Does that chicken smell OK to you...?

Our regular readers will still be dealing with the emotional scars of our post last week looking at how a local "cheap" supermarket can stock whole chickens at £3 each and if like us you had previously been Sainsbury shoppers will probably also be testing out the quality of the competition having realised just how expensive their per kilo price is in comparison.  I am afraid there is worse to come and it is right here...

It has been puzzling me since I spent several hours calculating the cost of rearing a chicken ready for the table how it could be done so much cheaper that it can turn a profit at £3 a bird just by increasing the scale of production.  The biggest single cost is the food and just by multiplying the stock numbers you will not reduce the per head feed costs significantly, we know as our flock numbers have grown over the years, yet this is even more true of the table bird industry because if you reduce the amount of per head feed the bird will not grow so big and given the final cost is per kilo a small bird is clearly less profitable.  Sadly my musings on this led me to thoughts of the corner cutting that I have known to go on in the past.  Ideas like keeping the birds in barns with no windows and turning the lights on and off every 8 hours so the chickens live their lives quicker than the natural length of days.  I know that battery houses have been found to do this in the past to prompt the hens to lay eggs more often but would this also mean that chicks would grow quicker?  Another musing I had was of keeping the temperature in the barn a few degrees higher than is comfortable as this prompts the birds to drink more and adds to the weight as well as cramming in so many birds that they can barely move so they dont walk about and use any energy for anything other than producing body mass.  Are these the techniques being employed in current table bird rearing conditions?

The video below comes with my 'brace yourself' warning.  It is a none too pleasant filming of the conditions of one chicken farm in Norfolk and the conditions the birds are kept in, which by any of our standards are appalling.  There is so much wrong with the condition of these birds I would have no intention of placing this meat in my cats' bowls let alone on the plates my girlfriend and me.  It is not the dead birds laying decomposing that most shocked me though, it is the amount of chick down still visible around the necks and wings of these chicks, as that is what they really are, that is so unnatural alongside the size of their bodies.  It is not surprising they have so little feathers as they are probably only 6 weeks old and have yet to feather up, in fact with their bodies growing at the rate they are there would not be enough feathers to cover all the flesh on those that have managed to feather themselves.  One chick is even trying to practice natural chicken behaviours of preening his or her few stubbly feathers in an attempt to continue with the illusion of being a regular chicken.

Thanks to the work of Hillside Farm Animal Investigations you can treat yourself to the reality of Green Acres Chicken Farm in Norfolk right here by clicking on the image below...

Stunning that a place called Green Acres manages to sound lovely and pastoral doesn't allow the chickens to even see the sunlight that falls upon a single green acre. But more concerning are the following thoughts that came to me whilst watching this footage.  The guy packing the birds ready to head off to the 'dressing facility' had no problem grabbing the birds as they can barely move in the first place, but some of the ones he is packing appear not even to flap a wing when hung by their legs in his hands.  Are these birds already dead or near death? He then jams them in the packing case drawers and could very easily kill one, two or several in the method he uses to shut the drawers, so potentially some of the birds are dead in these cases.  Let's assume he starts packing them at 7am and is done by 10am, the lorry arrives at 11am and reaches the 'dressing facility' by 3pm where they are either humanely killed or possibly as is common practice dumped in boiling water and thrown in one end of the dressing machine still barely alive, but of course by this stage some of the birds could well have been dead for over 8 hours already.  Is it likely the people tipping the birds from these cases into the broiler machine will notice or bother with the odd dead bird?
Now move to the next stage these birds come out of the far end of the 'dressing facility' on polystyrene trays covered in neat cling film wrap and a sticky label probably bearing the little red tractor sign of quality.  They make their way to the shelves of your finest supermarket and then into your fridge.  Have you ever unwrapped a pack of chicken breasts and thought the smell was not as fresh as it might be?  Have you wondered in recent years how come the packs of mini breast fillets that you can buy are getting so big they are nearly the size of a chicken breast themselves?
So stop your day for a moment and just ponder where these chickens might go next.  Which supermarkets stock this quality of meat?  Who puts this in their pies and wraps? Which restaurants buy a bucket load of these chicken pieces for their curries and coq au vins?  Which chefs take in vacuum packs of the bones and scraggy bits from these birds to use for making stock?
I have a bet for you here...I bet some much higher classed establishments are using this meat than the ones you have just pondered.  It is amazing when profit is involved and the price is right how standards fly out the window, and after all who is going to know once it is marinated and turned into tasty food?

So what are the solutions?
Well first in case you were confused this is what a six week old chicken should look like...but of course not kept on the kitchen table as in this pic..!

Secondly the decision can be as simple as taking to a vegetarian diet.  But if you are a lover of decent meat products then find your local farm where you can buy their meat in the farm shop and see the next batch running free in their green acres.

But it has to run deeper than this if we truly want to impact the conditions in which animals are kept.  We have to start asking in restaurants where the meat is from and can they show you or describe to you the conditions the animals are kept in.  Of course some restaurant owners will have rehearsed answers ready to trip off the tongues of every waiter and waitress but you having this conversation will alert them to the raised awareness of their customers, it will be over heard (if you are as loud as me) by other diners and they too will begin to think and question the origin of their meal.

The choices are many but the decision has to be yours.  To end on a Tuesday morning lighter note here again are some chooks that are very well cared for and will not be thrown into a packing crate ever.

Power of the rain...

I am not completely sure it is just the rain that is responsible but I have a surge of creative energy this morning that I have not had for a few weeks.  We have been wading through our jobs todo list over recent days, trying to squeeze in the occasional cycle, be resourceful by making planters and growing structures whilst turning over veggie beds in preparation for autumn sowing of onions and garlic.  But over the past weeks despite still hopping out of bed at 6.40am to tend to cats and chickens and have an early morning cuppa in the garden office enjoying the fresh crisp morning air and accompanying sounds it has then been a bit of a trudge to get moving.  Each day we have either been meeting some calendared appointment or other, or heading off to markets in search of the buying masses and before you know it the night is drawing in and it has felt like little has been achieved that is new, exciting or innovative.  It is challenges of this nature that really float my boat and I imagine there are those of you who would claim this slight dull-drum experience has been due to the onset of autumn and changing of the season, but I love the weather patterns, I embrace the mist, mizzle and chilly edge, so to what can I attribute this slightly lack lustre passage in our journey? I have no idea. Truly it is OK to say I do not know as an answer to any posed question if it is the genuine answer.

