Sallygardens Smallholding

How to Make Pickled Eggs

Trust me, pickled eggs are delicious, no really they are. I think this is mainly an English tradition as I've never experienced them in Ireland. My first rendezvous with a pickled egg was after a long hike in the English countryside which ended at a rural pub, where my companion ordered me a pint of scrumpy cider and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps with a pickled egg thrown into it. I'll never forget that wonderful culinary discovery!

As the days begin to shorten and the weather cools chicken will slow down their laying and some will stop completely until spring. So while there is still a good stock of eggs in the fridge perhaps now is a good time to experiment with pickling.

Buy a good quality pale vinegar from your health shop, organic apple cider vinegar is great stuff and you can use up any remainder for your vegetable pickles and chutneys. As always, sterilise all equipment and utensils to be used and wash hands and surfaces in advance. Bring a pot of vinegar to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes to pasteurise it. Keep covered and allow to cool.  Hard boil some clean undamaged chicken eggs and allow to cool completely. Remove the shells with clean hands and place the eggs into a sterilised storage jar. Pour in enough vinegar to cover all the eggs completely and keep refrigerated. Leave the eggs to pickle for two weeks before eating.

Cleaning and sterisiling is very important to avoid botulism.

Elderflower and Strawberry Wine

Some of the wines that were brewed in spring are bottled already, and yes I know it's best to leave them for at least six months before drinking, but sometimes rules are worth breaking! My favourite wine of 2009 is currently our elderflower and strawberry wine, it's very fruity, has a wonderful summer perfume and is so cute with a hint of pink thanks to the strawberries. A chilled glass of this is my favourite way to cleanse the palate or enjoy a quiet half hour in the sun on the doorstep. That sort of weather is rapidly coming to a close though but I'm looking forward to some other wines I started in the summer and will make perfect winter wines. Honey and ginger mead will be warming on cosy winter nights in front of the fire and I can't wait to try the wild damson wine at Christmas.

Making wine at home is growing in popularity and you can read how to get started with lots of recipies I've tried for country wines in my little ebooklet, see the Paypal store on the top right column. Slainte (cheers).

Onion Ropes

After a few sunny days the onion skins were nice and dry (see previous post) so I began making onion ropes. First rub the loose dry soil from the onions with a soft dry cloth or teatowel, but don't peel them, the dry skins help to keep the onion bulbs fresh. Keep any damaged or bruised onions in a basket for immediate use in the kitchen, don't incorporate these in your ropes because as they begin to rot the mould will spread to the good onions too.  Put on some good music and get roping, enjoy the task, even better get a friend to come along and 'learn the ropes', passing on these skills to others is important (and fun). Here's a great link on how to rope onions to get you started. It's really very easy and you'll soon get a rhythm going.

When you've finished there's nothing more beautiful than a few ropes hanging in your scullery and kitchen, it's such a welcoming sight and every time you reach for an onion over the winter you'll feel very happy with your achievement.

Harvesting Onions

When are the onions ready to harvest? That's something I asked the first year we grew onions a few years ago. All the books are full of information on how to plant and care for the onions, but nowhere could I find details on when to pick them. Lots of expert gardeners forget how little we know as total beginners and so I promised myself I'd write a post on the topic.

The harvesting will depend on the variety you are growing, the soil in your plot, the amount of sun and shading on the plants and of course the weather. What I'm saying is that you can't say they'll be ready to harvest after a specific number of weeks after planting. It's more a case of watching and observing your vegetable garden, which is all part of the fun. There are some years onions will do well, and then others when they'll seem to have hardly grown since putting the sets in the ground.

Once the little bulbs are set in the soil they will throw up tall green hollow stalk like leaves. Weeds need to be kept at bay. The onion plants will become quite lush and there's nothing quite so fulfilling as a bed full of healthy onions reaching up towards the sky. Keep visiting your onions and cast an eye over them every few days. If you see any flowering stalks shoot up from the odd onion harvest and use those ones immediately, they won't grow anymore and they don't store either.  It's always nice to leave one or two, as the flowers are beautiful and the kids are interested in what happens if they're left to grow on.

These onions are drying out under a shelter, they will need turning every day to prevent the green shoots rotting,
or even better, space them out further than this.

After roughly three or four months you'll begin to notice a change in the lush miniature green forest. Some of the leafy stalks will begin to lie down, just a couple at first, but after a day or two most of the crop will be lying down and are ready to harvest. If you are lucky enough to have sunny dry weather leave the crop out in the sunshine a day or two for the leafy tops to shrivel and dry. Otherwise spread them out to indoors or under shelter. If you wish to try your hand at onion ropes leave roughly 10cm of stalk length on each onion for weaving it into a rope. Snip off the short roots. Store in net bags or hang the ropes.

