Tiny Farmer Mutton Bash

We wanted to thank everyone who had been supportive of the Tiny Farmer project this year – so we decided to have a bit of a celebration. No ordinary food fest would do though, so we decided to salute that slightly outmoded meat – mutton. We sourced a ewe (rare breed Norfolk Horn), from the same farm that will be providing our lamb for the lamb share in the next few months, and had the butcher prepare three equal portions of burgers, sausages and diced mutton for a curry.

50 burgers, 60 sausages and 6kgs of curry seemed a sufficient amount to keep everyone's hunger at bay. It also gave us a good excuse to prepare vast quantities of potato salad and beetroot salad (using the supplies from the allotment).
We certainly enjoyed the bash and hope to be able to do something similar next year again. I guess it's a kind of Tiny Farmer harvest celebration, with a twist…

Party out of the way and thoughts are now turning to the new additions to our own flock of Black Welsh Mountain ewes. 10 breeding ewes, 14 ewe lambs and a ram will be arriving in the next few weeks. The ram will tup the 17 ewes (our existing 7 plus the new 10) and the 14 new lambs will need a separate field as we wouldn't want them tupped this year. That should take the Tiny Farmer flock numbers up a bit - the kids are very excited!
Best get on with that fencing then…

New website & wheat update

Well well - Tiny Farmer has a shiny new website at www.tinyfarmer.co.uk and we are very pleased with the result. Our meat shares have grown quite a bit over the past while and we thought it appropriate to have something decent for people to look at and also help us share our message of welfare friendly meat.

Now on to the all important wheat...



Yes, finally we managed to harvest some of the wheat. Most of the wheat field was actually weeds and grasses interspersed with a few beautiful meadow flowers. However with our trusty sickle we got in a bit of the harvest. Cutting wheat by hand really is back breaking work….and that is just the start of it!
The ears of wheat then had to be separated from the stalks – which took ages and is very rough on the hands. Next the wheat has to be separated from the chaff (by means of pummeling a bag of the stuff on the back patio and throwing it up to let the chaff blow away)
…and that is before we even start to think about grinding the stuff. Phew, this is going to be one labour intensive loaf of bread…



I think we'll have to frame it in a special box as you wouldn't want to eat something that had taken that much time.
I somehow think we might be careful about planting another field of wheat next year, that is unless we can source a mini combine harvester from somewhere...now there's a thought.

Tractor time

Hooray - got to play on the tractor last week again as we cut the grass fields in preparation for winter. The fields all look very neat now and hopefully there will be enough grass for the sheep through the winter period, if not we will have to bring in some hay.
Time on the tractor is very enjoyable and it's good to see every bit of the fields up close. Somehow hours just seem to evaporate - it's definitely one of the more fun activities!!!



While we had the tractor we took the opportunity to cut all of the weeds down on the allotment (we'd harvested as much wheat as we could - we'll post about what happened to that later in the week). The allotment looks much tidier and we'll be doing that again in the future. The only crops now left to harvest are potatoes, butternut squash, pumpkins, kale, leeks & beetroot. This will be enough for a few weeks and then we'll have to revert to the trusty market for most of our veg again.




We also took the opportunity to check the sheep's feet and apply the pour-on medication that prevents fly strike. As always the sheep were not that pleased at being caught and will no doubt be grumpy with us for the next few days - nothing that a few molasses flavoured sheep treats can't fix.

This morning we took some hoggets and a ewe that we had sourced from a local farmer to the butcher. The hoggets will be for a meat share and the ewe will be used to make mutton curry, mutton burgers & mutton sausages for a Tiny Farmer bash that we'll be throwing soon.

As you can tell from the above it's been a very busy week, but also a very satisfying one...

Stay tuned to hear what happened to our wheat.

NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH

No, not that kind of Neighbourhood Watch…we’re all watching each other’s fruit trees. In the spirit of neighbourhood barter we have been plundering each other’s gardens in search of windfall apples and plums. In return for our fruit we have received jam and with other people’s apples we’ve made excellent pies.




