Chasing Allotments and Organising Sheds (by sarah)

That horrible sinking feeling when you realise you now have a kitchen full of animal feed sacks and there is no room left in the cupboard under the stairs and you've been thinking this stuff should all be in the shed for a while for ages and it needs to be sorted so the table you bought for a fiver from the school for potting up and mushroom growing can be put in said shed (sounds far more exciting and illegal than what I actually mean!).

So we turfed things and sorted them and took some camping bits out to put in the cupboard under the stairs which were also sorting at the same time and some animal cage bits which are going in the eves of the house with the fish tank etc... and we put hooks in the sheds beams to hang the camping chairs, strimmer and jet washer etc... Found the grate of wine bottles I''ve been looking for to bottle my nettle wine and dandiion wine up in and a couple more demijohns to go on the shelves we built for the purpose in the kitchen etc...

Mary thought it was great - it was her house apparently!

Then we headed off to the Allotments Country Show in the hope of nabbing someone about the fact that I am now not even receiving email responses from the council about how long it is going to take to get one - I go blackberrying along there I can see the empty plots! I found a lady who said she would pass my details on after a long talk about making chutney and pickled things with me and Alaric so fingers crossed.

The weather was a bit pants by this point but Jean and Mary had a great time even though they didn't get to go on any rides - Jean went in her roller blades she picked up last year in a charity shop for like £2! She only fell over once and had her shoes in her rucksack which she changed into after seeing the zumba but by then it was too late to join in!

Mary was most pleased with her balloon dog - in pink as always - it is currently her favourite colour! I worry that people think I am one of those parents that makes their little girls wear pink!

And then I resisted adopting another bunny from the Windmill rescue people - the girls spent ages stroking a lovely little grey thing - Jean was concerned it wasn't walking and was informed that it is disabled with a twisted back paw - at the collected 'awww' from me and Jean Alaric took us by the arms and lead us away!

Apart from all that I cleared out and sorted the top shelf of the 'treats' cupboard (where all the cake making etc supplies are) and placed the chutneys and jams I've been making on there - so yeah guess what everyones getting for christmas! Something home made/grown anyway 😉

Sorry Gromit We Are Not Going To Find You All – you’ve been Usurped by Chicken Run! (by sarah)

So this weekend was going to be the final drive to find Gromit in and around Bristol - we have enjoyed the trail muchly over the summer but then it just was not to be - instead I got asked a) to perform Saturday at 1 o'clock and b) there were some chickens avalible for rescuing/retiring from intensive commercial farming. Plus there is a possible chance of getting to talk to the allotment people on Sunday - so sadly and with a heavy heart no more Gromits 🙁

But still - CHICKENS!

The hen house that me and Alaric assembled last weekend was hefted into place Friday night after Thursday and Friday were spent burning rubbish (including that giant damn building bag of tree bits the previous people had left on the workshop roof and which was now dumped right were the back of the run needed to go!). My garden doesn't look pretty at the moment but it has been very productive!

This is going to be within the big fenced off area we will have the animals in most of the time though once they are settled they like the rabbit will get to bounce or flutter around the garden! But for now we have the chicken run and it even has a little ramp!

So anyway I went and watched poetry whilst Al and the girls went to pick up the supplies we needed such as feed and grit (for the chickens gullet - they have no teeth so they swallow stones to help grind their food up). Several people were coming to see me read/perform including Al and the girls but I ended up going on early and so they missed it - boo hiss! But on the other hand at least two radom shoppers stopped for the entirety of my 20 minute set 🙂 I always count that as a win!

Then we headed off to go and pick up our chickens from nearish Cirencester - it was a farm where the rescue chickens had been delivered that morning, whilst there Mary befriended the farm dog! So the fat hen has been called Doggie - as featured above.

On the way home I kept winding Alaric up with chicken impressions and Jean was convinced they were laying eggs in the book - we collected them in my old paper work boxes which were just the right size for two chickens each with handy air wholes - they kept the spare box we had bought just in case as they make such handy chicken carriers!

At home Jeany removed the leds (after cats had been turfed!), they all just sat there with half their feathers missing, not realising her was a chance for escape.

Jean's one is called Lilly after the fictional character Harry Potter's Mother.

The remaining two hens are being called after Chicken Scheme programmers - so we have Felix and Mario!

Well eventually when Alaric was applying the red mite powder Felix who was the first to stick her neck out of the box, looked around went 'my god what are you doing to me!' and fluttered out of the box - she was the only one to do so - then she promptly pooed on my shoe which was sitting by the back door!

We popped her back in the box and took them down to the chicken run!

Felix was the first one to work out there was a ramp and was busy bossing all the others about!