A tangential moment to just mention here we recently visited Sainsburys on the Greenwich Peninsular to check out their provision for vegans.  Whilst at their deli counter we saw a green V on some produce and a green leaf with vegetarian written across it on others.  We enquired of the lady on the cheese counter who told us she thought it meant vegetarian but was not sure of the vegan sign so would ask her more experienced colleague.  He firmly told us the V showed it was vegetarian and on special offer.   Somewhat confused by this we pointed out some produce not on special offer with the V on the ticket, he said these were Vegan foods.  "Are you sure?" I enquired and pointed out the chorizo sausage carrying the V emblem.  "Yes" he firmly replied, "this is fine for vegans, not for vegetarian but is good for vegans!"  Somewhat shocked at this response I suggested he really did not know the answer, and it was fine to say so rather than give me inaccurate information.  But he would not have it, he was offended that I might suggest his answer was not correct. So all I need to find now is a meat eating vegan to try some and see if it is any good!.  When I suggested to him it is OK to say I don't know and will find out rather than make up any answer as it is quite important, he walked off upset with my suggestion of his lack of knowledge.

So back to my response to where this creative spurt has come from, well unless there was an unscheduled spurt delivery I was not aware of it must be the rain.  I am a rain lover.  There it is out there now.

When in New Zealand I used to love the rain when it would appear on a sunny afternoon and all the locals would throw open the windows and sniff it in saying how they could smell the tarmac on the road, and it was true you could too.  In Oz the rain would often bring a layer of red dust with it which would coat the car, cabin, deck, beach, in fact just about everything had a layer of red dust next morning and the whole country would unite in hosing it towards the nearest creek, one morning I saw an iguana walk across the deck of my cabin coated in a layer of red rain dust...made her look very tropical indeed.  In spain the campsites prepare for rain by digging moats around every awning and groundsheet because when the rain comes it hammers down for a few hours then steams lightly for another three until everything is dry and sweaty.  But my favourite rain experience has to be in Evian on lake Geneva when the locals hang out of their windows shouting "Tempête!!...Fermer les Fenêtres!" and one by one like a mexican wave the shutters crash across the windows of every residence.  All camping residents grab every article they can and rush them inside.  Tent window vents are zipped shut and sun roofs closed firm.  Anyone who heeds not the warning of the local mountain folk will without doubt have wet feet within the next ten minutes.  I was one of those cautious types who grabbed the chairs, broom and towels and threw them in the campervan.  Shut the windows and rear doors which had been allowing in a lovely summer breeze not more than five minutes earlier and sitting inside looking very pleased indeed had failed to notice the sun roof was still open.  The Tempête arrived at speed with a gale forced wind, unzipped the underside of the cloud cover and unceremoniously dumped the entire contents of its moisture collection on our heads in sheets.  The water ran in the sun roof straight onto my Motorola phone of the day... sizzle..., pop..., fizz..., glug ... it died instantly in front of my eyes.  I could barely shut the sun roof due to the pressure of the wind that had whipped under it, but managed to hang on it and squeeze it closed.  Taking one of my dry trusty towels I snapped open the phone to remove, chip battery and any other working part and laid them out to dry on the dashboard, only to be the luckiest person in Geneva when I put it together next morning and it all worked again.  But yes lesson learned about rain in Evian.
So based on my experience of rain soaked moments it is no surprise I am often to be found in the outdoor office when the rain is splashing on the polycarbonate roof.  It makes a lovely pinging sound and somehow when it is a little gloomy it always seems brighter under the dry roof than elsewhere in the garden...not actually possible given poly-C allows 80% light penetration but its an optical illusion that I like very much.
The freshness of the earth smells is another plus and the chill breezes that mingle the aromas of nearby gardens with ours is just an added bonus.  I had better stop here otherwise I envisage one of you sending a van round to cart me off to the local "lost-it" facility if I continue my rambling love of the wet stuff.  Anyway it can be the only reason for the return of the creative juices and vim and vigor of past months and I must now put those to good use and spend a wet day moving on some of the creative projects we are involved in at the moment.... depending on progress there might even be an update here later...
Go on get your wellies on and a brolly and take a wet walk round your garden or the local park, its a different place in the rain.

Our good friend Pete running the rain gauntlet to get fresh corn for lunch (NZ 2001)

Testing ... Testing ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... Testing..!

There are lots of things I love about twitter and have blogged previously about the advantages of a carefully worded comment in the twitter-sphere which has bought us free tickets, gifts, and lots and lots of free advice and info from fellow growers and urban farmers.  But it has to be said that one of my most favourite things about this electronic media is not the voyeuristic opportunities it offers when celebs wear their heart on their sleeve nor the immediate nature of its newsreel when a world-wide event occurs, it is the opportunity it gives us to maintain a distant contact with other likeminded souls. These contacts we will probably never stand on the same square metre of the planet with simultaneously, but we can observe their projects, plans and ideas and in turn see the outcomes and their thoughts on future developments, and they ours.  It is from just such an encounter that we are currently trialling a new style of veg growing.  In the past we have been garden sowers, setting seeds in drills into the soil in which they will mature.  We have used propagators, seed trays and pricking out techniques but almost exclusively for the production of bedding plants and cucumbers which never seem to take well directly in the soil.

However due to twitter chatter with a good guy growing micro veg in the midlands we are trialling sowing all our veg into seed trays, pricking them out or transplanting them in slices into growing planters and thinning them out from there to provide sufficient room for development.
The early signs are superb.  The germination rates on seeds sown in this way is massively improved on those directly into soil.  I suppose having 2 cats who love to dig and a resident urban fox that passes through most weeks was always going to give a negative return on drills set in the garden and even our attempts to use netting as a deterrent to all of these visitors to the veg beds only improved the return by about 25%.
We set a packet of beets, one of carrots and one of spring onions in seed trays and within 10 days transplanted 2 planters with beets spaced about 2" apart, 2 trays of spring onions about 1" spacing and a full tray packed with carrots which we will thin out in the coming weeks as they mature into baby plants.  It is our intention to harvest all of these as baby veg, so small sweet beets, likewise junior carrots and lovely thin crisp scallions to dress a salad or be chopped into noodle dishes and the like.