It is also time for blackberrying. We love cycling to our local park to pick blackberries. Sadly this year’s crop has been very disappointing. Not because of a lack of fruit – but because of the number of new foragers who have got there before us. For years we were the only ones out with our old ice cream boxes filling up with fruit for the freezer. But I suspect that the current media obsession with GYO, Digging In etc is encouraging more people to get out into the hedgerows. Good! The more people who get to enjoy autumn blackberries the better!

Tiny Farmer by the Sea

The Tiny Farmers have been on holiday. Of course, going away for a week meant there was no one to look after the sheep or the chickens. However, we managed to get hold of a sheep-sitter (really!) and fortunately have hen-loving neighbours who are only too happy to look after our brood when we are away. The allotment, however, has been left to its own devices and we are dreading going as we may not be able to find our vegetables after 2 weeks of unchecked weed growth!

We are glad to report that we did try and take a bit of the self-sufficient spirit with us on vacation. We all went mackerel fishing one day and managed to catch our supper! Delicious!




On an entirely different note we tried one of the hams that we have been preparing. This one was salted for 4 weeks and then air dried for 3 months. We were absolutely amazed that it tasted anything like ham - we were all very sceptical especially seeing as the ham was air dried over the summer months.Very happy to report that it was very very tasty indeed and we will certainly be doing a lot more of that.



Right...off to go and deal with those weeds at the allotment.

Tiny Farmer Beef!

As usual when there is not much action on the blog it’s an indication of lots of action at Tiny Farmer HQ. Last Thursday we finally took delivery of the first of our 21day aged Angus beef. We had orders for 22 boxes of 10kg and 5kg packs and it was quite a logistical feat getting the meat from the butcher and to our friends. The meat had to be transported in iced poly boxes and we hired a refrigerated truck to keep everything cool before each box was delivered.

It was great to be getting the beef to all the people who had placed orders over a month ago. It was even better to get phone calls and emails from people the next day telling us how much they enjoyed their steaks!

On the sheep side of things…



It was quite a family affair when we went up to worm the sheep the other day. They needed to be wormed and have their toenails trimmed. So while dad rugby tackled the each sheep to the ground and got her in a non-struggling upright position, mum prepared the worming syringe and youngest daughter stood by with the spray marker to put a red dot on each sheep that had been treated. An unusual way for the family to spend a Saturday afternoon but good fun all the same.

We also took the opportunity to visit the allotment and dig up yet more potatoes and beetroot (and cabbage and marrows and beans…). As you can see one of us at least is getting very handy with a fork.

Veg boxes are now our routine visiting gift!

And lastly the chicken…

We couldn't believe that we had reached the end of our chicken supply (they were the 12 chickens that we had ordered before Christmas last year and were the first items in our freezer). Luckily the farmer had some more ready so we collected 6 oven ready chickens on Sunday. 3 of them have been cut up so that we can have the usual stir fries, curries & all important BBQ supplies and the remaining 3 will be ready for roasting as and when over the coming months.

The next big job is making sure that we harvest the tiny amount of wheat that did manage to grow at the field. Despite best intentions over the past few weeks to get this task done it keeps slipping off the "to-do" list. Stay tuned for progress...

Tiny Farmer out.

VEG GLUT

It is, of course, no surprise that we now have too much veg. We are absolutely coming down with beetroot, French beans and tatties. Not to mention the cabbages and the squashes (which are growing like triffids!). Fortunately we have some very grateful friends and neighbours who are only too willing to take excess veg off our hands. We recently sent a whole sack of potatoes off to Scotland with our returning relatives. We have given potatoes to all our neighbours and have something of a barter situation going on with apples from a nearby garden. Some kind souls have even offered to buy veg from us and I have to admit that it is quite satisfying being able to put together a whole variety of home grown vegetables in one box.

We are getting quite used to the art of blanching and freezing. Here is just one freezer drawer full of frozen veg.



It is a little of our supply of beans and beetroot. We are not entirely convinced that beetroot will freeze well – though all the experts say it is fine. So we have tried various techniques – boiling and dicing and baking and quartering etc – to increase chances of success. We are still eating tons of beetroot grated raw in salads - and we’ve even tried the chocolate and beetroot muffins. We are less concerned about the frozen French beans – which look fresh and green and ready to eat. Very much looking forward to eating through that supply over the winter months.