This year I decided to make a scarecrow. We lost our little Betsy dog last year – she was always with me when I was in the garden and I was feeling a bit lonely. I thought a scarecrow might offer some company – at least I wouldn’t be talking to myself! I was quite pleased with the result – an old mop was perfect to start with and, at first, he looked so real that he kept making me jump.
I’ve called him Humphrey – and, amazingly, he works! I usually have to cover my baby peas with fleece to stop the pigeons eating them but Humphrey has proved to be an excellent deterrent. The peas are bigger now and protected by privet twigs so I have moved Humphrey to the strawberry bed to stop the blackbirds pinching my strawberries. So far it seems to be working. But, strictly speaking, Humphrey is a scare-pigeon or a scare-blackblackbird!
20 large elderflower heads
2 lemons- rind and juice
2 pints boiling water
2 oz citric acid (available from Healing Thyme, Whitchurch High Street, SY13 1AZ www.healing-thyme.co.uk)
2 lb granulated sugar
1/2 Camden tablet*
Sterilised bottles (stand in oven for 10 minutes at a temperature of 140°C and use whilst warm.)
You will need 2 large clean 5 pint containers – one to make the cordial in and another to strain the cordial into.
Remove flower petals from elderflower heads (just rub the flowers off the stalks – it’s not critical if some stalks get in as well) and put in a bucket with rind and juice of 2 lemons.
Pour over boiling water and stir well.
Leave overnight to infuse.
Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.
Add sugar and stir well.
Add citric acid, stir.
Leave 24 hours.
Bottle in screw top bottles.
And it’s ready to drink. To serve, dilute to taste.
Elderflower cordial tinkling with ice is the best summer drink ever – on rainy days you can close your eyes and imagine the sun shining on the elderflower petals, blackbirds serenading from the topmost branches, sunshine, rainbows and summer strawberries – the magical taste of summertime.
*For years I made Elderflower Cordial with this recipe with no problems, then, this year, it went fizzy. The solution is to add one Camden tablet per gallon which kills any wild yeast – thank you to www.ashridgetrees.co.uk for this solution.
For this recipe, add 1/2 crushed Camden tablet (dissolved in a small amount of hot water) per half gallon, stir, leave for an hour then stir again to make sure Camden tablet has dissolved properly, then bottle.
Storage:
With no acids or tablets – 3-4 weeks in the fridge. Freeze in plastic bottles for longer storage.
With the citric or tartaric acid it will keep for 3-4 months in the fridge.
With the Camden tablets, elderflower cordial keeps almost indefinitely in a cool, dark place.
We called our ducks Arthur and Martha after the Duck Song by Whalebone
We went to see Whalebone during their Mirabillia Tour at a Shropshire Wildlife Trust evening and were enchanted by the musicians and their special brand of folk music. They also play a spellbinding rendition of Stairway to Heaven. Our Martha has just decided to go broody so we might have some baby Arthurs and Marthas by the end of the month.
Martha nestled on her eggs, closely watched by Arthur, standing guard
Stokesay Castle: “One of the best-preserved medieval fortified manor houses in England” (according to historian Henry Summerson).
It was built in the late 13th century by Laurence of Ludlow, a prosperous English wool merchant. Designed as a prestigious, comfortable, but secure, home, English Heritage has preserved these medieval buildings – virtually unchanged since they were built – and kept them mainly untouched by modern furnishings.
Stokesay is mentioned in the Doomsday book and takes its name from the Old English “’stoc’ meaning a place or enclosure, or stoches, meaning cattle farm, and the Norman family name ‘Say’, the surname of the de Says family who had held the land from the beginning of the 12th century.
The castle consists of a stone hall and solar block protected by two stone towers and is surrounded by a moat, now colonised with wild flowers. Entrance to the courtyard is via a stunning 17th century timber and plaster gatehouse next to where the café is situated.
Standing on the staircase in this spacious hall, sheltered beneath the magnificent 13th century timbered roof, you can imagine Laurence and his family sitting at the high table at one end of the room with the rest of the household placed at tables running along the length of the hall.
Go back in time and you can envisage the fire burning in the hearth in the middle of the floor and hear the echoes of voices deep in conversation, feel the hall alive with music and busy with the comings and goings of servants fetching wine and beer from the buttery on the lower floor.
Now the hall is cold and silent, lit by sunlight filtering through the tall Gothic windows, no fire burns in the bricked up hearth and the voices of past Sheriffs of Shropshire drinking from pewter tankards, toasting ladies in long-sleeved silk gowns are long-ago echoes of ages past. But: “Even in its emptiness, the hall at Stokesay is one of the most evocative rooms in England” http://englishbuildings.blogspot.co.uk
published in the June edition of The Gossip magazine
Midsummer – time to make Elderflower Champagne – which is not champagne – or alcoholic – at all – but, according to my family, is every bit as good as champagne:
Elderflower Champagne
4 large elderflower heads
2 lemons – rind and juice
2 tblsp white wine vinegar
1 lb 8 oz of granulated sugar
7 pints cold water
You will need 2 large clean buckets – one to make the champagne in and another to strain the champagne into.
