Cheesed off!

It was with a sense of anticipation that I set off from Dundry at the beginning of June and made my way to the M5 at Avonmouth to begin my journey back to the Heart of Wales, back to Llanidloes where I had spent three wonderful months last year. I was heading for the Worcester junction but, as I neared the Tewkesbury turn off I got fed up with the soul-numbing motorway driving and turned off with no clear idea of my route from thereon. I wended my way through Tewkesbury (I don't think I've actually been into Tewkesbury since I was a teenager!) and then headed for the Malverns, rising like a sleeping dragon from the Severn Plain, and from there to Ledbury. I passed within a whisker of Canon Frome where I had spent my second WWOOF adventure back in June 2010, and then headed to Leominster, Kington (where I WWOOFed in August 2010), Rhayadr and on to Llanidloes. I have done parts of this route so many times before that it now feels like an old friend. It took me a little over three and a half hours to complete my journey so I was just in time for a late lunch and a welcome cup of tea.

At first glance nothing much had changed since last year, but it soon became apparent to me that the dynamics were decidedly different. For one thing, the area previously known as Phen's Field, where a guy had lived in a yurt and grown willow, was now inhabited by a young couple and their baby who come and 'WWOOF' several days a week and have been allocated the large vegetable patch to tend. The baby was actually born in Old Chapel Farmhouse and they hope to live in the community for some time to come. There was also a chap, Pete, who was doing a feasibility study into a new walkers' trail and is being funded via Powys County Council; he also volunteers for a while on most days and so is semi-permanent; and finally, there was a woman who was not a WWOOFer but came via the Diggers and Dreamers website, and is semi-permanent too, and helping Fran with websites and promotion in general, as well as appearing to be the 'second-in-command'. I spent the first few days having problems with this set-up until I realised that I was just jealous! Once I'd got my head around that, things became a little easier, but I never felt as 'at ease' as I had expected to feel, and felt largely marginalised. It didn't help that for the first few days I was the only actual WWOOFer there – Fran had had the other five volunteers cancel at the last minute, so I was the only transient person there and couldn't quite find my place in the scheme of things.

I'd only been there two days when Fran remembered that I had made butter and cheese while I was there last year so, suddenly I was designated 'dairymaid' and spent quite a lot of time every day processing the copious amounts of milk into cheese. The reason that they had so much milk was because both of their dairy cows had lost this year's calves; one gave birth prematurely (possibly due to the Schmallenberg virus, although this was not confirmed) and the other one's calf got 'bloat' and died, leaving both cows producing about 8 gallons (36 litres) of milk between them per day! So, each morning I emptied the previous day's milk into three large stainless steel pans, each holding approximately 2 gallons each, and warmed the milk, in a water bath (using a fourth even larger stainless steel pan in which the other pans could sit, like a huge double-saucepan) to just above blood temperature. Last year I had the benefit of a digital thermometer, but so many got broken during the year that Fran now relies on her hands to indicate the correct temperature. Once the milk is just warm to the touch, rennet is added to coagulate the milk and then it is left to stand for a few hours to set.

At this point I was free to get on with working in my section of the garden or any communal tasks that might be going on – one day it was collecting wood from a neighbouring farmer's field where he had cut down a hazel and blackthorn hedge to get it to regenerate and allowed us to take the wood for winter fuel (all the heating is via a large log-burning boiler in the barn). Once we had collected all the useful sized timber and loaded it onto the trailer, we had to burn the 'brashy' bits that were left. I have to admit to being a tad indignant when the young French guy (father of the baby) attempted to tell me how to move the unburned ends of the branches into the fire – he obviously didn't know that I am Queen of the Bonfires! I soon put him right! We decided to utilise the heat from the fire to cook our supper and Fran put some large pieces of beef rib in a pan in the embers. Unfortunately, we didn't realise how hot the fire had got and when our 'supper' was retrieved, it was just a small heap of charcoal (including the bones)! Nothing daunted we then barbecued sausages and lamb chops on a griddle over the hot embers and picnicked on the hill as the sun went down – it was beautiful!

After lunch, which was usually cheese, hard-boiled eggs, bread and a huge salad, I started on the second part of the cheese-making – this involved cutting the curds into approximately one-inch (25mm) cubes and then putting the pans back into the water bath and heating until the liquid was too hot to comfortably keep your hand in (approx. 38C). The curds had to be stirred all the time at this point to stop them sticking together, or 'clumping', and then they were strained through a muslin in a colander. Once all three pans had been dealt with in this way, the resultant mass of curds was broken up, salt added and then packed into a muslin-lined cheese mould and placed in the ancient cheese press outside the front door, where it stayed until the following morning when it was brought back in, unwrapped, turned over, re-wrapped and put back into the press until the afternoon. Finally, it would be unwrapped and placed on a plate in the dining room where it stayed for a few days developing a hard rind before being moved down into the cellar to mature.