If you'd like lots of information like this in one easy ebooklet take a look at the Grow Your Own Veg which is perfect for beginners. Or if you have time to spare, read through the blog for more free information, try clicking on 'Gardening, Fruit & Veg' under the Categories list.

Ode to a Compost Toilet

Last week I was invited by a friend to see their poo, in a compost toilet.  An earlier post here on Sallygardens about the possibility of using compost toilets and tree bogs got so much attention and feedback from readers that I thought I'd keep you filled in on my humanure adventures.

Many people have a compost toilet indoors which they empty every few days into an outdoor compost heap. This is the most efficient way for the composting process to work. Others build a compost toilet outdoors which is what my friend has done. He uses it as much as possible, even though he has a conventional indoor flushable toilet. As he explains, it's such a waste to flush away all those nutrients which are simply going to pollute the local groundwater via his 'legal' septic tank system. It makes much more ecological sense to reuse the household human waste by composting it aerobically which means all the pathogens are killed over the course of a years composting and when done properly does not contaminate groundwater or create any bad smells. It also saves enormously on water usage in the home, it makes no sense to use water in vast quantities which has been cleaned expensively to flush away human waste. He far prefers to take a dump outdoors in his tree bog, looking out on nature.

The outdoor tree bog of his type needs emptying out once every year or two and I was invited to come along to watch. I wanted to see for myself how human manure composts and see if it smelled at all. When it was prized open there were a few bits of toilet paper on the top layer, but no smell and there was no visible evidence of what one might expect to see. The entire pile was sweet smelling, earthy, dark and crumbly. It resembled peat moss in composition and was delightful in appearance and aroma, it was quite impossible to equate this lovely nutrient rich and moist (but not soggy) earth with its former appearance. I also immediately thought how infinitely more pleasant it is to deal with this sweet smelling compost than with the dreaded anaerobic stinking bath of toxic wretch inducing swill that fills our septic tanks and quite often requires unblocking and emptying.

My vote is for compost toilets.

Bubble Bubble Without Too Much Toil Or Trouble

It's that time of year when various rooms in the household greet their occupants with a welcoming 'bloop, bloop, bloop' noise. A selection of homemade country wines are fermenting away. Good old glass gallon demijohns sit on available shelves or nestle in corners containing liquids of beautiful colours, ranging from gold to pink,  just doing their thing. It's really very easy to make country wine, in fact so easy I have found in the past that the biggest pitfall is to make too much so that the racking and bottling becomes a chore. So these days I make one demijohn each of my favourite flavours and that way it's all enjoyable and the wines are savoured.

 

Some favourites include elderflower, strawberry, blackberry, nettle leaf, birch sap wine and mead. The whole affair is very cheap, the only real expense being roughly 1.5kilos of sugar per gallon of liquid plus a good quality yeast and yeast nutriment powder. Even with the cost of the demijohns and other minor bits of equipment  in the first year the wine is easily less than half the price and in subsequent years probably under a euro per bottle. That's a significant saving on the weekly shop!

I've been meaning to write an ebooklet on this topic for some time and I finally found the inspiration I was looking for to get me going during the first racking of an elderflower and strawberry wine I'm making ... an unintended sampling was forced upon me during the syphoning process ... accidently on purpose, several times, eh, by me! When I first started out making the wine it took quite a bit of time gathering the information and sourcing the things I'd need, getting to grips with a bit of science, realising lots of information was not necessary and quite a few things tasted disgusting! So there is now a short ebooklet in the Paypal store (see top right column) with instructions on how to make our favourite country wines here at Sallygardens.

Slainte (cheers).

Anyone for Afternoon Tea?

Russian Comfrey tea is a wonderful free fertiliser for your vegetable or flower garden but not for human consumption! A harvest of leaves can be cut from your comfrey plants at least twice during summer, I get three or four harvests from our plants in the polytunnel. Simply bruise the foliage in a bucket and fill with water, preferably rainwater. Leave the broth to fester for a few weeks, this happens quicker if you keep it inside a polytunnel but you may find the smell repulsive! It soon turns to a black liquer which needs to be diluted 15:1 for use on flowering or fruiting plants. 

The comfrey plant has a very deep tap root which brings up many trace elements and minerals from deep below the soil where these nutrients often lie out of reach for mainstream plants. The leaves can also be thrown on the compost heap to boost its value or chopped and dug into vegetable beds.

I like Russian Comfrey as it does not set seed and so is less invasive, spreading via root cuttings instead.

Broody Hen At Work

It's very handy having a broody hen, she will sit on and try to hatch anything spherical. She'd even sit on golf balls, apples, anything vaguely round in shape! This little hen sat on nine fat Aylesbury duck eggs for us, laid by our own duck, and she hatched eight of them. She proudly escorted her flock of ducklings around the field, not once questioning why they had flat bills and webbed feet! After a few days we put a paddling pool out for them and the ducklings were thrilled however the broody hen was most alarmed by her babies insistence on swimming and diving!

