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?