Luckily, a lot of people liked making butter, so I didn't have to do that every day, but I did have to demonstrate making butter, the hard Cheddar-like cheese and also a fresh ricotta cheese to some of the WWOOFers who eventually came to stay. I think I made about ten hard cheeses during my stay and could probably make it in my sleep! All of this milk processing took up a fair chunk of my working day, so I often felt left out of the other tasks being done on the farm, and that made me feel a bit separate from the others.

During my second week there Pete came in at breakfast time, having just been to check the sheep and the two heifers on the hill, with the news that the Jersey heifer had calved! As no-one knew that she had been anywhere near a bull, this was a bit of a shock. We knew there had been a bull in an adjacent field last year, across a stream and a stock fence with a strand of barbed wire across the top, as Lucy, the Aberdeen Angus cross heifer had been found in there with him, but had obviously not got in calf, but no-one had ever reported the Jersey heifer missing, so either she jumped in with the bull and then jumped back 'afterwards' (saucy minx!) or vice versa. I was despatched off with two buckets of feed to distract the adults, to check that the calf was OK and to see what sex it was. Luckily, it is another heifer, so that makes life easier and both mum and babe seemed fine, so I left them to it. We did bring them up to the farm a few days later as Lizzie (the mum) was so full of milk that she looked uncomfortable. The last thing Fran needs is another source of milk for the house so they then set about finding a couple of beef calves to foster on to her and one of the other cows, and had just taken delivery of two young Aberdeen Angus calves when I left.

On the second Sunday that I was there, I accompanied Pete when he went to visit a walled garden project in Rhayadr – it was stunning! It was a Victorian, brick-built walled garden on a large estate just outside the town, and when Dave (the man we went to meet) acquired it on a long lease about eight years ago, it was full of abandoned 15' tall Christmas trees! He is gradually trying to bring it back into use as a vegetable garden but also wants to erect a wooden building to teach courses in and some yurts for accommodation. He was so full of ideas and enthusiasm that we could hardly get a word in edgeways. He also took us on a guided tour of some of the estate as he is allowed access to most of it by the current owners – it is very beautiful as it lies next to the River Wye and there is a Victorian cast-iron suspension bridge over the river, linking the two sides of the estate, and a little stream that cascades through a narrow gorge, which they are hoping to use for a hydro-electric scheme to power the gardens and buildings, eventually. In the more formal area of the garden there is an ornamental pool surrounded by vibrant rhododendrons and approached by a path bordered on both sides by the yellow fragrant rhododendron luteum. There are also huge specimen pine trees and some large oaks in the woodland area that we walked through - one old beech tree looked as if it had melted like a large candle and then reset again – very strange.

I asked if he took WWOOFers but as he has no accommodation at the moment the answer was, sadly, 'No', but I live in hope and made a point of asking for his business card so that I can contact him at a later date, if I feel so inclined!

I still love Llanidloes and the countryside around it as, apart from the windfarms that abound in this area of Wales, it is virtually unspoilt, and has some stunning scenery. I went and had a quick look at a cottage that I viewed with an estate agent twice last year, as it is still on the market. It is what I would call 'a project' and 'a challenge' and what most normal people would refer to as 'semi-derelict'! I am so tempted................

P.S. Update on No74, the Cornish ewe: after her intensive treatment with antibiotics, all of her wool fell out but it is now growing back again. No 5, who adopted her two lambs so well, allowed her to share in their care when she was feeling better and back out in the field with them, and now they have divided them up and have a lamb each to look after! I have never heard of this sort of thing happening before but I think it is amazing and rather wonderful, don't you?

   

On home territory again

I arrived in Somerset on Friday afternoon and my hosts left for their holiday in the early hours of Saturday morning, so it was a very quick 'handover'. Luckily I was here in April so not a lot has changed except that there are a lot of new chicks in the brooder pens and many of the bantam arks have broody hens sitting on clutches of eggs, so a bit of a population explosion. Also, the five Jacobs ewes have now had their lambs, so there were seven extra sheep heads to count each day. They are still separate from the main flock and are allowed into the chicken field to graze overnight as the paddock they are in does not have much grass left now. They were very wary of me at first but once they realised that I was the 'bringer of food', they got a lot more friendly!