The drake, however, was not at all impressed by the arrival of ducklings, even though they were his own offspring. He managed to kill one and new fencing had to be erected pronto to provide a safe area for the ducklings to forage.

New Arrivals on the Farm

Early summer is a busy busy time on a smallholding. One of the things that happens is the arrival of kids and over the course of  a few weeks we keep a check on the expectant mothers at regular intervals during the day. In previous years it's been easy to see when a goat is in labour, but I always missed the births by minutes, usually finding the kids as they were being licked clean. This year I was thrilled to witness the birth of Willows two kids and as usual she needed no intervention at all. She had a doe and then a big buck.

For some reason known only to herself she rejected the little doe. For the first few days we had to milk Willow and although we tried feeding the kid by bottle, she preferred to drink straight from the bucket. Once she was quick on her feet she fed straight from her Mum by employing some clever tactics. When the buck went to suckle she would run up between Mums hind legs and suckle too, in secret! I even saw her lie on her back once to wangle her way in. Its sad she has been rejected by her Mum, but she plays and sleeps with her brother and another adult doe has taken kindly to her too.

Home Cured Chorizo and Salami

The salami and chorizo are both cured and ready to eat. It took roughly three months for them to air dry sufficiently. Every so often, when out getting wood, I'd have a quick grope of the sausages hanging from the roof. Once they were no longer 'squishy' they were good to go.

It's at this point that most first timer air dried sausage adventurers begin to doubt themselves, or rather their sausages, because the final product ticks all the boxes in the 'do not eat this if you wish to live' category. It is after all raw meat, raw meat that's been hanging outside and not in a fridge, for months. Add to that the fact that the sausage is wrinkled and mouldy. The mouldy hillocks range in colour from white, to grey, to blue, brown and black. Of course all the previous preparations have been done under very clean and hygenic conditions and careful informed decisions made as to what, if any, preservatives are to be used.

To give you an idea of what to expect here is a picture of our latest chorizo. It was delecious ... only 6 more metre long sausages of various flavours to go!

Air Dried Hams and Salami

The pigs are no longer foraging the front lawn. The lawn has been sown with wildflower seed and the pigs are now pork. As the previous air dried hams were such a culinary success we decided to make four air dried hams. You can never have too much air dried ham, it's an absolute delight. Similarly you can never have too much saussison or salami which is why we made less sausage and more salami this time too. The only problem is the waiting and salivating in anticipation. We shouldn't have too much longer to wait for the salami but the hams were so large it could be another three months before they are ready. However, it's most certainly worth the wait.

We hang the salami in a muslin lined chicken wire cage and the hams are wrapped in cotton pillowcases to deter scavangers.

 

So we are without pigs at the moment but hope to get more weaners in July which is good timing as it means we will have more pork to process in the Autumn. October is a great time to be working on pork. It means the weaners have been growing during spring and summer when wild food is bountyfull and the weather warm, so the extra foraging they do adds to their flavour and the concentrate feed we give them goes further as less calories are burn't off to keep warm. And ideally, in October, there are few flies and the weather is cool, ideal conditions for butchering.

Appreciating Resilience

One of the words that keeps popping up all through any permaculture book or website you'll dip into is 'resilience'. At first I didn't really appreciate the value of this word, and what it might mean for our own family, but as the economic downturn packs some serious punches the term is making a lot more sense. 'Resilience' isn't just a fashionable permaculture buzzword.

 

In a nutshell, whenever you look at your living space (indoors and out) you should always ask yourself the questions 'how can I utilise this space/item/object for more than one use?','if this breaks how will I continue ... is there an alternative source of water/fuel/food/shelter/cooking/travel etc?'. Whenever we add something to our life, our home or our garden I always ask how I'd cope without it, or what alternatives we could use instead. I walk around our house and garden and I look at how we've set things up. I ask all the same questions ... how would I water this polytunnel if the pump and automatic watering system failed, where would I source water if our water supply was to be cut off. Water is one of the first things to ask ourselves about. We are lucky to have a stream at the side of our property and a lake at the back, plus plenty of roof area to collect rainwater if needed. Another main area is fuel ... how would we heat our home if we couldn't afford oil, or travel to buy coal. Again, luckily we have a woodland plantation which provides us with heating fuel and so we rarely buy fuel these days. Cooking of food? What if electricity is cut off or we can no longer afford gas cylinders? One plan for this summer is to build an earth oven in the garden for such occasions. And as for food, what if the supermarket supply chain fails and there's no food on the shelves ... sourcing local markets or growers, and growing your own suddenly becomes much more than just a fulfilling pleasure.

