Little Rituals

Monday's coffee in Rob Ryan enamel mug

I recently read a lovely post on my Bloglovin' feed called Little Rituals by Gillian from Tales From A Happy Home.  Gillian's post was about the small daily rituals which, after moving home, are the things that make your new house your home.  And it set me to thinking; I LOVE our new house and in the short 9 months that we have been living here it has become the home of my dreams, for the rest of my life, absolute heaven.  I don't mean to gush, but it has.

And Gillian is right, it is the day to day rituals, things that you only do in your own house that make it your home.   So, here is a very ordinary day, Monday to be exact, but one that brought me much pleasure.

Little Louis seems to always get up first, and too early.  He comes into our bedroom and wiggles around in our bed, making snoozing impossible, but, I have a new trick up my PJ sleeve.  I send him off to let the chickens out of their house.

Little Una Fox has a barking dog alarm clock which goes off just after 7am, over, and over, and over again.  Mr Fox gets up for work, and brings me a cup of tea in bed before he goes - Isn't he grand!  I don't feel alive until I've had my tea, washed my face and applied my Fushi Oils.  They are an indulgence that I decided I deserve now that I am in my 40's.

 
But my day begins proper, much like Gillian's by the sound of it, after I drop the Little Foxes at school - now only a 90 second walk rather than a 30 minute drive away. On my return I have my best coffee of the day.   Fresh ground, made in an espresso pot bought before the Little Foxes were born.  The cup I use is very important.  It is usually one of a choice of 3, but each cup has a slightly different meaning for me.  The one I went for on Monday means - "a day in the garden".

Even though the school run is now such a brief excursion I still get greeted by our two dogs, Bea and Beau, like I've been gone for days.  Sometimes this ends in disaster, as I trip over them extracting a yelp from the victim and a non too savoury word from me.  On other occasions disaster eludes us and we have a bit of a love in, the dogs and I.  Tails wagging, neck scratching, jockeying for position and general over-excited chaos on a small furry canine scale.

Then we do our tour of the garden.  When Mr Fox is home he and I walk the garden, but otherwise the dogs like to accompany me.  We check the chickens,...

and this is why we check the chickens; evidence of a fox having taken a rabbit in our garden last night

I gaze at my apple trees for a bit, and dream of my orchard.  Planting the three apple trees was all quite a palaver, so to see the blossom on them now is wonderfully reassuring.

We also take in the veg patch and green house where I've sown seeds that I'm hoping have germinated.  Little green seedlings are a cause for celebration.  Hopeful watering of all other seed trays and plants in pots elsewhere in the garden brings my garden tour to a close.

I sit at the computer for a bit once inside.  I'm still not sure where my favourite spot for sitting at the computer is in this house.  I've been moving it around.  But I quite like the table in the back room at the moment.

I check emails and Facebook; friends are so scattered these days, all over the world from the US and Canada to Australia and Bangkok.  Do a bit of writing, upload some photos.  Then remember that I am supposed to be doing the shopping online not getting distracted.

I do agree that a home is not a home until you've broken in the kitchen.  And most of my toil in the garden is all about edible crops.  At Ash Cottage the kitchen wasn't in too bad a state when we moved in.  But shortly after our move, one by one, everything functional broke down, including the cooker. So, we bought a reconditioned Aga, built on site it was great to watch it grow in my kitchen, and as we are talking rituals, it has become something of an idol to be worshiped.  I do a fair but of cookery exchanging (my marmalade for her pesto, sloe gin for elderflower cordial, that kind of thing) with my friend Jennie and last weekend she leant me her ice cream maker.  I've made a batch of blackberry ice cream and with the spare egg whites a batch of meringues.

Where one woman's rituals is another woman's chore, in Tales From A Happy Home, Gillian writes eloquently, and supplies beautiful pictures, of her house-work; bedding changed and beautifully made up beds, washing on the line.  With the greatest respect to this lady I'm not going to do that.  I go by the adage that no woman on her death bed would say; "I wish I had spent more time doing the house work".  My house work is done as quickly as possible, the bare minimum, "a bit of dirt never hurt" as my granny would say, in her spotless house(!).  It's a quick, kitchen - post breakfast detritus cleared, bathrooms - given a quick swipe (yes, swipe not wipe), beds made, kids clothes picked up off the floor and stuck in the washing machine, then get back out in the garden.

Today, I wanted to get the second bed of potatoes into the ground.  Which involves moving huge piles of soil from an old compost heap onto the veg beds on the other side of the garden.

Can you spot the potato?

This quiet, simple, sometimes strenuous, repetitive to the point of meditative activity is why I love gardening.  Sharing a chat with my elderly neighbours over the garden fence, exchanging tomatoes for runner bean plants.  A quick snack for lunch, and a couple of drink and chicken watching stops mean that I am little more than started on the potato beds when it is time to pick the Little Foxes up from school.  Gardening eats time.