The planters have not cost us a penny as my pallet fetish continues to thrive and in fact be supported by more twitter friends who have offered us their unwanted bases which we in turn strip down to planks and give them a new lease of life as a planter lined with old compost bags poked with drainage holes.
We are now planning some free standing planter holders from our latest haul of free timber, just like the ones sold at garden centres for £100 a piece but ours will cost us nothing other than the time and effort.
So early signs of our test-beds (nice...did you see what i did there!!) is much better yield per packet of seeds, next step is to see how the final produce shapes up...
Watch this space in coming weeks for the results and yet again...

Thanks Twitter.

The Poultry Dressing Facility...!

Whilst I have very much told myself off twice this week for failing to get a new blog post on here in over a week it is also true to say I am at a loss to know which soapbox to jump on and could without taking breath quite easily rant on for over a  hour or two on any one of a number of current issues burning a hole in my head and heart.  But at risk of heading off at a tangent about Michael Gove and his ridiculous exam reform or banging on about the anonymity afforded to the murderer of yet another young life on the local streets whilst the poor dead boy has his story flaunted across front pages for all to see I will make a firm effort to focus on just the one issue that fell in my lap as I opened the free newspaper this week.

This joyful little advert fell form my copy of the News Shopper and I am sure received a somewhat different response on my garden table than it did in some other households in our avenue.  Instead of scurrying off to find my local Nisa store and load up on chicken ready for a weekend roast I was instead astounded that whatever and wherever Nisa is they can afford to stock their shelves with a chicken for just £3.
Having signed many a petition in support of dairy farmers in recent months to try to help them receive a fairer deal with the price they are paid for a pint of the white stuff I cannot overlook this worrying pattern that seems to be spreading into the poultry farming arena.
So I tried to reason how this could be possible and what treatment this chicken may have experienced before it became a household name across every Nisa trading region.
So let's just stop for a minute and consider the life of this product from the moment it used it's egg tooth to break out of the shell and peer into the world to it arriving on a chilled shelf coated in plastic.

By my fairly basic reckoning the following things have taken place; Chick hatches, fed on high protein chick crumb and kept warm, clean and dry for 6-8 weeks.  Birds are generally slaughtered for the table between 42 - 56 days old, it needs plucking, gutting and tying ready for packaging. Then placed on the plastic dish and cling film wrapped, add a sticker and it is ready for the shelf. Of course in there will also be transport from the hatchery to the brooding shed and transport to the slaughter house and then to the supermarket.

So my next logical step was to try to break down these costs to see how a final price of £3 is possible to provide Nisa with their required profit.  I will take a shot at this but would appreciate any of you having a go at correcting my sums if you think I have under or over spent in any area:

The figures in brackets are the costs for raising chicks yourself on a small-holding so I have assumed commercial farms can work at half this cost:

Cost of chick (£1.50)  75p [possibly as low as 36p if buying fertile eggs and using incubators]
Heating (25p)  12p
Transport to brood shed  (12p)  6p
Feed for 6 weeks (assuming minimum lifetime used) (£2.20)  £1.10
Care for 6 weeks (cleaning and supplying fresh water) (N/A*) 10p
Transport to slaughter house  (12p)  6p
Slaughter (N/A*)
Plucking (N/A*)
Gutting (N/A*)
Tying (N/A*)
* All of these are provided by the smallholder at no cost other than time.
A chicken processing machine, carefully named a poultry dressing facility by providers, can do 10 000 chickens per day and it is not unknown for chickens to go in one end alive and appear out the other end having had their guts squeezed out under pressure rollers so the person gutting just grabs the guts and cuts the connecting tissue around the neck which of course saves even more money on not having to actually humanely kill the birds. So the cost of processing per bird is likely to be about 6p To include the per chicken cost of the knife wielder let's say another 10p.
Packaging 2p
Label 2p
Transport to supermarket 6p

Total for the smallholder is £4.29 assuming you give your time for care, slaughter, plucking gutting and packing free of charge to yourself as a smallholder which provides a free range quality product probably a little heavier than the small bird in the image above.
Total for commercial production £2.06

So at a price of £3, it would appear Nisa are making approx 94p per chicken, a profit margin of 45% which must be one of the lowest on the shelves of most supermarkets.  Now my question remains why do they do this?  Why mass produce poor quality chicken that cannot be treated with real care and attention at the speed and rates they have to work to provide a bird too small for a family and lacking in the flavour and nutrition of a free range quality one makes little or no positive contribution to the food supply in Bexley or any other area in which they have a store.

A little surf checking shows me the price of a similar sized whole chickens in other stores is very comparable ;
Nisa for 1.4kg chicken : £2.14/kg
Sainsburys £2.96/kg or 3 for £10
Waitrose £2.18/kg
Asda £2.07/kg
Tesco £2.29 /kg
Whereas the average price of a free range small chicken is £5.09/kg

Yet this chicken has the little red tractor sign so surely it is good quality, isn't it? Well this means it was produced to  "Assured Food Standards" where a little read of their website will reassure you they work to standards of  "safety, hygiene, animal welfare and the environment amongst other things." The foods are "Produced to independently inspected standards" and "Meets the standards you expect for you and your family" Well if my reckoning of the costs is in any way accurate it cannot meet my high standards of care for farm animals given how cheaply it has had to be produced.  It is interesting how the Little Red Tractor website carefully avoids defining the standards, they are not high standards, not legal standards, not even good standards, just the standards.  In addition the website does not provide any detail of these standards as they are applied by their inspectors.  No mention of how many poor little chicks are crammed in a shed together, or whether they have access to daylight at all.  Not a comment about acceptable methods of slaughter that can be used among many other concerns that this has raised in my mind as the farmer, processor and supermarket work to cut costs in order to raise their profit margin.!

So what have I concluded from this post, well firstly we shop in the most expensive local supermarket, so that can stop right now and it's back to the markets for provisions for us and secondly maybe it is time we had another stint on the pescatarian diet we have enjoyed in the past...so how do they slaughter prawns...?
Here's one chick that is never going to face the angst of the 'Poultry dressing facility"..!

This way to the start line...

It has been my wish over the past months to use this lifestyle change not only to massively improve our emotional and mental health by stepping out of the rat race and into developing our own business but also to have an impact on our physical health by taking every opportunity to include exercise and healthy eating into our daily routines.  I can safely evaluate our success so far as top class in the emotional and mental health improvement zone, but frighteningly poor in the physical aspects.