Apart from being fun it also makes sense to build our resilience. With the global economic downturn I've suddenly felt the welcoming cushioning effect of all these little steps of resilience built into our lives, which up until now, I'd have barely acknowledged their presence. But they are there and we planned it that way, thanks to reading up on permaculture. At the very worst case scenario it boils down to survival, at it's current level it helps keep life on a steady and even keel. There is still food on the table and we know we have many of the resources we need on the doorstep in order to continue living the life we've been enjoying.

Of course we are far from self sufficient, but we've never aimed to be that. It's more about living sustainably, and building resilience into life is one little part of that.

Selecting Seeds for Spring

It's that time of year again when the seed catalogues arrive in the post. It's a great lift for the spirits to leaf through the pages and begin selecting whats to be grown this year. After a few months of pretty much nothing happening in the garden you can start to look forward to the beginning of the cycle all over again. It won't be long now until the seeds are placed in compost trays and their small green tips push up through to the light. The miracle of these tiny seeds growing so vigourously in the spring and summer seasons is always a thrill to watch ... and eat!

Sitting in front of a winter fire and discussing what varieties and types of plants to grow is always a pleasure and something to be savoured. This year we have quite a few seeds left over from last year which have kept well, so we don't actually have to buy a lot of stock.

One thing that's always tempting is to buy too many varieties of each thing, but  I've learnt to concentrate on a few items and try to do them really well, rather than become bogged down with tons of seed packets, which I'd never realistically be able to sow and grow!

The vegetables and polytunnel have always been my 'department' but now that I'm on the traditional Irish music course every morning himself will be learning to take the lead in the garden and I'll be his assistant when I get home. It's a good thing that we both learn the logistics of all the various farm areas.

So what are we sowing this year? A sample includes mange tout, sugar snap peas, dwarf purple, golden and green French beans, spinach, chard, courgette, sweet corn, kale, mixed salad leaves, pak choi, stir fry oriental leaves, onions, garlic, pumpkin, parsnip, carrot, potato, kohl rabi, brussel sprout, brocolli to name a few.

If you are starting out growing for the first time I have an eBooklet that gives advice on how to get started. The main points are to choose hardy and reliable plants so ensure success but also to start small with just a few items and add to that each year.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Learning From Horses

Getting horses has probably been one of the biggest decisions we have made, up there with starting a family and getting married. It's not something we have taken on lightly, we researched the idea by devouring books and internet websites and forums, talked to and visited horse owners, we took riding lessons and attended a few courses on horse handling and training. Of course you can do all of these things for years but you can't even begin to scratch the surface of the equine world without having some in your care and some carefully chosen guides. We are beginning to scratch that surface now.

At first we were all quite frightened, both the horses and the humans! Of course that's not the best scenario, but we all have to start our equine learning somewhere. It doesn't matter how many horses you handle on a course, they are all different and the chances of the horses you buy having identical personalities, insecurities or strengths of those you've previously experienced are virtually nil. That, I'm beginning to see, is part of the beauty of equines. They are as diverse in personality as human beings, and so the methods of teaching horses must be diverse enough to suit the needs of whatever horse you happen to become the guardian of. Owning a horse does not come without risk, it's a gargantuan and incredibly strong animal, and that's also something you need to weigh up.

Taking on these animals is a huge commitment both in terms of responsibility for their welfare but also in time and money. If we want these horses to be useful and happy working animals then we need to put in the time with them nearly every day, handling them, getting to know them, building a relationship with them and training them. It's a twenty plus years commitment. There have been times when I've seriously questioned what on earth we were doing getting horses, there have been people who have been wholly positive and supportive, there has been a minimum amount of undermining negativity and that led me to totally re-evaluate the whole idea ... I've been willing to admit if we were just plain stupid to take on such a massive commitment. Thankfully we have come through it with support and help from some amazing people who pulled us through with pure encouragement and belief in our abilities.

We are working with Sally and Conan at home with a trainer who visits us once a week for a three hour session and is pretty much available on the phone if we have problems in between.  Her approach is to train the owner to read and train the horse, so that when she leaves, we have the knowledge to carry on in the right vein. We fully intend to carry on doing our very best and if at any point we feel it's not the best approach for the horses welfare then we will re-evaluate again. But we are 100% in and thoroughly enjoying it and we are not going to throw in the towel without doing everything in our power to be good owners and trainers, we owe them that. Having said all that, I wouldn't encourage somebody else to do the same thing without first talking to them sincerely and honestly about the challenges we have faced emotionally in our journey to date. Keeping horses not only requires you to learn about horses, but also to identify and face up to weaknesses in yourself that need to be addressed. It requires you to delve deep into your inner strength and stillness, which can be frightening, because well, what if it isn't there? I've not only learned about how I need develop my skills and address my personal weaknesses to 'be' around horses, but also these skills have given me a level of personal development within myself and in my own personal relationships with people. I've not doubt there'll be a lot more to learning to do, a lifetime of it.

