The lamb has arrived

A friend of mine keeps sheep and when she found I had bought a pig, she became interested in a swap. So, this morning, I swapped with her 5 joints of pork, 1kg sausages, 1 kg bacon and 1kg sausage meat for 5 joints of lamb, a bag of chops, a bag of offal and 1kg of lap which I will put through my new sausage making machine.

I am rather looking forward to trying our first lamb joint but I think I will make some rosemary jelly to go with it.



Lamb chops.



Lap - for turning into sausages.

Protecting the greenhouse roof

With the weather as it is, I decided to remove the snow from the roof of the greenhouse this morning, rather than let it build up with the possible consequence that the glass will break under the weight. I will keep an eye on it over the next day or so but the snow was already building up again on the roof when I left the allotment a couple of hours ago.

Roasting a leg of our Tamworth pork

We recently had a leg of our Tamworth pork. I also had some apple syrup so I poured a jar of it over the leg, seasoned it and then roasted it - half an hour for each 450g plus a further half hour. We had some beautiful, crunchy cracking.

Stilton and onion flan

I've had a lump of stilton sitting in our cheese box since Christmas and neither of us were in a rush to use it. As food waste is treated as an unimaginable horror and sin in our household, the stilton clearly needed to be used up. So, last night, I made two stilton and onion flans. All the cheese was used to make them. 10 eggs went into each, helping to reduce our ever growing egg mountain. The two flans should do for four meals between the two of us.

Work grinds to a halt

We had over 5cm of snow overnight to add to what was already on the ground from earlier this week. We are not as badly affected as other parts of the country but no outdoor work can take place this weekend, other than feeding the poultry and cleaning out the hen and duck houses. I took the following photos on the allotment this morning.



The chicken run. Normally the hens wander far and free but today they are staying put in the chicken run, other than Bourbon, one of our ginger nut rangers, who wandered off to eat the duck food on the far side of the allotment:





The ducks however are happy to wander.



Three of the beehives under snow.



The roof of the fruit cage has collapsed.



The pond and the polytunnel. The ice was 3cm thick on the pond.



The greenhouse: remarkably nothing has frozen inside.



This is where we would have been working this weekend if there had been no snow. Our new shed is to be built on this plot and the rest will be used for growing potatoes. The ground needs to be prepared. We have lots of manure to go on it, but that too is hidden under snow.

And finally, teasles in the snow:

On the allotment 1 - mid January 2013

listen to ‘On the allotment 1 - mid January 2013’ on Audioboo

This is my new mini "radio" show from the allotment. I recorded it this morning after letting out the poultry (you can hear the ducks and hens in the background). It's an update on what we've been doing since the start of January.

Snow on the way

The weather forecast is grim. Snow is on its way. Wales and the west will get it first and we are due to follow tomorrow afternoon. We already have about 5cm on the ground from earlier this week but we are being warned that the forthcoming snowfall will be heavy, though for us, less heavy than South Wales. All this means that our plans to build our allotment shed this weekend are on hold. Ideally, I would like it built before the end of the month but that is now in doubt.

The ground is too frozen hard to dig and it's too early to be doing anything in the greenhouse (though I have a few onion sets growing there). I do however have some sprouting seeds to set away which I can do back home. This will be a useful fresh supplement to our diet.