As Easy as AB, See?

Venison on the menu.

The cupboard is bare! The sales of eggs from the 'Honesty Box' have just this week started to motor and when I looked in this morning there was not an egg to be seen. Instead, of course, a good handful of coins in the Tupperware box. We were sold out. I have had to re-stock with the reserves indoors. It is a good feeling but I might have to go have a word with the girls to see if we can up the production a wee bit. The hens, of course. The poor ducks are already going at 100%, putting the chooks to shame. 3 eggs from 3 ducks EVERY DAY.

Augustin gets an archery 'taster' session. His hand is on his
first ever bull's eye. 

Welcome aboard the Blog, though, our new Help-X lad. Augustin, 18 from the Eastern suburbs of Paris, joined us on Friday 22nd. A lovely bloke - big and strong (handy around here!) he is also very happy and relaxed, always ready with a witticism, very easy to get along with and very appreciative of our food and hospitality. No farming experience but very willing to try anything and already ticking off the new skills. He is settling in well. He is enjoying trying to improve his English (with added Irish expressions)  and Liz is enjoying being able to use her French again.

Taster session at the archery.

For the purposes of this blog, Augustin is actually "AB". It's a bit complicated. I had just about got the hang of nailing the correct pronunciation (too many options on all 3 syllables! Ow/Awww/Agg followed by Gus or Goose (or one in between) and then tan/tin/teen. I kept 'landing' the feminine versions (tin/teen).

Our man tried to put me out of my misery by suggesting "Call me Gus" but we can't use Gus at the moment - a TV series we are glued to in boxed set (Breaking Bad) has the worst bad guy named Gus. So we've gone with 'AB' (Augustin's initials) and he is delighted. Our other options from his long list of childhood nick-names are 'Doctor' (for his regular clever witticisms "like a Professor") or 'Ancien' (the old guy, after his love of wearing old fashion hats (flat caps, berets) and having a beard. Anyway, AB it is.

AB winds some pressure onto the cider press
while K-Dub holds it all down.

AB, then, was straight into things even though his first days were weekend. Archery coach, Con, had put out a call for volunteers to come and dismantle the club's big marquee / party tent. It was a bit windy to be messing with canvas but AB and I are 'substantial' lads and did not think we'd get blown away. Con was very grateful for our efforts and invited AB to come and have a taster session at the archery the next day (Sunday), where he was already due to start the latest Beginners' course. It all went well and AB even signed up for the next few Sundays. 

Home made cider press. 

The Monday saw us at the cider making. K-Dub announced that the cider press was now ready and we should bring all the apples over, so we raced round the orchard picking all we could see. When we got to K-Dub's place we also found that he had built a home made shredder - a wooden hopper with a plastic pipe slotted in at the bottom into which had been part-screwed, dozens of screws and into the end of which slotted a handle to turn this 'drum'.

I take a turn at the winding. We later graduated
to fitting a steel tube to the handle to give us
more leverage. It worked well. 

The apples fall to the bottom of the hopper where the exposed screw-heads rip them to bits. The shredded apple then goes in a 'pillowcase' assembled in minutes by Carolyn (she of the mini-horses) from a tea towel and some muslin-like fabric and gets pressed by the mighty press. K-Dub was well impressed by his own welding, with the new welder.

AB turns pig farmer as we train the pigs
to climb, fearlessly, into the trailer. 

The top of the press is a 12 mm thick chunk of sheet steel but the winding action was able to slightly bow this; a considerable pressure exerted on the apple pulp but nothing broke. Long story short, we extracted 3 and a half litres of juice from our (not many) apples but K-Dub tells me today that they have since sourced more apples and extracted another 7 litres. The juice is with Carolyn for the next stage. She knows a bit about brewing! Hopes are high for some delicious scrumpy.

All loaded. 

Our other main activity with the Help-X assistance has been that the pigs have 'come ready' and needed taking on their final journey today (Tuesday). AB helped me over the Sunday/Monday to train them to the trailer. Even though he has no experience of farming, he happily joined me among them, in the pen, with the pigs snuffling around this 'new' person, sniffing his legs and boots, nudging him out of the way. He stayed relaxed and calm (as instructed) so that Empress and Pride quickly climbed the ramp and we were sure we'd have a problem free 'loading day'.

Sunrise through the trees

I am happy to say that that worst-of-all small-holdering days is now done. We all managed to get up early, the pigs loaded as if they couldn't wait to get at their breakfasts (thin portion sizes today - they need to go to the butcher "fasted") , we had problem free haulage and drop off. Obviously we all hate to have to do this and we wish we didn't but that is a discussion for elsewhere. The pigs are, presumably by now, 'late' and the carcasses get 48 hours to cool and 'set'. We collect them on Thursday and AB can then see the next stage in the process. He likes his pork, we are told. It will have been an interesting experience for him. And he has not yet run away screaming!

St Valentine's Day Massacre

Today, a 'shaggy dog' story. The pups are 8 months old now and have only ever had scissor trim cuts around their eyes and bums; never a proper buzz-cut with the clippers. If you know the West Highland White Terrier breed, you will know that these dogs do not moult, so they need a hair cut every couple of months to prevent them turning into Dulux Dogs and over-heating in the summer.

Many people take them to professional dog groomers for a hair cut and beauty treatment (toe nails etc) but in Kent we were finding that this could be as much as £35 per dog per time, and with three dogs that was going to be an expensive proposition. We also found that we lived 20 minutes drive away from the European Service Centre for the 'Wahl' company who make a good type of professional clipper. It's in Whitstable. A decent set of clippers, 10+ years ago was £75, so it would pay for itself in one 'round' of cuts. Furthermore Wahl do a cutting-head replacement service as a sharpening-method - you take in your blunt heads and for about a fiver (10 years ago), they replace them with a sharpened head

I quickly decided that I would clip my own dogs and invested in a clipper plus some good quality scissors and thinning 'shears' (like 2 sharp combs meeting), plus oil for the clippers. I saved a chunk of a pond liner we were then installing as a non-skid mat and a big tupperware pot to keep all this gear in, and I have had it ever since, through Megan and Haggis, Deefer and now Towser and Poppy.

I am a long way from being a professional quality groomer and cannot give you a show-standard dog, but they get a hair cut and are much cooler in the summer. Sometimes they might be a bit embarrassed and hate me for the sticky-out tufts and missed bits, but they never complain.

I was asked today how you do it. I (rightly or wrongly) always clipper 'with the grain' (i.e. from shoulders down towards tail and from spine to flanks down the sides. When I was first shown, I was told you do necks against the grain and with a less-tall clipper head, but I have since been told not to. I use the same size head for necks and body. I always do the heads with scissors as the dogs are never impressed by the clippers rattling too near their face and eyes, and I do bums, faces, Towser's 'pizzle' and vulnerable bits like armpits and groins with the scissors also.

I possibly rush the job but I can do both pups in about an hour and a half total. They've probably had enough by then, so I let them down off the table, make a big fuss of them and give them a treat, and then let it all 'bounce back' for 24 hours before tidying up any howlers with scissors. As I said, I am not brilliant and after ten years plus, I still struggle to produce a good and 'proper' head shape and I am not very good at blending the clippered flanks with the scissor-trimmed (and much longer) "feathering" on bellies and legs.

The thinning shears come into play at the end as I try to iron out any edges and corners which are too sharp.

I think they look OK and I am happy to walk them in public plus, every time I do them I always feel I have saved myself £105 for the three.

There you have it.