The approach we have decided to take is working wonders. It's neither a pure traditional or a natural horsemanship approach. It's a hybrid of many training techniques which takes on board the methods that work best from each school of thought and gives the most positive result in terms of experience for both the horse and it's handler. What we love most about this method is that the trainer, Cathy Griffin, comes to our home to teach us and she instills the confidence in us to feel like we can truly achieve a positive result and to choose from a range of approaches, choosing what works in our own particular case.

After six weeks we have come from being scared of these massive strong creatures which unsettled them, to loving the time we spend around them. We are seeing huge changes in our own confidence, and consequently theirs. Their behaviour towards us is evolving positively as we learn how to read their body language and act accordingly.  We are building slowly and steadily on our relationship with them and as our trust grows in each other we are achieving some great results and responses. It's all hard work and commitment and nothing of the nature I had imagined it would be like!

Sally is nervous and so we are generally working on her very gently. Our approach is not to teach her initially how to perform the tasks we ask of her perfectly, but to attempt to perform any response in a relaxed 'soft' way. That's our aim, to help her to soften up, relax, gain confidence and have fun. Over the last three weeks we have seen her relax and open up, it's wonderful. With that achieved we are now perfecting some of the movements we have taught her. She is a very fast learner and extremely sensitive. She will now perform some tasks by verbal command, and others with a point, or a gentle tap on the rope with my finger. This week Cathy has given us a specific thing to 'ask' Sally to do, which is a big deal for a horse as it leaves them feeling vulnerable and they must really trust their handler to put themselves softly into this position. She was able to demonstrate it on Conan because being young he has no trust issues or emotional baggage and did it immediately!

When we first got the horses I naievely thought 'ah, foal, cute, easy, cuddly'. I have learned quickly that being responsible for a foal is a serious business and a huge responsibility, whatever we teach, or fail to teach him now, will set him up for the life he will lead. It's up to us to make sure he grows into a safe and respectful animal. Conan is a whole other horse and totally different in comparison to Sally.  He is a young 7 month old colt full of the joys of life. He loves racing around the field, throwing his head, kicking and rearing. He wants to play! He isn't scared or nervous at all and performs everything with gusto but we just have to make sure he doesn't encroach on our personal space in case he can't help trying to 'play' with us, which would hurt! In two weeks he has gone from being a live wire on the rope to being respectful of our space and eager to be asked to do plenty of tasks. If we don't keep him busy in a training session he gets bored, after all he's only a kid, so we keep his lessons very short but interesting. He is full of spirit and a joy to be around.

Clothes Swap Party

On Friday  I went to my first 'ladies only' clothes swap party. It was just what I needed to add some cheer to these dark winter days. Three of us lift shared, all stuffed into the car amongst piles of clothes with  food offerings balanced here and there. When we arrived there were already some people at the party and a pile of clothes lay in the middle of the room. We threw in our contributions.

At first I felt a bit unsure about the etiquette. I mean you can't just dive at something that catches your eye, it's not like the January sales in Dublin! Everybody sort of visually scans the heap, then once you've seen something you like you kinda glance around the room to see if anybody else has honed in on it too. Then it's all very polite and there's a bit of chat about which one of you should try it on first. It was all very exciting as people went in and out to the bedroom, returning to display the clothes they'd put on. There were lots of  'ooohs' and 'aaaahs' as ladies strutted around looking fab. After a while a certain flow developed and everybody rummaged through finding things for themselves and offering suggestions to others. There was even some fab jewelery. It was worth tyring lots of things on because some clothes that looked drab on the floor were transformed and looked fabulous on a lady!

I brought five items with me and left with five. The clothes were lovely and I'm delighted with my swaps. It's great to have some new life in my wardrobe and to think I haven't spent a penny and the clothes have been recycled amongst friends. The few things that were left over will be brought to a local charity shop.  Everybody agreed that the night was great fun and we look forward to the next clothes swap.

We Are Horsey

It's been a very eventful week here at Sallygardens. Last Sunday our horses arrived and we were very excited to welcome them to their new home. We'd seen the mare at her owners three times; once by ourselves, again with a knowledgeable horse friend and finally we went to watch during the vet check. On all occasions she was respectful and never aggressive and we were sure she'd be right for us. We bought her from Tom Divine near Newtownforbes, Co Longford, who has a selection of lovely Irish cobs for sale that he breeds himself (087 7667091).