The in-house pets consist of six characterful cats and two Labradors. When I was last here one of the young cats was desperately ill but the vet had no idea what was wrong – he had had every possible blood test and all had returned negative, but he was still continuing to lose weight dramatically (and there wasn't a lot of him to start with) and his beautiful fur was coming out in clumps. It has to be said that things were looking pretty grim for Ziggy back in April. However, believing that the only thing left was an acute food allergy, the vet took him off all food other than plain, boiled white fish and this seems to be working. He is definitely heavier now and his coat is beginning to grow back and regain its shine, but trying to make sure that the only food he eats is his fish is almost an impossibility! Obviously all the other cats have tinned and dried cat food so Ziggy has to be barricaded in the conservatory while he eats his, plus he is a past master at stealing human food too so you can't leave anything unattended for a second. I was really pleased with the way he was eating for the entire week that they were away, but on the last day of their holiday he suddenly stopped eating and looked very unwell, spending his day hunched up in front of the Aga. I couldn't understand what had upset him so much until the next day when he was violently sick – he had eaten the tough stems of the asparagus that I had had for supper and stupidly left on my plate by the sink – no wonder he was feeling out of sorts! I also caught him on the bird table eating the remains of some biscuits that I'd overcooked and put out for the birds! One of the other cats and one of the Labradors love chicken food so accompany me quite frequently when I am doing the feeding – woe betide me if I inadvertently drop any outside the runs!

One of the difficult cockerels that I encountered before has gone to meet his maker, but I still had two or three of whom I had to be wary. The Red Sussex was the worst offender (he's the one that got the better of me last time I was here) and made my life very difficult when I was trying to persuade them to go to bed, until I discovered the broom! I found that if I went in wielding the broom in one hand and a stick in the other he very quickly retreated to bed – sometimes in front of his females – what a wuss! The letting out and shutting up routine took a lot less time than it did before as I didn't have to worry about defrosting the drinkers every day and the field was not icy and slippery. However, the weather was still quite chilly and it wasn't until my second week there that the weather really warmed up enough to discard my jacket.

On May 22nd it was Jeni's Book Launch at Waterstones in Wells and I had volunteered to go along and help. This day was chosen because it was also Wig Wednesday, a new fundraiser for CLIC Sargent, the charity that helped support Jeni when she was ill. The staff at Waterstones made cakes and biscuits and asked for a donation, all of Jeni's author fees from books sold on the day were going to be donated and to cap it all (literally) they were all going to wear wigs purchased from CLIC. I offered to make some butterfly cakes and also some biscuits so spent most of Tuesday baking and icing cakes. On Wednesday I left my charges in the temporary care of the odd-job man and headed for Wells.

Jeni had thoughtfully provided me with a wig (I knew it was a mistake to leave the choice of colour to her!) - it was long and curly and bright fluorescent orangey-red. At one point in the day I volunteered to go outside and hand out fliers to the public, it was very interesting the reactions I got! I was fairly visible from many yards away and you could see some people start to make detours, with eyes cast down, obviously thinking that I was the 'local nutter' while others grinned and almost invited me to speak to them. It was quite worrying when I accosted an ex-colleague of mine from ten years ago and he still recognised me in spite of the wig! I met Jeni's publisher, who had got into the mood of the day and was sporting a genuine judge's wig that had been lavishly adorned with bows, sparkly slides, etc by his daughter, and we had several photos taken during the day by local papers and magazines. Several of Jeni's old school friends came to support her and also her father and his partner, freshly returned from a holiday in Turkey and Jeni's first teacher at primary school, so it was quite a nostalgia trip. The day was a huge success with 35 books being sold (making her the No 1 Bestseller in Waterstones Wells that week ahead of the new Dan Brown novel!) and over £170 being raised for CLIC from the sale of cakes and our wig-wearing.

The rest of the week went fairly quickly and without too much drama except that I had a couple of fatalities. I put the first one down to 'one of those things', 'if you've got livestock, you've got deadstock' etc but the next day there was another dead hen in the same run, and they were Sally's pride and joy – the Speckled Sussex. I went through all possibilities in my head but came up with no conclusion – there wasn't a mark on either of the bodies but it seemed too much of a coincidence that they were both from the same pen. I didn't want to ring Sally and ruin her holiday so I rang a friend of hers who keeps poultry and he kindly agreed to drop by after work and examine the bodies and take a good look at the rest of the hens. His conclusion was that it was just a coincidence and that all the others looked fine so not to worry, so I breathed a sigh of relief and next day Sally returned to take over the helm again.