It is true to say that everyone that I bump into who used to work with me in a school environment cannot pass without comment about how well I look and how relaxed I appear.  Now I must have looked shocking for all the years when turning up to school at 7.30am given the huge improvement being remarked upon since we changed our lives.
We have gained a sense of calm in our lives, we allow ourselves to have days off when the mood takes us or when the weather and events are most inviting.  It's odd to describe but I can feel the inside of my head is less crammed with things to remember, things that are vital to be done by yesterday and things that just rumble around in there driving my senses mad at 4am when I would wake in the dark with a good idea or irritated by some ridiculous comment or suggestion from someone who tells everyone they know what they are talking about but in reality hasn't a clue.
We still work hard, very hard, in fact when the outcomes are for the benefit of your very own business it is incredibly rewarding to work hard and reap the rewards in whatever the aim.  Whether it is physical labour in making planters and weeding beds or the frustrations of tying down market organisers to secure a stall for trading purposes, it is all equally rewarding when you are achieving goals that we have set for our business.  Not in the selfish way that this sounds, because often the pleasure is in seeing the people you have arranged party catering for are overwhelmed at the quality and beauty of the platters you deliver or just seeing the smiles of appreciation on mates' faces when you drop in some home grown produce or better still swap ours for theirs as we are these days.
In this my evaluation of the first few months it would also be fair to include a huge increase in healthier foods being eaten.  We have always grown our own, but in the past not always been as inventive or experimental as we might in using them to create truly scrummy dinners.  Now we have the time to read about the successes of other growers and avid foodies and experiment for ourselves, so yes we make all our own breads, crackers and biscuits as well as making home made tarts, pies, wraps and the like to use our beautiful harvest rewards. However all this tasty scrummy food has not been good for the waistlines and without an increased exercise program will not bode well for the future. This give the final fair assessment of our physical health as could do much better.



I think this means our report card looks a bit like this:
Emotional and Mental Health A*
Physical Health D-
Overall progress towards long and happy life C+



Now I have delivered units in BTEC courses which included huge projects on improving a client's health and wellbeing.  I have graded students work down when they write huge plans insisting the client will eat half a grapefruit for breakfast,  have cottage cheese on Ryvita biscuits every day for lunch, and boiled chicken salad for tea 6 days out of 7 and a pizza on day 7 as reward for being so good.  One time I had so many of these poor diet plans presented that I went to Asdas bought all these hideous foods they were suggesting and made them try them.  Plain cottage cheese on celery stick was least favourite and soon removed from all their diet sheets.  They also lost lots of marks for arranging their client's weekly exercise classes every evening and most of the weekend which barely left time for a bedtime story with the client's children or the watching of a single TV programme.  Now I am not a keen telly viewer myself but the point was the exercise needed to fit into the daily life of the client, not encompass every waking moment and of course cost the earth given gym class prices.  I suppose the clients may have lost weight due to lack of disposable income to spend on food once they had signed up to spin, bum and tum, jog, swim, moon walk and gym ball their way around the floor of every polished wooden floor in south east london.
So no excuses I am perfectly placed to sort this problem out and include more exercise in our daily lives.  In fact we began just that a few weeks ago and now have 2 beautiful pieces of modern art that live side by side on the drive and used to be called cars.  One of these we occasionally take out when collecting Freegle loads too big for the bikes or going to trade at markets and we can carry the bikes on the back of it so it does facilitate our plans to take part in longer coastal cycle adventures.  But this process will work best if we use our bikes wherever possible to go to the shops, pop to the post office and visit friends as well of course as walking to places.  It is beginning to work and I am feeling stronger and a bit fitter already.  Alongside this comes the use of our own tasty fruit and veg in fresh healthy meals which we are working on too and further into the future I have a crazy plan for a mobile selling bike...but that needs some more thought and design ideas...shame I have stopped waking up at 4am with brilliant inspirations, will just have to try sitting in the sun dep in thought and hope the answers come that way.

Happy Sunday one and all...off on the bikes now to plan some party catering and swap more fruit and veg, have fun.

Reward for rapid return...

Ok give it back... If you stole the first week of September or have hidden it somewhere then please return it immediately.  Is it just us or did the first week of this wonderful month just fly past in silence without so much as a ripple of air to evidence it's movement?
What with the return of the masses from holidays, then the return to school for all those spending their daylight hours in centres of learning across the area it has been a busy time of welcome back coffee brunches and catch ups on the plans for the coming months that take us into the short days and cold fronts that will no doubt soon be upon us.  Amidst all of this we have had a busy time with lots of projects and growing developments and have to admit to being less than attentive to this blog, but having enthused at the growth in our reader numbers over the past month we will now try harder again, promise.
The round up of the first 7 days of September brings you good news that little Peep, now named Lady Hoshi is growing well and bossing the flock about as well as playing face off games with her dad.  He bustles her to stay together with the others when they are wandering the garden and she runs off and dances about in front of him then they both stare each other out and stand face to face for a minute of so until one gives in to blinking or the need to peck for food.  It's a very odd but enchanting bit of chicken behaviour we have never seen before and puts you in mind of a little girl running rings round her dad and driving him mad with her silly games.  We will have to try to catch it on video soon.
We have put our Freegle pallets and boards to good use not only adding some much needed shelves to our airing cupboard but also creating larger veggie planters which we have all along the side of the house now catching the maximum daytime sunshine hours and have planted out more beets, carrots, lettuce and spring onions.  We will report on the success rates at the end of this trial but early signs show the germination rate of seeds grown in trays and transplanted to larger planters is hugely improved on the direct sowing into the garden beds.  We have done some fruit and veg swapping with friends who have provided us with tasty fruit from their gardens in return for chutneys or veggies from ours. The week did not pass without us managing to squeeze in another couple of Paralympic visits during which we managed to marvel at the beauty of Greenwich Park as a venue, see 4 GB Golds won, sing loud to the National anthem repeatedly and experience the most amazing night in the main stadium watching some of the hardest working para-athletes ever.  A timely reminder if anyone needs one that anything you really want is worth working hard for.
The season is definitely running a little late by average standards due mainly to the long wet cold period at the start of summer which means all our summer tubs and baskets are still in full bloom and looking awesome so taking geranium cuttings and the like will begin this week and our winter bedding plants still have a month or so to grow on in their trays before the space will be available for them to be planted out.  Call me a genius but thats why I left sowing the winter bedding until later than usual too, or call me a little disorganised and lucky.!