The horse was called Patch when we got her, but that didn't seem very ladylike so we renamed her Sally! Her foal is six months old and we've called him Conan. During the week that followed we hit highs and deep dark lows, we experienced self doubt, despair, helplessness and finally hope, understanding and optimism. I've cried several times in sadness and today I cried with relief and joy. Oh yes, the horsey world will teach you many things, not just about horses, but about yourself too.

The first two days were fantastic. I refer to them as the honeymoon period! Sally was gentle and respectful with no signs of aggression as we expected, but on the third day she nipped me. I was then on the look out for it again  and kept my elbow stuck out when I was near her so she'd knock into it instead of nipping me. Once I was in the courtyard with her we were fine together, but then she began to get nippy at the gate making it hard for me to get in. She began to pin her ears back when we simply approached the gate and yesterday she flung herself around to kick when we tried to enter.

Why should this happen? At the time I was very upset because I knew it was probably something I/we had done wrong. At some point she tested us and we missed it. She tested us because we are her new herd and she needs to know that we are strong enough to be the herd leader. If we are then she can relax and go about grazing and leave the stress of watching for predators and decision making up to me. Unfortunately I missed her 'asking' me and so she thought, 'damn, I have to be in charge'. A horse will much rather not be in charge but once they are it takes a bit of confrontation and strength (inner strength, not physical) to turn it around again.

Having had next to no previous horse experience various friends offered advice and came to help us with routine stuff. But it had become so bad that we didn't feel safe to enter her pen and so we called in expert help. Joanna Shaeffer of Natural Bridges Horse Training (087 3284251) arrived to assess Sally and within a few minutes she could tell us that she wasn't a headstrong alpha mare and that things would be ok again with a little work. After about an hour of work to make Sally safe and get her listening I went in a took control. On the lead rope she moved back for me, she moved her hind quarters away when I asked and presented to me head first. Finally she went out on a lunge line and turned in when I asked her.  I had to stand my ground because she hadn't previously let me be in charge of her so it was an education and a change for the both of us. If Joanna had not worked through it with her first I'd have been in trouble, she laid an easier path for me.

At the end of the hour Sally had turned from a horse that bit and kicked at the gate not letting either of us into her pen, to the horse she was when she first arrived ... ears up and happy to have a rub. At her previous home she was well cared for and she lived in horse heaven in the fields with little day to day human contact. She simply isn't used to being in the control of a human.  Now she needs to learn to pay attention to us and know that she is not in control of the new herd here, and that it's ok to leave that up to me.

We are to practice what we and she learn't today every day for the next ten days and then we may be ready to move on with more training. At the moment we are just laying down the basic rules to keep us safe in her proximity. Joanna told us Sally is likely to behave for a couple of days and then may test us again. So stay tuned. I'm optimistic that by the end of it we'll have a great horse ready to work with us and a great relationship too.

To say this week has been an emotional rollercoaster would be an understatement. Getting a horse has been like having our first baby, nothing anybody can tell you will prepare you for it. Life and priorities change and the sense of responsibility is huge but the rewards will come.

Sallygardens eBooklet Store

At long last I've managed to create a Paypal store which will make it easier for you to purchase our Sallygardens eBooklets. Instead of having to email me first to request a Paypal invoice you can place a direct order via this store front. Of course you can still use the old way, this alternative just provides another easier option . Look to the right hand side bar to find the store. Come on in and have a look around.

Learning How to Harness Train a Horse

Although we had already decided which horse breed we wanted to bring to Sallygardens we also needed to do something about the fact that we are total  and utter horse novices. It became apparent that a horse trained up to do the pulling ('driving' in horsey terms) of carriages/loads of wood/etc.  is an expensive animal. We began to look at buying a younger horse that could be trained a couple of years later but training costs are high and the animal has to go to stay where it's being trained for a few weeks, maybe even a couple of months at €120 per week. I just didn't like the idea of sending my horse away (and I didn't even have a horse!). I started to wonder what it is that people actually do to train a horse, it all seemed so mysterious and secretive, something that a layperson couldn't possibly ever contemplate doing themselves for fear of death.  We were warned off this idea by a lot of people.

Then I happened across something that has changed our entire approach. I got in touch with the ispca in Longford to see if they might have a horse suitable to foster that would meet our needs. Through that connection I was introduced to Vanessa Bee. She runs a variety of courses, one of which taught participants how to train their horses to drive. I was sure I'd need to be a highly qualified and experienced horse trainer to attend, but I was assured that novices were more than welcome. What's more I didn't even need to own a horse to do the course, for those of us without an equine, we were paired up with an experienced horse handler and an  ispca rescue horses.

I have to say I was very scared at first but after we'd gone over the basics of how to build a trusting relationship with a horse based on respect and confidence, it all began to make sense. The key to those things seems to lie in learning how to politely 'ask' a horse to do something and crucially, how to recognise a 'try' and give immediate reward.