On a Monday the children have no after school clubs, so they come straight back home and go say "Hi!" to their chickens.  As it was such a beautiful day they persuaded me to turn the sprinkler on for them to play in after tea.

I had to stop my toil to watch them screaming and jumping into the cold water, a beautiful end to the day.  Straight into the shower for those two, PJs, hot milk and a madeleine while they wait for daddy to come home.  Mr Fox usually puts the children to bed while I do our dinner.  That is his most important ritual and sometimes I join him to listen to the bedtime story.

As Gillian asked; outside my open bedroom window I can hear birdsong and cars.

And I can hear the creaks and groans of my house bending and stretching her old bones.  I talk to my house, she is a she. I like to think our inhabiting her is something that she is a willing participant in after some years of neglect.  That we are gently restoring a lady in her middle years (I don't like to call her old!) to something of her former glory.  Each day we live in her, no matter how ordinary or normal, is nourishing her as much as she shelters and protects us.



 

Bees

I have just finished the Beginner's Bee Keeping course with the Bishop Stortford Bee Keepers Association .  It has been lovely to put the kids to bed of an evening and then drive over to Hopleys Garden Centre in Much Hadham to listen, learn and talk about bees with others as enthusiastic (if not more so) as I.  The course was great and I met a lovely group of people, both BSBKA members, committee and fellow "newbies"; thank you all!

In the second week we all made a hive, split into teams we each worked on a different section of the hive.  The team I was in made the brood box and frames.  It was great to realise that with basic carpentry skills I will be able to build and maintain my bees' home.  And doing something with my hands, made the course come alive for me.  I've been babbling about bees to anyone who will listen ever since, reading up on these fascinating creatures, and getting more and more excited that I will soon be a bee keeper.  At the end of the session, whoever emailed first could buy the hive we'd all built.  I was home in a flash and emailed my interest, so here she is in the garden at Ash Cottage.

Thank you John for delivering it - look at that dappled light in the photo.  Apparently bees are into a bit of dappled light.

So, I have the hive and frames, I'm hoping to pick up my first colony of bees on the May Bank Holiday weekend.  I have been browsing the bee keeping suppliers websites for about 4 weeks now in various states of confusion.  I am just about ready to purchase what I think are the absolute essential things I'll need to have for the bees arrival: 

Bee keeper's all in one suit (v. important!), 

smoker, 

J shaped hive tool, 

bee brush, 

1 gallon contact feeder,

...that's what I've got on my order, is there anything else that those of you with more experience than I would say I have to have?

I thought it was the honey and doing my bit for the environment that would be my main interest in bee keeping, but I have become fascinated by the creatures themselves.  Bees are amazing.  Don't get me wrong the honey is still a big attraction.  Little Una Fox gets repeated bouts of tonsillitis.  We use Manuka honey to treat it, and if we catch it early enough it prevents going to the doctors for antibiotics.  I am hoping to switch to raw honey from our own hive for the same result.

And then of course there are all the delicious things you can make with honey.  Sarah, my fellow newbie noticed The Guardian had an article on the Ten Best Honey Recipes  the other weekend, I fancy making the Madeleines.

So soon I will be a bee keeper! < small scream of excitement >

To the land where the honey runs

In rivers each day

And the sweet tastin' good life

Is so easily found

A way over yonder

That's where I'm bound

"A Way Over Yonder" lyrics by Carole King

How Does Your Garden Grow... Suggestions Please?

As the Spring heralds new life, a new something seems to appear every day in Ash Cottage's garden.  On Thursday I thought I would photograph the emerging surprises that a new garden brings, for Mammasaurus' How Does Your Garden Grow linky.  I'm not sure what many of these plants are, so, if you know please let me in on the secret.   Above is some type of clematis?

I brought cuttings from our old garden, a lot of which didn't survive the transportation and neglect over the winter.  One thing that did was Nana's peony, I'm discovering that the previous owners of Ash Cottage also liked peonies.  The picture on the left is a quite healthy looking specimen in a overgrown bed in the centre of the garden and I think the picture on the right is another one, there are at least 2 more.

When we moved into Ash Cottage the plan for the garden was to clear, sort out the veggie patch, chickens and trees, use up old seeds and then not buy or plant any new ones.  To get ready to start the garden year proper in the Autumn.  This isn't quite what's happened.  I've now got a hexagonal greenhouse full of tomato seedlings, with nowhere to put them.  

We've been here since September and while I know we have a lot of stinging nettles, ivy, dandelion and other weeds, I am now discovering some hidden gems too.  Hidden amongst the comfrey(?) that is rampant all over the western boarder of the garden is the shy head of a frittilaria(?)