Big news for our business is that we have booked ourselves into lots of exciting markets in and around the local area and have been really welcomed by the market and fair organisers.  Some of the Christmas markets are now being arranged and we have also managed to secure stalls at some of those so trading hours are very much open in the coming months and we are busy ensuring our stock levels are high enough to cater for the anticipated trade.  Our to do list is headed up with the task of updating our website and Facebook page to let everyone know where they can find us and our tasty produce.
Finally we have discovered a top money saving tip that we can share with you all.  If you want to reduce your grocery shopping bill go to the shop on your bike.  It is impressive how many bulky items you decide you don't really need when you contemplate the idea of dragging them home on the back of your bike....so get peddling.

A serious challenge to all growers...

And the answer is .... Jimson weed or Datura Stramonium ... just don't eat it.!

Jimson Weed, (scientific name Datura stramonium) is a toxic  plant found all over Illinois.  Some of its other common names include devil’s trumpet, thorn apple,  Jamestown weed, stinkweed, and  locoweed.  Ingestion of parts of the plant can cause delirium (inability to differentiate reality from fantasy), hallucinations, elevated temperature, flushed skin, fast heart rate,  and agitation (bizarre, and possibly violent behaviour).  The changes in mental status can last for days in cases of severe intoxication.

All parts of the plant can be considered toxic, but the leaves, juices and seeds can cause the most effects.  The plant is a perennial blooming plant; the leaves and flowers bloom in the spring and summer and the seeds set in the late summer and fall.

Ok here's the details:

This little beauty is a bushy plant that bears a large white trumpet flower and this very spiky seed pod or fruit...not sure which.

It is growing in the garden of a house that the parents of a friend of ours  have recently moved into in southern France and in his words has grown out of the middle of a pile of chicken poo...

So our question to you is what is it?

Please use the comments option at the bottom of this post to give your answers and if you would like to win a small selection of our deli produce by special delivery for being the first with a correct answer then you will need to provide an email address in your post.

Good luck...

Someone at work once said "Take more risks!"...

So here goes:
Today we have been doing one of the things we love most, experimenting in the kitchen.  Trying out new flavours and combinations.  Scanning through recipes that others have shared online or in books and seeing how we can add a streetgrowers twist to these things.
This is not just an adventure that we experience alone as we have a group of 10 or more friends coming over tomorrow for an afternoon tea tasting session.  So all of the wonders we have conjured today will be laid out for them to try and the afternoon tea menu looks a little like this at the moment:

• Scones with a choice of jams including; strawberry and vodka, raspberry and vanilla, orange and cointreau, cranberry and orange or plum and toffee vodka.
• Mini English tea muffins toasted.
• Rustic wholemeal bread
• Selection of cheeses and cured meats
• Selection of chutneys including apple and pear, spicy tomato and apple, cranberry and apple with port, pear and onion with brandy
• Filo wraps with salmon, prawn and tomato
• Filo wraps with crab and home made chilli sauce
• Courgette and chocolate cake
• Boiled fruit and orange and cointreau loaf
• Baileys fudge
• Mini toffee apple bites

Lets not forget all of this is home made by us, apart from the filo pastry and the cheese and meat selections of course.

It is very rewarding that several friends who cannot come tomorrow RSVPed by saying how upset they are that they are busy with Paralympic events on the day and demanded to know when the next taste event would be!

So where is the risk in all of this...well here it comes.  Being that these are friends coming over tomorrow and its lovely to catch up with their summer events we obviously dont charge them to come, but tomorrow they have a task to complete:

Following the afternoon tea they are asked to please go to this blog and add a comment giving your views on the food you have eaten, the flavours, quality, textures, in fact the whole afternoon tea experience.

This is a live blog and no comments are vetted first so the risk is in us receiving comments that may not be favourable and the world will see them, but hey if you can't be honest about your products then you can't be proud of them we reckon.!

So roll on Friday when we all will see how we got on.

Fabulous Eltham Pleasaunce...

It's been a pretty full on week once again, in fact it seems we often forget to give ourselves days off which can be a downfall of working for yourself when weekends are often work days.  But the good side of that coin is that when you do want to take off-days you can choose them based on the weather and the events that are going on, so every cloud and all that.

So all this hard work has been keeping up with tasks and doing quite a bit of freelance work whilst preparing for the 'Summer Sizzler' at The Tudor Barn in Eltham.  This is a Greenwich council run event that happens twice or three times a year on bank holidays and includes a range of stalls offering local produce alongside some charity and fair stalls with competitions as well as live music, BBQ and of course the bar is always open.
We had taken a stock of our jams, jellies and chutneys as well as our range of flavoured oils and some extras including toffee apples, flapjack and some recycled planters planted up with herbs or flowers all home grown, home made and looking fabulous in their smart professional labels.

It was great having an event on our doorstep as we have previously had a 45 minute drive or more to get to the venues but for this one it was 5 minutes down the road and the access gates were open which led us straight to a really superb bloke in charge of the event on behalf of Greenwich council.  There was a moment of concern when he realised we were the second company offering jams and chutneys, but made a top decision to take us round to meet the other stall holder and have a chat about the situation.  The other 'jam lady' was not over pleased to find she did not have a monopoly on the provision for the day but after a little chat, realising we were both very local and all home made she seemed happy with our offer to set up pitch on the other side of the pleasaunce.  It did give a bit of a damp start to the day but then we just got on with setting up and having a good day rather than worrying about competitive issues, after all our view is if people like your produce they will buy it however many jam stalls there are.

Timed to perfection we were all set up and ready to rock and roll 35 minutes later and the stall was looking great.  We are very proud of our home grown look rather than a corporate or commercial looking outfit with flashy banners and flags that make you feel you have wandered into the ideal home show.
The place filled up even before the 10am start time and just kept coming, with lovely people from all over the local area.  We bumped into a number of people that we knew, which was all very likely given I have spent over 20 years teaching in the local area.  All of them were really friendly and interested in our goods as was everyone that came to our stall.  Lovely humour and chatter, lots of compliments about our produce and people really admiring the recycled planters and loving them for their imperfections rather than commercially pressed plastic moulded perfection.  I cannot recall anyone trying our produce who didn't buy something and the toffee apples were a real surprise hit too, so many people telling us they havent seen them for ages and having one for reminiscence as well as the idea they could munch through the sweet toffee convinced it was good for them due to the crunchy apple centre. It was very rewarding seeing people walking about the park enjoying chomping into one of our apples.