The course I attended first was two days of Pony Power during which we learnt how to introduce a horse to a harness, rig it up to something to pull and get the horse to move forward and drag the object. There were three horses and out of those one was successfully pulling heavy logs out of a wood, another was happy to drag a tyre around a field (a similar sensation to harrowing) and the third happily wore the harness and long reined nicely from the ground.

Tilly being long reined, she has previous driving experience

But before we familiarised the horses with any new equipment we first had fun tying it out on eachother.  We actually learnt an awful lot about how it felt to be a horse, actually it can be quite confusing deciphering all those 'asks' via the long reins! We also trialed a few quick release ideas incase a horse became scared and we needed to drop the load without delay.

This is Maria of Gaia's Horse blog with Pepsi and Crystal watching with anticipation

This horse Pepsi had never previously had a harness on before. She excelled and really loved the work. You can see how proud she is of herself. Once Vanessa had long reined her for a while and she was sure Pepsi was happy with everything she did her first job ... pulling a log out of the woods, and she did it like a pro.

This horse is only 14.2 hands high, which is the threshold from pony to horse, so she is a small horse. However you can see she is strong, her leg bones are chunky, her chest is broad and muscly, her rump is large and rounded and her back is short in length. These are the attributes, along with a gentle temperament, to look for in a working horse.

The course changed my attitude to horse training. I'm sure that with a little more help we'll be able to train our own horse. Apart from my own revelations with regard to horse training it also became apparent that the ispca rescue horses were undergoing a very valuable form of rehabilitation. They were being transformed from horses that sought kind hearted folk to offer them a place to live quietly in a field, to being very useful farm animals that can be utilised for work ... but of course the folk who foster them still need to be kindhearted. I'll be revisiting the ispca in Longford soon and telling you more about each of the horses there that are seeking a home.

Launch of 'Keeping Chickens, A Beginners Guide' eBooklet

I'm proud to announce the addition of another ebooklet, 'Keeping Chickens, A Beginners Guide', to our collection. It covers everything from where to source poultry, which breed to buy to suit your needs, DIY or bought housing options, feeding and breeding. The ebooklet includes a section on plant fodder suitable to grow in and around your chicken run which is an approach that will save you money in terms of buying in food and also help do your bit for the environment by cutting down on the volume of feed you import to your home.

Keeping chickens can be incredibly rewarding and fun, but it's also a good way to take another step towards increasing your resilience to the changes in our economic communities. Producing food locally means you are less tied into the necessity to fork out yet more cash at the multinational supermarket. Anything, however small, that brings food production to your doorstep is a step in the right direction on many levels ; food higher in nutritional value, less food miles, local food for local people, a product with which you can barter in return for other food or services and perhaps surplus that you can sell to friends and neighbours. Children also benefit from learning about where food comes from and of course the responsibilities for animal welfare that go with taking care of any animal. Collecting your own fresh eggs in the morning is such a huge thrill, it never ceases to bring delight to our family!

Chickens aren't just for the rural setting, many people in urban homes are keeping a couple chickens in their garden for eggs. It's perfectly feasible and a wonderful addition.

Our ebooklet contains all the information you'll need to get up and running, it costs €8 via email or €12 via snail mail. We are also launching a new course of the same title here at Sallygardens so if you prefer to come along and learn all you need to know around the kitchen table please call to book a place (071 9632212). Courses run every weekend and cost €45 per person, places are limited to four per course, so book well in advance. You'll be cracking your very own home laid eggs into the frying pan before you know it!

Working Horse at Sallygardens

A few months ago we started researching the idea of getting a working horse to join us on our smallholding. We've pretty much been researching this idea full time since then. I've gone from not knowing anything about horses, other than what they look like, to having at least enough knowledge to consider what horse might suit our needs. We  considered various breeds such as the French Percheron, UK shire horses or Clydesdales and the Belgian Ardenne.

Finally we set our hearts on a native traditional heavy Irish Gypsy Cob. They are ideal because they've been bred to suit our wet climate and do well outside the year round.

This is a yearling colt 'Shruna's Boy', not fully grown, from www.gypsyirishcob.com
 

They are also economical feeders and generally  have a very gentle nature. The traits have been selectively bred into the gypsy horses by the Travellers for generations because this animal was just the thing they needed on the road... something that could survive outdoors and didn't need expensive stabling, something that could feed economically on the roadside grass, a horse strong enough to pull a family and it's caravan, and last but not least, an animal kind enough to be easily handled by the children of the family. It's all of these qualities combined that have made the Irish cob a horse that is bred extensively in Ireland and one which people from all walks of life seek out. When I was a child in Dublin these were the horses seen being ridden by inner city children, used to pull cart loads of vegetables into Moore's Street or coal to the housing estates. They were often left to graze the central reservations of the city roads and I'll never forget the excitement of waking up one morning to see a lost horse standing in our own front garden. Indeed their legendary gentle nature means that people from as far as the UK and US are now eagerly importing these gentle giants.