I think I almost dug this beautiful flower up when feeding, weeding and re-seeding the lawn.   It is a reminder to go a bit slower in my attempts to clear and tidy the garden as I don't yet know what else may be hidden.

In the same bed is the plant below, which I think is a euphorbia?

I think this might be a euphorbia too?  The ants seem to like it.

I've no idea what these plants are:

Mystery Plant One

Mystery Plant Two

The little pink flower is on a shrub, whilst the other comes straight out of the ground on a single stem.

I'm on safer ground with the picture below.  It's blossom from a fruit tree.  Some kind of plum, damson or greengage maybe?  I've got to wait until late summer when the fruit has set to be sure which one, but from the shrivelled desiccated old fruits still hanging on the tree from last year, I think it is something of that kind.

And finally - Ta Da! - my apple trees are putting out green buds and leaves.

James Grieves April 2015

I'm relieved, after all my faffing around (details here), getting them into the ground I wasn't sure they were alive, that I hadn't just spent a lot of time planting sticks.  James Grieves is doing the best, then Grenadier and then Blenheim Orange, but all have green shoots.  Phew - Proud Mama!

Speaking of which, finally, finally, here are my girls, out in the garden for the first time this/last week.  Haven't they grown.

"Say Little Hen"

I just could not resist using that title for this post.  I think you'll find it comes from The Good Life - Series One, Ep.2.

This Easter we got 4 chicks, babies only just over a week old.  The Little Foxes only changed schools at last half term (quite a wrench!) and we ask their old school, who take part in the Living Eggs scheme, if we could re-house the chicks that they hatched this year.  On the last day of term we drove back to the old school, picked up our little ladies, peeping noisily in a cardboard box.  They have been living in the nearly renovated boot room at Ash Cottage, in a home-made brooder with a heat lamp, ever since.
We each named one chick, they all had to have names that began with  the letter A.

Please meet:-

Agatha

Anoushka

Ashleigh

Astrid

The Little Foxes LOVE the chicks, and are extremely good at telling them apart.  Astrid is blondest, biggest and bravest and named by Una after the character in How to Train Your Dragon; Ashleigh, Louis named and is a very calm bird; Anoushka, is Mr Fox's little lady and is second largest and rather flighty; Agatha is mine and the youngest, she has only just got some tail feathers and is rather silly and flappy.  We look forward to them supplying us with eggs, around 15 weeks from now.

Possibly even more excited about the presence of chicks than the children is one of our dogs, Bea.  She has spent the last 2 weeks almost permanently at the side of the brooder, as close as she can get, whining quietly but with a very high pitch.  This does not seem to phase the chicks at all, in fact I wonder if the noise is not quite comforting to them.  Maybe they think that attentive, white, fluffy being is their guardian, with no thought but of their comfort and safety.  I think they need to read that informative work of one of my idols, Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck.

Ash Cottage came with a 60ft chicken run, which we have cleared, fixed and down-sized slightly. The Sargies, who cut down our trees and built our garden fences, also built us a chicken house.   Best described as channeling a bee hive it's design is influenced by that wonderful book Rosie's Walk.

Our chicken house could probably house about 10 chickens so I am hoping if all goes well to increase our flock by the end of the year.

Today for the first time this Easter Hols I have had the whole day alone, the children went to the local stables for a pony day.  So, with the help of Bjork, Carole King and Pat Hutchins I painted the chicken house.  Bjork (Debut) & Carole King (Tapestry) I have discovered are very good to paint to.

And the sweet tastin' good life
Is so easily found
A way over yonder
That's where I'm bound

A Way Over Yonder lyrics by Carole King 

Joining in with Mammasaurus' How Does Your Garden Grow again this week:

A is for Apple

In our garden in North London, when I was a child, we had an apple tree.  Its' apples were tastier than any from a store, climbing it was an adventure and reading a book in it's dappled shade a delight.   I knew when we bought Ash Cottage that we would plant apple trees.  I dream of a wild flower meadow with my children climbing in the branches of the trees to sneak early apples from their boughs.  My chickens perched in the low branches.  Bee Hives below, with the bees foraging among the wild flowers.

We have cut down quite a few trees at Ash Cottage in the last few months and I am a little embarrassed by this.  Not to mention concerned that all the birds that I have seen in the garden will not return.  Along with the bird feeders and bird houses now hanging from the remaining trees, I need to do a bit of tree planting.

However, apple trees are not quite as simple to cultivate as I at first thought.  There are pollination groups and root stock to consider, bare root or pot grown saplings to choose from.  Culinary, dessert, cider or dual purpose varieties, early or late fruiting, tree, bush or pollarding to consider.  Position and situation of the orchard to plan.  I don't remember my parents doing anything but picking apples from the apple tree in our garden.  But then it was an established tree by the time we moved in.