Initially they were only interested in all the grit and not the food or water. Mary is very happy there is a chick'n house and has learnt that they are not ducks! But mainly has been restrained from prodding and poking!

Lilly (Jean's chicken) is a bit dim and was found forlorn at the base of the ramp at bed time oblivious as to what at happened to the other chickens - I had to pick her up and put her in the hen house!

We got the chickens from The British Hen Trust and I was sad to see the state of the chickens - but this is nothing compared to how chickens used to be at the end of a commercial laying career and I think the commercial farmers need to be thanked for at least allowing them to be retired. I think the issue lays in the commercial pressures on the farmers - it's bizar that in a land were we end up with so much wasted food there are people struggling to feed their families and animals being forced to over produce :/ I myself have found times when we could not afford anything other than the cheapest eggs and sometimes not even that :/ I see how many get broken in the supermarkets too. I don't know how to solve the issue as I am privlaged to be able to keep the chickens.

Anyway we finally have our birds - no ducks yet - need to assess how much space the chickens actually need and how noisy etc... they are - especially as ducks take up more space! (Goes off and picks up her book on keeping urban bees).

Poetry In Store and Well Versed (by sarah)

Just a quick note to say that I am performing/reading at the Waterstones in Cheltenham on this Saturday (7th of September 2013) at around 1 o'clock in the afternoon - before me are a lovely bunch of poets reading. The even lasts from 11 till 2 and there is a Costa coffee in the shop too for the coffee fiends 🙂

Last night I went to Well Versed at the Muffin Man - I took some blurry pictures on my little touch pad but haven't worked out how to get them onto here yet! It was a fantastic night - the cafe was jam packed with audience! And there was a rich variety of poetry types there, the diversity of works being read gave the event a strong vibrancy and I discovered some poets I hadn't heard before.

The next one is in October which I shall be reading at 🙂

I've been a bit slack with my poetry recently having gotten the prose writing bug again but in the new year I should have a poetry collection coming out so watch this space (or my poetry and music blog). Also October will see the Launch Party of The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry but more on that later!

Both of the poetry events are run by The Cheltenham Poetry Festival 🙂

The Best of Berries (by sarah)

That awkward moment when someone takes a photo of you picking berries along the foot path to town and you realise OMG! I've turned into a hippy! I'm not even just picking black berries but ones people give you funny looks over as they think they are poisonous (which they are if you don't cook them!). My top was not quiet tie dye but near enough and my baby had no trousers on whilst my eldest skipped about in a hand painted t-shirt - yep I'm one of those mums - also urban blackberrying - BEWARE THE CYCLISTS!

This was a post I put on facebook and some interesting things came out of it - for a start I had to qualify that I meant the Rowan berries as toxic unless cooked. But they are not very toxic as in it is something that builds up over time and can sometimes lead to liver (or maybe kidney failure) from what I've read. Anyway the chemical is broken down by temperature extremes so that is freezing and cooking. Which is why the old country lore is that you don't pick until after the first frost.

And the classic argument over elder berries and weather they are poisonous. Main issue being that ripe berries aren't but they have to be really ripe and that they just aren't very toxic again though the leaves and stems are. Again cooking brakes down the cyanid within (it is also in apple pips and various other things) - some people have developed a tolerance from eating them as a kid etc...

Then I was asked what I thought of berrying along busy roads - which is an interesting one - this was my response.

Ok when the petrol was all lead based it was a big problem but now it should be ok - some of the ones (berries I'd picked) today were from road sides - it helps that my friends did the soil surveys a few years back - only thing I would say is that they shouldn't be eaten directly from the bush still if from heavy roadsides as there will be dust on them but a quick wash should sort that out. (However be aware this is my opinion and I haven't seen any data for years).

Also unless you have a map of the UK with metal ions on it etc... you are going to struggle to know what is safe where anyway - there are areas of Wales for a start where heavy metals weather out of the soil and plants there should be avoided for human consumption - add in illegal human refuse dumps and so on... Somewhere may seem nice a pleasant - even have farm crops growing on it and really not be good at all.

But the risks are minimal anyway as it is build up that's the issue wand everyone eats from a wide variety of places these days.

Having said all this people swapped recipes for things, and then I found out that haw stones contain cyanid - but again the cooking will brake this down - but this lead me to think about the confusing wealth of info out there on edible plants etc... I have not found an actually study of this specifically to tell the public the exact risks of things - for a start a table of how much cyanid is on average in various foods and compares say free food to stuff like apples and almonds etc... Also people seem confused by cyanid groups verses cyanid itself which react very differently - if we cut everything with the groups in out of our diet we would quickly starve (if I remember my A'level chemistry correctly).