The horse itself is magnificent to look at, especially when the feather (lower leg hair) and mane is long and they are running or jumping with hair billowing out behind them in the wind. Yep, we got it bad! I apologise if this blog takes a bit of a 'horsey' turn for a while, I promise to try and balance things out with various vegetables and other smallholding animals!

And some very exciting news ... if all goes according to plan our very own Gypsy Cob is due to arrive here at the weekend. Stay posted for news.

Ripening Tomatoes

The polytunnel has well and truly finished it's summer flush. It's with a little regret that I mark the end of summer and the beginning of autumn by snipping off the remaining tomatoes from the plant. I bring them inside and hang them up in the south facing kitchen window, still on their vine. I think of summer time whenever I glance at them. The family just graze on them, picking them off as they ripen up. Delicious.

One way to encourage the green toms to ripen is to hang bananas amongst them, the blacker the better! A gas emitted by the banana speeds up the ripening process.  Another way to use up and green toms is to make a green tomatoe chutney or, as a recent visitor told me, fry them in butter.

Changing Seasons

It's all been very busy here lately and I'll fill you in on the reasons. First of all the last of our hard working wwoofers has left and we won't be having any more until the spring. With Christmas approaching Dan is now in the workshop making Hobby Horses for customers. He features in the November issue of Ireland's Homes, Interiors & Living Magazine and already has orders coming in through that. I've just been working on an Etsy Shop for him too but his order books are bound to be full quite soon.

We are also kept busy with running courses here at Sallygardens and because the subjects are varied we never get bored! Pig rearing for the table, goat keeping, keeping chickens, growing your own vegetables and a general smallholding visit are all becoming more and more popular, but with the way the economy is going I'm not at all surprised. With less cash in peoples pockets and rising prices the interest in providing for yourself, even on a garden scale, is getting more appealing by the minute. Luckily there's not too much to do on the gardening front here at the moment other than eat whats there, and there's still a lot. Dan planted about a hundred over wintering onions in the polytunnel a couple of weeks ago and we will also plant garlic before the end of this month.

Life is finding a new balance at Sallygardens because I've taken up a full time course which means I'm out of the house 'at shcool' five mornings a week. Our youngest started school too this September so Dan has the place to himself until after lunchtime. He says he gets loads more done without me around nagging him!!! The course I'm doing is Traditional Irish Music, I'm learning to play the fiddle as well as studying folklore, music theory and history ... and I LOVE it.

Reaping the Harvest

As autumn takes over many of the vegetables have reached the end of their productive season such as the tomatoes, French climbing and dwarf beans. Other crops are still bearing fruit, the last of the cucumbers are still in the tunnel, some runner beans are waiting to be picked as is a good crop of carrots that will last another few months.  Outdoors the pumpkins are at their best. As winter approaches Kale comes into it's own, the cabbages are being used and the leeks stay in the ground until needed.

The garlic and onions have already been saved are hanging in the kitchen.We haven't got a full years supply of these but as each season passes we add another vegetable bed so eventually there will be enough produce to tide us over for a full year, but one step at a time!

The Taming of the Pigs

Since the piglets arrived (and left, and arrived, and left again!) about a month ago we have been working on building a trust with them. Once it became apparent that they were too flighty to investigate the electric fence slowly but surely we had to take fast action before they decided to depart full time. We built a four foot high strong mesh fence with round posts roughly every meter. The mesh size was only a couple of inches, sheep fencing would have been useless because piglets are small enough to jump through the larger gaps.  Just above grass level and at pig shoulder height we strung around electric ribbon fencing. When the pigs were released into their new and improved enclosure they again made repeated runs at the fence for a good two minutes, but this time when they got pinged by the electric fence they couldn't just bolt out through it.

Once they calmed down they never went near the ribbon fencing again, and after two weeks turning the soil in their miniature 'training enclosure' we removed the mesh fencing. Four strands of electric ribbon fencing now contains them and can be easily moved around to new ground as they need it.

Why do we use ribbon fencing rather than wire fencing? Because a pigs eyesight isn't great, especially if they are are lop eared breed as the ears effectively act as blinkers, but they do learn where the wire is and avoid it. When the time comes to move the fencing, or the pigs, they won't want to cross the line where they've learned the ping exists. If you use wide ribbon electric fencing they can see it clearly and associate the ping with the ribbon rather than the area, so will readily move across the line once the fencing is removed. We find they might still need a little encouragement.

As you can see these piglets who ran the first few days are now well on the way to relaxing in their new home. We spend a few minutes with them during several sessions each day, not just at feeding times, so that they don't expect to always get food whenever we enter their pen.