One of the planters was bought by a woman whose husband said "You never cook with herbs" to which she said "That's because I have never grown any".  So it was lovely knowing she took away a herb box to grow on her kitchen window ledge as a new experience, and we hope her cooking benefits from it too.
But the overriding memory of the day was the wonderful community attitude of all the people who came down to the pleasaunce.  Eltham has for too long been synonymous with racism, a tragic murder and a sense of BNP thugs gathering outside pubs intimidating the public. Even during the riots of last summer with the burning down of towns all over SE London and not an incident of looting being seen in Eltham at all they still managed to attract negative press for gathering as a community and warning any potential looters to keep their hands off their high street. This is not the Eltham I know and love and so far from the wonderful togetherness experienced yesterday that it is worthy of as many column inches as can be grabbed by any local or national press, tweeter, Facebooker or blogger.  The community came from the Eltham Heights area right across Middle Park and into the edge of Sutcliff Park and the new Kidbrooke village.  The mix of backgrounds was fabulous, so many family groups spending the day together with kids, parents, grandparents all sharing the event and treating each other to gifts as they shopped.  The inquisitive questioning of our produce and that of other stalls was fascinating and discussion about what they planned to do with their purchases was lovely, they really cared about what they were getting and showed huge appreciation for our efforts to bring it to our local area.

Thank you Eltham for a great day, a truly wonderful community that makes us proud of our local area.

Catering for the needs of others...

One of the strings to our bow so to speak is our luxury party catering foods which are all sourced locally or grown in our own little urban farm.  Everything is hand made at home, fresh for your booking.  Food can be delivered ready for you to pop in the oven and carry to the table as if you have made all that effort yourself for your very fine guests.  

Although you can decide exactly which foods are included the general mix includes mini pies, tarts, filo wraps containing a wide range of exciting flavours using our sauces and chutneys alongside great local cheese, fish meat and veggies.  Also you can expect a range of artisan breads, pâtés, cheese straws and crispy hearts.  Scotch eggs are made using Kentish pork and our Bantam eggs from our own flock and as to the veggie fritters well in our experience they are tried once and constantly returned to with or without our tasty dips.
So if you are catering for the needs of others in the near future, or throwing a BBQ and want a spread of tasty foods to work alongside the spit roast you have planned then look no further and give us a call to discuss the details.

Click here to find contact details.

What is Olympic record for nest box making?...

Yesterday was one of those epic ones where even though we were all moving slowly because of the Equatorial temperatures we got absolutely loads done and then some.  We set off pretty much at the crack of dawn heading to the auctions and had a superb time dipping in and out of the bidding finally coming away with 4 beautiful new ladies.

They are crested cream legbars and are about 12 weeks old. So looking forward to their first blue eggs, yes they lay blue eggs, we chatted over the options on the way home for how we introduce them to the rest of our flock.  Health wise they look great and are fully vaccinated so no need to quarantine them so we decided best foot forward was to let our 3 old girls out for the afternoon, pop these new pretty ones into their large coop and then wait for the evening bed time ritual before we see how they are going to measure up to living together.

Well Plan A went well...Not.

Within minutes of being together the old girls just went for them full on grabbing at their feathers and dragging them out from under the main coop.  Not the best meet and greet ever.

So we separated the large run down the middle with a wire frame and that way they settled reasonably well but still a bit fractious in close proximity. But there was nothing more for it they would have to spend the night apart and see what joys the morning brought.  However we had a nagging worry about the old girls laying their eggs on the run floor in the early hours and then getting inquisitive and having a little taste of their bounty.  As any discerning chicken keeper will tell you once you have an egg eater in the flock you have trouble.  So determined to avoid this we decided what they needed was a quick spare nest box so out came the work bench, hammer, nails and saw at 7.08pm and this is what happened next....

7.08pm
Scavenged floorboards from Freegle and 4 blocks from an old pallet are nailed together to make the base.
















7.14pm
One new 2m piece of baton from the garage is cut to lengths to form side struts, more boards as walls nailed to batons and in turn locked into place as back and sides.















7.23pm
With sides and back firmly joined a front bar/perch is added

7.26pm
Roof is cut to length and nailed in place
















7.42pm Some bedding is added and the temporary nest box looks more like a solid permanent structure ready for advertising on laterooms.com















Now that is what I call speedy DIY, 34 mins from beginning to end with plans developed in our heads as we went, but more to the point it will also be a really useful broody box for next spring once we get all our birds acquainted and living in harmony in their coops.

NEWSFLASH:
This morning we woke with a moment of inspiration which cannot be claimed by the Olympic movement, we have moved the big old girls into the smaller Bantam coop, which was theirs way back in the day and they have laid their eggs in there very happily this morning, and now we have the 4 new ladies in with Dr Horatio, his girls and the little Lady Hoshi...we will see how this new found friendship works out...

Winning at the auctions...

What a top morning despite the 80 degree heat we trundled off to Country Chicks auction just outside Faversham this morning to add to our flock.  Now this auction lark is a canny art and nothing like Cash in the Attic, so I wonder if a few tips might be useful for everyone and feel free to add your own in the comments.

1: Download the catalogue online in advance of the day and have a browse through, making a note of anything you might be interested in.
Remember of course some lots will change on the day, some sellers will not turn up and of course you are sat at home with a lovely cup of tea sporting your best rose tinted glasses, so Lot 106: 2 fully vaccinated POL hens Light sussex does not tell the full story, but the catalogue is a good place to start.

2: Arrive nice and early so you can have a good look at the lots in advance of the rush of bidding.

Obviously this will mean perusing the cages a few times as some sellers always arrive at the last minute but in general our practice is to peruse the aisles looking in all cages in case something really exciting has arrived unexpectedly as a replacement or late entry but also checking in on the lots we have marked off in the catalogue.

3: Check the health and quality of any lot you might bid on.
Have a good look at the birds you plan to bid on. Make sure their eyes, nose, ears, legs and feet look healthy and free from disease.  Check for bald patches due to pecking and have a good look at the overall stance of them.  it can be difficult when they are crammed in a tiny box with just a small thick piece of netting to peep through.  My advice if this is the case is either find the seller to show them to you or steer well clear of them, there may well be a reason you cant see them very well.  Don't be put off by panting or slightly runny bums on the day often the experience of being in the auction room can be hot noisy and frightening for birds so expect to see them react to this.  But make sure the birds you are about to take home to join your flock look healthy and free from disease, otherwise you might be taking home more than you bargained for.

