Moving the quail

The quail chicks we hatched recently had outgrown the brooder box. It was time to move them to the quailhouse.

How to make game pie

In September I made a game pie which won first prize at the Bowes Show. This video shows you how I made it.

Making Game Soup

I took more game out of one of our freezers to create more space: two pheasants, a partridge and some pigeon breasts. The pheasants and partridge have been boiled up and have now been stripped of their meat. The next stage will be to make the soup. That's to be done later today.

Green leaves and chopped logs

The end of the summer heatwave brought some much needed rain. The result was a great deal of new weed growth. So last week I was able to feed the goats and poultry on fresh grass, nettles, dock and dandelion.

Meanwhile, we got the chainsaw working again, thanks to our friend Steve. Lots of firewood was chopped but we still have plenty more logs waiting to be cut.

No chainsaw massacre

Last week we planned to use the chainsaw to chop up some of the recently acquired logs for firewood. Alas, we had a problem with the chainsaw. Chopping activities were put off until the problem was sorted.

Making red champagne - stage 2

Making red champagne moved onto the second stage of the process last week when the fermenting juice was bottled and corked. It will stand for a couple of weeks before we can crack open a bottle. I miscalculated the amount of juice I had so the extra 800ml was added to some vodka and sugar to make elderberry and blackberry fruit liqueur.

Plum puree

Last week I eventually processed all the plums we got in a recent food swap. They were boiled up and the juice extracted to make a fruit drink. The pulp was then pressed through a sieve to make a puree which is, at the moment, waiting to be turned into ketchup.