Also I have been freely dispensing information about blackberries to people who enquire whilst I am out and about and often on of a group will be really taken with the idea whilst another will have apoplexy about them being dirty etc... There is very little in the way of public knowledge about this stuff - have any tests actually ever been done I wonder? How dirty is a blackberry straight from the briar and what do the soil test etc... mean around the road sides.

In the wake of Jamie Olivers comments about food and poverty and people being silly for not knowing - it would make sense to have an education program, healthy eating reduces costs to the NHS and benefits etc... it is a long term thing. People are scared of food they haven't grown up with or don't want to squander tight budgets on culinary experiments that might go wrong or really just can't get the fresh fruit and veg from the shops but also do not feel safe or confident in going out and finding their own in case they poison their family - these are reasonable fears and so easily addressed.

Jamie has always had a big head but he's also got a big heart and has done a hell of a lot with the school dinners and stuff (I think he just needs to stop and have a little think again over what he is saying and step into others shoes for a bit), but you know he really shouldn't have too - we should have a Ministry of Food anyway :/

So if I was in charge what would I do?

Well I would have all school children out on wilderness trails learning identification of edibles or more importantly poisonous plants. I would have fruit trees planted along verges and in parks - I would get tests done to see exactly what impact traffic fumes etc have and if the levels of harmful things are too high I would look at traffic regulations and find ways to reduce those. I would have cook-ups at community centres and places so that people can come along and learn to cook for free etc...

I would have a government leaflet/website that told you all about were it legal to forage (in clear terms) and the risks set out (this is the risks not just the hazards) but I would include the same for processed and main stream farming foods. I would initiate more allotments and community orchards and let the public know the things exist!

Schools are starting to grow veg and stuff thanks to the super markets and there has been an upsurge in general homestedding activities but they are being seen as a very middle class thing as they tend to be the ones with the time and spare resources to plough into learning about these things. I am finding it very frustrating trying to get hold of an allotment and to be frank most of our shopping bill is fruit and veg and that is just wrong! It is stupid that processed foods cost more than fruit and veg fresh from the field/vine.

As one of my friends posted on FB recently - growing your own food has become a middle class want rather than a working class need - but the problem there is that it is really still a need for EVERYBODY regardless of income or age. I've been reading up on things like depression, stress, learning difficulties etc... all being helped by... well nature - yes I know it all sounds hippy but these are medical studies etc... I think it would need a lot of work though - most of those being pushed into poverty at the moment are households were both parents work (I know surprising isn't it?) and therefore they are not going to want the extra stress/time restraint on already tiring lives - but maybe allotment sharing could come into place or something like that.

You also need to make sure people know they can join these things and that they are not exclusive schemes - I remember some of the allotments near were we grew up were very particular about who they let on to the site etc...

I hear that high end offices in London are now installing gardens on their roofs were people can grown veg and even keep bees. I have hope and I am enjoying my blackberrying - I've received one jar of jam from a friend and the neighbour nabbed me yesterday to shyly ask if I would like some of her 'bramble' jam once it was cool.

Now She is 8 (by sarah)

Jean's actual birthday is hidden at the end of the summer holidays what with her being born on the August bank holiday - so since she has been at school we tend to do her party in September once she is firmly back at school other wise people forget!

So this year for her actual birthday we went to the Library and had a picnic and went hedgerowing.

We bought the picnic from the Co-Op in order to get more tokens for Mary's Banana toy before the offer ends and then sat and eat it on the grassy bit by the library (think it belongs to the community centre).

Me and Mary sang happy birthday though I have to confess Mary continued with 'clack sheep star!' so not the best rendition ever and she kept saying it was her birthday and 'NO Jean! Mine!' etc...

We went into the library for the putting back of 10 books and the getting out of 14 (just for Jean) and settled in for the creepy crafts that go with the reading challenge they had over the summer known as Creepy House.

Jean finished the reading challenge weeks ago! We have not been able to keep up with her book habit at all - we have tried to encourage more factual books but she's not interested at the moment - she says she wants to be a writer. I pointed out you need to read factual books for that as well which made her pause and she asked me what factual books I was reading and we got talking about tudors and bees and things and she made me do yoda impressions all the way to the library and she mentioned the fact that Yoda and the seer woman in The Dark Crystal sound the same etc... It was a fun outing.

Both of them made bats and got their photos taken for the newspaper - not this photo though that is one of mine.

And she has also decided she wants to do blogging so here is her first book review over on Orange Monster (that being the kids book and illustration blog so it seemed fitting).

Click here to read it 🙂

Oh and she is getting crushes - she babbled at the 16 yr old at the library about languages for ages - confusing him with Lojban 😉