin had started to turn blotchy and so we decided to harvest them. I took a couple of buckets down with me, but quickly filled them and still couldn't reach many of the apples. Ian conveniently drove past in the tractor at this point and so he helped me out by using the front loader to lift me up so I could reach the apples, as you do!

We were a little concerned that the sheep had been nibbling
on this bush/tree, as we were not sure what it was. A few of
my friends though are quite good at identifying plants and so
I asked on facebook. We think it is some sort of viburnum
and so we think the sheep are safe with it. Some types are often
used as a hedging plant around fields of livestock anyway. 

The only problem with collecting lots of apples is that they may then need processing and these certainly did, so that meant one day back at the apartment sorting those out along with a batch of tomato sauce to be oven roasted in jars. The freezers are quite full, mainly with berries though, and so I am trying to jar up as much as possible or dehydrate food from this years harvest. Processing food though takes such a long time and probably the reason many people do not do it. However, when it comes to the winter, we then have a lot of food ready prepared for meals and we still have the advantage of knowing exactly where our food comes from.

Our eerie greenhouse one moonlit night

I have also been processing the amaranth and hemp seeds. The amaranth self-seeded in the greenhouse and is everywhere - I'm not a very tidy gardener. The advantage though is something will grow that we can eat and these have large heads of seeds. Actually the hemp plants this year were also self-seeded and since many of our sown seeds did not germinate well in the drought, the fact the hemp plants got a head start before the real dry season set in, meant they took over. Good job hemp seeds are really healthy and I have been looking at how the dried leaves are good in cooking and tea, so that is another source of nutrition over the winter. Both amaranth and hemp seeds can be used for making flour and added to breads whole for an added crunch, which will help with the variety in our diet.

Looks like an early morning scene but it is a long exposure
shot in the moonlight

Our very sweet grapes are just about all gone now and I think we must have eaten most of them ourselves. It was so tempting walking past to have a few. One of the other grapevines, a blue one, has taken time to ripen and has too many seeds in to be worth snacking on although they do taste nice now, so they were harvested this week for wine. I harvested about 2/3rds of them and then decided to see if some friends of ours, who make alcoholic drinks for sale, would like to try and see what they can make with them. We can then compare our different approaches. If their's works well then we thought that maybe we could extend the grapvine further. It will provide some shade and we or our friends can sell the exclusive little vintage. People who visit are often fascinated by the fact we have vines in our greenhouse anyway.

Cranes flying south for winter. They are noisy birds, which in
this case was a good job, otherwise I would have missed them.

Ian wired in another socket in our caravan so we have a separate socket for the heater and can still plug in my computer and phone - unfortunately a sign that winter's coming and it has definitely been getting a bit nippy in the caravan. I even covered up the peppers tonight with some garden fleece in the greenhouse. We have been having to put the animals away earlier and earlier and it is difficult to know what is the best way round to do things, put them away or eat first. Today I was digging up the potatoes out on the land (there is still a load to dig up at our other apartment plot) and I finished a bit late in the evening to start cooking. Fortunately Ian had already got the food under way, but by the time I had finished we had to rush to eat it so that we could put the animals away.

The leaves are just starting to turn in the moss covered oak tree

I think this lamb is starting to put weight on now she has had
the worming medication. She is also getting the hang of sheep
grain and moving with the rest of the herd. It makes moving
the sheep between plots a lot simpler now.

We found out this week we had miscalculated last week about the rate of filling of our well by a factor of ten. So the well was filling at about 100 litres a day, which was more respectable. This week though it was down to about 50 litres a day with a drop on a couple of days to about 25 litres. We reckoned that on a hot day we would need about 60 litres a day for our basic needs and for the animals to drink, so it will be interesting to find out how it does over the next summer. It possibly still needs a good flush through though to get the water flowing properly after being disturbed by the digging.

Mr. B and Mr. P are often fighting but we think they are just
playing, it doesn't seem to be very serious. Mr. P is hopefully
going to be a father for the first time next year. I wonder what
colour the cria (baby alpaca) will be?

Aggie has been acting very strange just lately. We wonder if she is being over sensitive about being pregnant. She will let me deal with her front legs when she needs some anti-mite spray, but she was very difficult to handle and get the medication on the back legs. Even Ian was having difficulty holding her. Not sure how she will be when it comes to toe nail cutting, we might have to pin her down. Ian decided to take her for a walk to see if they could make friends again. At first she was a bit antsy, but eventually she calmed down and they went for a nice long walk. He decided to take her up what used to be a ski hill in Soviet times, but this meant crossing the dirt road. He was crossing the road with her on a long leash when he realised that she had sat down and seemed very comfortable. We wonder if she wanted to roll in the sandy road. Not useful when sometimes cars and trucks go hurtling along there. Ian had to get his hands under her belly to get her moving. I somehow think she hasn't got a clue about traffic and why should she!

Turbjørn debating whether to eat the bark on the tree

Boo!

We had a return visit from a lovely young couple who have now moved into the village for about six months while they train at the local technical college. He is learning about log house building and she is learning sewing and clothing construction. They would love to live in the countryside, but realise they need to do some planning and training to help them earn enough money to live on at the same time. It was great talking about life, faith and future dreams.

The song Liverpool Lullaby by Cilla Black comes to mind
when I see this photo, with the lyrics "Oh you are a
mucky kid"

So I think that is about it for this week. I have crossed a few things off my to-do list but there is still a few to go yet and a few that had better be done in the next day or two before we get some rain. There are times I wish it didn't take so long as it doesn't help when I also have some other jobs to do like writing papers and finishing off writing up lesson plans - at least it doesn't matter about them if it rains but digging potatoes does.