However, I didn't leave straight away, but stayed another week so that I could go with Sally to the Bath & West Show on the Wednesday, where she would be showing some poultry. Some exhibitors keep their show birds indoors all the time and then wash them all over and fluff up their feathers with a hairdryer, but Sally prefers her poultry to be outdoors doing what they like to do best and then she goes round a couple of days before the show and chooses the ones that are looking well. If they are very dirty she might wash them but, as the weather had been dry, all she did was wash their bottoms and their legs and then rub Vaseline into their combs and legs. We loaded up and left home by 7.00am on Wednesday and got into the showground without any holdups. We were allowed to park temporarily outside the Showerings Pavilion where the poultry classes were held so that we could unload easily. We only took four birds in the end as most of the hens have been broody and are not looking their best; two bantam hens, a bantam cockerel and a large Speckled Sussex pullet (young hen). Sally had also entered some of the egg classes and this had proved quite challenging – trying to get three eggs of the same colour, size and shape is almost impossible! However, by the end of the day she had won two Firsts and two Seconds with her poultry and two Firsts and two Seconds with her eggs, so she was very pleased.

Once we'd set up the poultry and eggs we split up and wandered round separately and I went off to look at the livestock. I went to look at the Zwartbles sheep first but there was no-one showing that I knew so I wandered off to the pig section where I saw the guy, who sold us our British Lop boar and two sows, win his class. At this point I realised that it felt very uncomfortable being at an agricultural show and being a complete outsider so I stopped looking at livestock and went and had a cup of tea in the WI tent as I knew it would be good value for money as opposed to 'rip-off city'. While I was in there I got talking to a couple of ladies who were spinning and mentioned that I'd done a course with Mary at Wells about three years ago but I was now travelling. 'You're not that lady are you....the one who wanted to know about the Kromski travelling spinning wheel?' said one of the ladies, and we were off – she was the one that Mary had kindly asked about Kromski wheels on my behalf and they had heard a bit about me, so I stood and chatted to them about my travels for about half-an-hour and came away feeling quite famous! It's a very small world! I felt a bit lifted by my encounter but the strangeness of being at a show without either (a) Barry or (b) animals to exhibit eventually got to me and I was quite glad when Sally and I met up at 3.30 and decided we'd had enough – I shan't be going to another show any time soon. It's a great pity, as I used to really enjoy the buzz of an agricultural show.

The following day I went on another nostalgia trip which was much more successful – I went to visit a friend that I hadn't seen for more than twenty years and his wife whom I had never met. It was a great afternoon and I was made very welcome and barely stopped nattering to take breath! I kicked myself for not making contact sooner – it's difficult to catch up twenty years in one afternoon! Thanks John and Sharon!

The next day I managed to catch up with another friend, Karen, and had another great natter and also a fantastic aromatherapy massage. We used to work together in an office a lifetime ago, and her massages were the only thing that kept me sane most of the time (she also cured me of my persistent IBS symptoms). Since we both took voluntary redundancy more than ten years ago, she has been honing her skills and has her own business now at www.acorn-natural-therapies.co.uk. This is a shameless plug for my best friend – if you're ever in the Wells/Shepton Mallet/Radstock area she does wonderful massages that leave you relaxed and rejuvenated and that definitely iron out all those kinks and knots.

Saturday was my final day in the area and I needed to catch up with my offspring, so we made a date to go for lunch in Wells during Jeni's lunch hour, but before that I returned to 'my' hairdresser and got the best haircut I've had since she first lopped off my tresses nearly a year ago. Dave, Jeni and I went to a pizza/pasta place to eat and luckily they weren't too busy and we got served quite quickly, so Jeni didn't have to rush too much, and then I went off to see Dave's new motor and have a ride in it (I declined at first but he told me that was the wrong answer!). Its an Audi estate and looks quite innocuous and remarkably 'grown up' until you realise that under the bonnet lurks a 4.2 litre V8 engine which is so large that the battery has to be housed in the boot, and does 0-60 mph in 4 seconds, or something silly like that (I'm sure he'll correct me). We went to Shepton Mallet to get some petrol (and arrange a second mortgage to pay for it) and the acceleration knocks you back in your seat like one of those fairground rides. Very impressive, but also insanely expensive to run – why is it that boys never grow up? Anyway, I had a great time with them, we just don't spend enough time together these days.

I was hoping to catch up with more friends whilst I was in the area, but I ran out of time so, hopefully, when I'm back in the area in July I will get to see a few more of you.

The next morning I helped let out the poultry for the last time, packed my car and set off for mid-Wales.