So, I've been reading up, and did some research online, and have chosen a group of three heritage trees;
Grenadier
James Grieves
& Blenheim Orange.

The latter was the first to be chosen;

"Blenheim Orange is a large classic English dual-purpose apple, useful for dessert and culinary purposes. It has the characteristic orange flush which is often associated with English apples".   

This last line in the description called to mind the apple tree in my childhood garden, so it was my first choice.  Blenheim Orange is a triploid, this means it needs two other trees to cross pollinate it.
This then dictates the other trees are from within it's pollination group, group 3, or adjacent groups.  I chose another dual purpose apple - James Grieves,

"...raised in Scotland at the end of the 19th century, the height of the Victorian period of apple development in the UK. It is a very juicy apple, producing plenty of sharp-tasting apple juice."

James Grieve is an excellent pollinator for many other apple varieties and is a variety that matures mid-season, while Blenheim Orange is a late variety.  

My final choice was Grenadier, an early season cooking apple, that is apparently "fool-proof" to grow.  I ordered bare root trees.  These are young trees that are dug up whilst the tree is dormant for winter. They can usually be ordered between November and March and need to be in the ground by the end of this month, before the tree comes out of it's dormant period.

They were delivered last Monday by courier, in a box, quite large, bare, twigs with a bit of netting on the bottom.  As they are dormant, they look, well, to be honest, quite dead.  It feels like we have just spent a lot of time planting dead bits of twig in the ground and I keep going out there and gazing at them in the hope of seeing something that looks a bit more alive.  I made the classic error, that I was warned against in my reading, of not preparing the holes before the trees arrived and as my last post details they were delayed going into the ground by a long deeply sunk metal post, or 3.

I ordered the trees on M26 rootstock.  This is a semi-dwarf variety.  Rootstock, and I think I may be becoming an apple tree nerd here, I found fascinating.  Apples trees are made up of 2 parts, the largest part being the scion, which is the fruiting tree of the variety you have chosen, and it's rootstock, which in apple trees is usually another apple tree.  The scion is grafted onto the rootstock primarily to control the size of fruit trees, but also allow trees to grow in local environmental conditions and may provide some disease resistance.   However it is not a straight forward as root-stock = tree size, local conditions, pruning and species of tree all play a part.

I was going for a tree, but not too massive so M26 rootstock is bigger than M9 (which is used in commercial orchards) but smaller than M111.  As apple trees are probably the first trees humans ever intentionally grew for fruit, and have been cultivated for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, we've spent a lot of time messing with them, grafting them onto this, that and the other.

So I know that my M26 rootstock is derived from the M9 (or MIX) rootstock produced in 1917 by the East Malling Research Station in Kent (still up and running; http://www.emr.ac.uk/).  M9 is derived from the Paradise rootstock "Jaune de Metz".  Paradise was the most widely used rootstock in the 19th Century with a wide variety of vigours and no standardisation, until the East Malling Research Station began classifying rootstock and developing new ones for specific purposes in 1912.

I'm sorry, I told you I've become a rootstock nerd.  Anyway I found the whole thing fascinating and it has made me want to plant a mixed fruit orchard.  We have about 6 fruit trees already in the garden; 3 greengage, and 3 damson or plum trees, we think.  There is also a little line of sloe bushes at the end of the garden.  I would like a Quince tree.  Raspberries, gooseberries, black currants and rhubarb are going over in the veggie patch.  And Mum has given me a fig tree, but I think I am going to return that to a plant pot over by the house as it is more sheltered.


READING:

River Cottage Handbook No.9 - Fruit by Mark Diacono
Fork to Fork - Monty & Sarah Don

LINKS:
When I was looking to purchase trees I found both the following nurseries' really helpful and informative both online and in person on the phone.  I only bought from one, but it simply came down to what stock they had available as I was trying to purchase the bare root trees late.

http://www.blackmoor.co.uk/

http://www.orangepippintrees.co.uk/

Joining in with Annie at Mammasaurus for "How Does Your Garden Grow" again this week.

A Little Boy's First Room - Part 2

It was a good few weeks ago that I posted part one of this little tale, A Little Boy's First Room .  I thought I should finish it.  And I wanted to prove that I have been doing things on the house, not just the garden.

So the hideous purple gloss ceiling took 4 coats of paint to conceal; ceiling painted white and walls pale blue.  The far wall was painted black - so we wallpapered over that with a Cath Kidston wallpaper of London landmarks, buses and taxis.

Print from www.rukaruka.co.uk

Louis loves cars (buses and taxis in particular) and he loves animals, so I had said we would go for one or the other as a theme.  In the end we sort of went for both, with my love of London thrown in for good measure.