Remove flower petals from elderflower heads (just rub the flowers off the stalks – it’s not critical if some stalks get in as well) and put in a bucket with rind and juice of 2 lemons.
Add water and vinegar and stir well.
Leave for 2 days, stirring night and morning.
Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.
Add sugar and stir well.
Leave 24 hours then bottle in screw top bottles. (Plastic pop bottles will do fine.)
It should be ready to drink after about a week.
If not drinking straight away you will need to release the tops of the bottles regularly so they don’t explode – or you can use old port bottles with corks.
Mitchell’s Fold in South Shropshire is a Bronze Age stone circle dating back to 2000 BC (making it older than Stonehenge) and it lies on one of the mystical ley lines.
We still do not fully understand why stone circles were built, but it is clear that they were ritually important for prehistoric people. Most of them have precisely aligned stones marking important lunar and solar events which became festival days like Beltane and Midsummer.
Neither do we understand ley lines – they are thought to be invisible alignments of mystical or magnetic energy areas in the Bronze and Iron Ages connecting sites like stone circles, standing stones, holy wells, hill tops and cairns. They were forgotten in modern times but the networks of leys were accidentally preserved because many medieval churches were built on top of pagan sites.
There is also a suggestion that there is a connection between ancient sites on ley lines and extra-terrestrial craft which use them as a point of navigation – or to refuel by tapping into the energy. Mitchell’s Fold is a location of high UFO activity with several sightings of discs and triangles over the years.
Whatever you believe, I have always had a strange feeling that ancient stones hold supernatural powers and I have to touch them to reach out to this energy. When we visited Avebury I touched each of the stones – after all – they must have been touched by generations of people over the last two thousand years and those people must have left something of themselves in these special places all those years ago.
It was a beautiful Spring day and a lovely walk along the lane and across the heath to the stone circle; we counted the stones (we could only find 14) and then stood in the centre of the circle and admired the views east across Shropshire and west over Powys into Wales.
As with many of these prehistoric sites, local folklore has a story to tell: Once upon a time there was a great famine and a fairy gave the people of Mitchell’s Fold a magic cow – that would fill any container with milk. One night an evil witch milked the cow into a sieve. Once the cow realised the trick she disappeared, the witch was turned to stone and a circle of stones set around her so that she could not escape.
Mitchell’s Fold Stone Circle is now an English Heritage site. There is also a Bronze Age axe factory nearby at Cwm Mawr, where distinctive axe-hammers were made from a rock type known as picrite which is found on a small hill just to the north-west of Hyssington.
New Zealand White Rabbits – Holly’s litter at 3 weeks old
Both Holly and Eeny had litters this month – six babies each – and they are now 3 weeks old and hopping around their pens. It will be another 3 weeks before they are weaned and Mum can have a break. They will be ready for new homes when they are 10 weeks old – after 6th June. Won’t be able to tell what sex they are until then.
Now they are old enough to be picked up and cuddled – they are so cute – this is the best part about breeding rabbits.
There’s such a variety of spring plants – celandines, primroses, daffodils, hyacinths – and crocuses. I planted these bulbs about 9 years ago and the flowers have grown bigger every year. During the first year of home education, one of our days out was to Bridgemere Garden Centre and Kirt helped to choose a selection of bulbs for the garden – so every year, when these crocuses appear, they remind me of that day and happy memories of sharing life home educating.
Broad beans are very easy to grow but, for early beans, it’s always a good idea to start some off inside. My aunt advised me to get a big pot full of compost and push in as many bean seeds as possible and, as soon as they come up, you can plant them outside. These are ready for planting now, so I start the row with these then plant some seeds directly into the ground for the rest of the row. That way you get some early broad beans and some continuity. You can do the same with runner beans, French beans and peas. Peas are especially good planted this way because the pigeons don’t get a chance to eat them before they sprout!
Coltsfoot – it’s name comes from the hoof-shaped leaves.
Every spring, as soon as the daffodils start to come out, I start to look for coltsfoot flowers – then suddenly one morning, there they are, little yellow stars, dots of sunshine, decorating the path – the stems seem quite invisible until the flowers come out.
Like Butterbur, the flowers appear before the leaves. In fact, Pliny and many of the older botanists thought that the Coltsfoot plant grew without leaves. Rabbits like coltsfoot leaves but they will have to wait awhile for the foliage to appear.
Coltsfoot is a well-known herbal remedy for irritating coughs and respiratory disorders and Coltsfoot tea sweetened with honey will help soothe a dry cough.
The leaves were formerly smoked to relieve coughing and are even today included in herbal tobacco.
The seeds are crowned with a tuft of silky hairs which goldfinches like for lining their nests.