4: Get a feel for the prices and other bidders around on the day.
By being close up to the action for the early lots you can get a feel for how much money is in the room.  If you know the rough price of the birds at a local farm then you can gauge the prices in the auction room from that marker which will help you decide how much to bid for anything.

5: Be sure to make eye contact.
Whilst the last thing you want to do is be mistaken for a bidder on a lot you have no interest in it is worth making sure you make eye contact in the early bidding with the auctioneer.  All of the ones we have come across have been very experienced at working the room, but a new one has to start one day so make eye contact and make sure she or he is aware of you in the crowd, this way it is easier when a lot you want comes up.

6: Step firmly into the bidding when your turn comes.
Don't dither or you will miss out, and don't jump in right at the start you might pay too much (if the auctioneer says lets start at twenty and you say yes you will pay at least twenty depending on other bidders, but if you wait and no-one else says yes the auctioneer will say who will start me at 15, or 10 so you start lower and then depending on how much others will pay you could get a real bargain), but when you do bid be firm and confident then other bidders know you are serious. Have a maximum price in mind and try not to pass it unless the lot is really special and a one off.

7: Make sure you are good for the money.
Always take enough cash with you to cover your purchases. Most auctions don't touch cheques and still don't chip and pin without charging you another additional fee. But before bidding make sure you know what buyer fees there are.  Some auctions add 10% buyer fee to the hammer price, some don't have a buyer fee at all and the seller has to pay a higher %, but whatever the setup make sure you know the details and how it will impact your bids.  For example this morning we bid £40 and paid £40 as there was no buyer fee, at the auction last month in Maidstone we would have paid £44 as there was a 10% buyer premium to add at the till.


8: Take your box just in case.
We have been to some auctions not intending to buy as the catalogue had nothing exciting in it for us, yet when we got there we found some lovely Japanese bantams and would have brought them home but were outbid.  Today we travelled home with four hens in the box so always take a box just in case.

9: Have fun, chat to other sellers, buyers, breeders and bidders as these people all share an interest with you and you may just meet a like minded breeder with whom you can swap cockerels to change the genetics of your birds or maybe just share a laugh or a little knowledge.  Either way it's all good fun and the auction community is generally a very friendly bunch.

Time to be in control...

It has amazed us how many small businesses have paid other people to create them a website only to be left with minimal or limited control over the pages unless they surrender further hard won funds to ask the web developer to add a few more gismos here and there.
I suppose we have been very lucky over the years to have met and worked alongside some amazing people, none less so than Søren and Jon who I worked with at a large secondary school where they were constantly pushing the boundaries of learning and asking everyone to take on new skills.  From one of their fab days of workshops I emerged bedraggled with laughter having made and edited my own short film then embedded it in my own website and just before sun down had pulled in the feeds to my twitter and Facebook accounts too.  These skills I have continued to work on and have proudly developed more advanced abilities and the other half of this partnership, Helen has a background in web design and intranet building among other very techie named atributes.
It was therefore inevitable that sooner or later we would find ourselves chatting to someone who asked us to help them sort out their website.  By sort out it seems they meant get control of it, understand how it works, be able to update it without fear of losing the whole thing and on went the list.
So having worked with a few local businesses we felt it would be an offer that should be made to all and have devised a number of workshops that might fit the bill of your needs, we have kept the cost to the minimum to make this affordable for small businesses who lets face it want their website to earn them cash not break their bank. Finally we also offer bespoke courses and remote web support fixing glitches and issues as well as developing new functionality at an hourly rate.  So take a look a the advert below and decide if this workshop could be the most cost effective way for you to get the skills you need to make sure you never have to pay out again just to get a few simple things fixed on your home page.
Feel free to click on the image to go to the site where you can download the advert in pdf format.

Going for Freegle Gold...

We have decided to launch a quarterly micro-mag showing the benefits of being a Freegle Buddy.  You can see what we have been scavenging but also take a look at the projects we have taken on with our bounty.
If you have given us your free stuff take a look at how we put it to good use.
If you're a Freegle-er or become inspired to try it, feel free to send us your pics or ideas for the next issue due out just before Christmas.

Open publication - Free publishing - More free

Inspired to Compulsion...

Ok, so as you know I am the first to claim pride and deep joy in the London 2012 Olympics and the success of Team GB and if I am really honest it runs much deeper than just pride.  I am inspired by the achievements even of those not receiving medals for their efforts.  I have previously nattered on about the beautiful way athletes have shown honour in defeat, some have publicly admonished themselves for letting down their coach, friends, sponsors, family and significant other all in the face of their understanding of how much those others have put into this team effort.  Talking of team effort and I know it's not GB but fancy finishing your stint in the 400m relay with a broken leg just because you had bought in so much to the team ethos of the other 3 athletes running with you and refused to let them down. (Manteo Mitchell Team USA we salute you.)
It is this champion attitude that has so inspired many of the population of our little island.  It is not just the haul of gold, silver and bronze hanging on purple ribbons that has perked us up, it is definitely the ethos of team spirit displayed even in the most solitary of events that has lead to those back-room soles who help to get you to the start line being praised universally.
So, full of this vigor and inspiration what does the nobel leader of our Empire decide is the appropriate legacy action, oh yes, that's obvious really, lets make old fashioned team sports compulsory for every school child in the land, that is sure to nurture the embers of the inspiration flames.  What is that man thinking of.  Has he spoken to the people who have suffered at the hands of some of the team sports teachers and coaches when football is just not your bag.  I expect his public school upbringing probably included more than its fair share of icy rugger pitches and PE changing room de-bagging and wet towel whipping which he has managed over the years in his deluded fashion to quantify as the character building antics of youth and look, it didn't do him any harm.

Short sighted is clearly one of his issues and should keep him from the archery field for sure and in fact any dangerous gun sports too, but to realise he has no idea about society big or small and how to nurture and build on the magnificent job of inspiring a nation that Team GB and the Olympic organising committee have achieved so adequately is reason enough for me to agree he is beyond redemption and should step down immediately and trot off to play rugger for 2 hours a week with his chums.
The alternative it seems is likely to be Boris with his planned 2 hours a day of school sport.  Now I would have thought the following words were well beyond me but maybe I too have been inspired to new heights, but go on Boris, bring it on.  The impact of 2 hours a day is quite possibly so extreme it could be the saving of the nation, maybe the economy and perhaps even the planet, well if it were possible to just save our little bit of it that is.

You see 2 hours a day of school sport occupies every child for 10 hours a week in a fun sharing activity which offers the opportunity to experience success and failure, it will no doubt impact on their health, cutting the cost of the NHS usage in years to come and probably reducing further the smoking and teen pregnancy rates as all of the youngsters learn to have greater respect for their bodies. In addition it will in one fell swoop wipe out the school league tables as the figures for English, Maths and Science will plummet in the first instance due to the hugely reduced teaching time available to them although the hope would be that in years to come the increased health means young people learn smarter due to improved levels of alertness throughout the day. Finally of course the likely impact on this nation of sports mad young people is that they will all be walking and cycling to avoid the overcrowded public transport networks and will in turn grow healthy fruit and veg to feed their temple-esque bodies all of which will sort out the environmental issues and bring economic wealth to the small local businesses rather than multi national junk food factories. Or am I so inspired by the 'Boris Way' that I have entered a land of dream like ideals.  No I think 2 hours a day would be fantastic because Boris would of course be in charge of designing the sports that had to be included, as there would be so much time available there would be no excuse not to include the full spectrum of sports including a few taken from the Bonkers Boris locker of design.

Well, all this Olympic, political banter has not done much to germinate further inspiration in us here at streetgrowers other than to say we are building veggie planters like mad so the inspired young can feed themselves with fresh firm harvests right from their window ledges and we are now planning a range of high protein chutneys to deliver just the right amount of each essential amino acid and vitamin required to jump to a height of 2.92m and  a new jam that will increase your response time to the B of the Bang when in the blocks for sprint events.

Now I am off to jog to the squash bed and back a dozen times and dig a giant hole then fill it all in again before anyone decides 2 hours of physical jerks is compulsory for us all.!
Check out what else is happening at streetgrowers by clicking here.

Post Olympic dark cloud looming...

Oh I do so love a morning, in fact not any particular morning or type of morning, just mornings in general are very high on my list of likes.  I am sat here listening to the trickle of the water feature feeling very glad we moved it down to this end of the garden near the outdoor office.  I can hear the call of the birds in the trees hanging over the fence and Dr Horatio has cock-a-doodled the street awake, to which they have clearly all just sighed and rolled over in their beds pulling the duvet higher under their chins in a vain attempt to shun the arrival of today.  It wont work.  I could pop round to the nearest neighbours, knock on their doors and tell them Friday is here whether you accept it or not, but that's not likely to be a welcome sight especially in my pink spotty jim jams!
So back to my morning love...maybe we are very lucky in that where we live you can just hear the passing traffic over the back of a row of houses or so but beyond that unless its bin day the mornings are just beautiful and peaceful and great times to think and assess your plans for the day.
Now as regular readers will know those plans have mostly consisted of scanning the Olympic schedule for key Team GB events and even a few non GB ones where the mood grabs us and planning meetings, lunches and business tasks around that basic structure.  However this morning my Team GB email alert was titled 'In the finishing straight' which has germinated a sense of impending doom deep within me and I am struggling to shift it.  Two days ago we chatted over lunch with a good friend about the worry of the country recovering badly from Olympic fever, will the ParaOlympics be able to carry the euphoria for another couple of weeks?
But this mornings doomful feeling was further fuelled by reading the morning news articles showing the worst UK Trade deficit for yonks, growth in the Chinese export economy slowing sharply, unlike their gymnasts, divers and badminton players and the drought in the US causing massive losses of corn and grain leading to higher prices meaning cattle are being slaughtered with the fastest Bolt around, yes faster than the one in yellow and green with a sackful of dodgy poses for the cameras.
So what does Autumn look like? Well to start with the Paraolympic games will lead us in to the first 9 days of September with some continued pride, excitement and celebration either for continued success in the sporting arenas or for pride in the delivery of the games on the world stage.  But from 10th September we will be on our own.  We will have the post holiday blues, we will be returning to school terms and preparing for University courses which might distract some of the population from the crisis in our economy.  If the speculators are right 2013 could begin with us seeing Boris attempt to build a path into Conservative leadership and fight off Cameron in advance of approaching elections in 2015.  But what is for sure is the prices will rise, the cost of living will rise, the taxes will rise and the euphoria will sink following a full on belly flop from the 10metre board.
Now I am no crystal ball gazer and given my past experience of data crunching and looking for patterns I can claim no genius to suggest that surely the UK has to take a large fan like leaf out of the team GB training manual.  We need to focus on home grown.  Not just home grown talent, but home grown crops, dairy products and home made goods that do not clutter the ether with carbon footprints and can be produced at a fraction of the cost to both the economy and the environment.  I know this is a well played tune of old but surely with the economic crisis ahead of us this country has to remember to look after it's own first.  The UK trade deficit is a problem because we imported more than we exported.  The money people in the city have tried to blame the Queen for having a jubilee saying the ports were shut, but even I as a once a year ferry passenger can tell you if the ports were shut, which I dont believe they were on any bank holiday then they would be shut for goods going out of the UK as well as those coming in so that argument is sunk in the water along with the Uzbekistan's hopes of topping the Olympic medal table. Why Oh why are we importing eggs for example from abroad where the animal welfare rules are more relaxed and battery farming still continues so the eggs are cheaper, whereas we see egg producing companies in the UK struggling.  Why are we treating our dairy farmers in such a shocking manner that we set a national price for milk below the cost of producing it, surely if these are economists running the market prices they know where figures like that can only lead, either to cruel farming conditions or broke farmers.

So that huge flapping leaf that needs to be grabbed by UK economists should surely reflect the Team GB culture of nurture, funding, support, care and hard work.  I can't recall seeing a news report where British growers or farmers were complaining or threatening strike because their job was hard work, it's always been hard work and they roll up their sleeves and get on with it.  So come 2013 I would like to see farmers and GB producers being interviewed on the news thanking their team of trainers and support staff some of whom will be government departments, for helping them to work hard every day, in the rain, cold and bleak November mornings so that they could reep their medal of success which might just be a fair price for their produce or a national ban on specific imported products that we can supply in the UK without harm to animals or adding to the global smog.  For sure I am not advocating no international trade, just readdress the balance and make GB truly Great in all our arenas before we go off searching for the cheapest price for every item we stack on a carbon dripping shelf in supermarkets. Support our home grown, home made, welfare focussed farming and growing communities so we too can be proud to be Great and British.

Rant over, taking breath and sip of tea...aah the trickle of water and sound of the birds, I love mornings!