Tag Archives: farm

Sweet and spicy

Posted on by
3

Sweet and spicy – 24/09/12

Odi cooks up sugar and spice in a fit of culinary experimentation with great result.

Harissa. How often we’ve bemoaned the fact that it is so hard to come by; how well it would go with this that or the other; how it has the ability to transport you straight back to the pungent smells and vivid colours of daily life in Morocco… and it is actually really easy to make!

Essentially you just whizz up fresh tomatoes and chillis with spices (cumin, caraway, coriander), some salt, garlic and onions. You’re then meant to briefly cook for ten minutes or so and then bottle hot, topping with olive oil to seal.

I misread my recipe and blended in the oil too. It tasted okay, but seemed to be calling for a base note. So I decided to really cook it down and left it chuckling boldly away on our fire all evening.

It reduced by half and now tastes absolutely fantastic. The intensity brought by cooking down was all it needed. The oil naturally separates off a little, making it look very authentic in the jars.

The other experiment that really paid off this week was plum and tomato jam! Somehow it feels right to put plums and tomatoes together, but I had never considered bringing in sweetness until I found a recipe for tomato jam. Adding the plums brought texture and natural sweetness and the bold spices (fresh chilli, ginger, cumin, cinnamon and cloves, and a generous slosh of fresh lime juice right at the end) gave it a kick that can jazz savoury meat dishes as well as pancakes and simple cheese sandwiches.

To balance our culinary explorations and take a break from the kitchen for a while, we both turned our hands to building. Neither of us have built a proper wall before, but we found the process very appealing. Working from opposite sides of the passage (whose side enclosure opening into Saskia’s room I had freed last week) we found a rhythm laying bricks, smoothing cement and straightening in turn until we could only just see each other’s noses.

At this stage we noticed how the contracted passage would now have practically no natural light. The remainder of the curved wall had already sustained a horizontal crack at the height of where the new wall now reached. So we decided to take the top section out and put in a window in its place.

Round windows are hard to come by and perspex just wouldn’t have felt right… and then the brainwave struck – use glass jars!

The traditional jars that we had been given have glass disks for lids and were therefore the ideal material for the job. A few had cracks (which prompted the idea) and others we simply sacrificed for the good cause.

It was very fiddly work, but the effect is beautiful.

I have learned never to work with cement for long periods of time without gloves. I sustained the most painful, tiny sores on my finger tips and incredibly dry, sensitive skin that lasted for days.

Luckily there is always plenty of washing up to be done!

With a baa baa here…

Posted on by
Reply

With a baa baa here… – 23/07/12

Odilia had a farm, and on that farm she has some… sheep. She also has lots of fruit and veg, some flattened land and some toilet plans.

Summer has come again!

It is an amazing contrast, emerging from our battle with the elements, to now find ourselves blessed with blue skies and a soft breeze, walking barefoot feeling the warm earth beneath and listening to the crickets singing their hearts out without a pause for thought. The evenings bring the midges, but they are a small price to pay.

Two days ago our sheep arrived. Soay, originating from the Hebrides, where they lived wild for generations before being gradually domesticated in parts of Europe around the nineteen fifties. They are a rare breed (on a ‘red list’ of European species) and very beautiful to look at. Ours are all females with elegant, tapered horns. Rams grow gorgeous curled crowns worthy of gallery paintings.

Five scared little things, four months old with big staring eyes, the slightest movement triggering flight, huddled and bewildered hiding behind their shed. We visit them quietly, holding out windfall apples and crusts of bread, slowly, slowly winning their trust. After two days they are already less startled as we approach and no longer try to push through the fence.

We have managed to construct their whole paddock at the front using found electric fencing and a borrowed battery. In the long run we will gradually install permanent fencing, but for now the gift of a functioning set-up is not to be sniffed at. Using strips of old lino and torn canvas we lay a grass barrier beneath the wires with a layer of sand to keep it tidy and in place. This is to eliminate the weekly maintenance of trimming grass away from interfering with the electric current.

On the same day that the sheep arrived, the local grain farmer came out with his huge combine harvester and flattened the large field behind. We are now tangibly close to the moment when we can officially take on our two and a half hectare strip behind the farm that crawls up the foot of the hill. It is of course yet another job amongst thousands, but the feeling of completing our boundary with our own hedges, seeding the entire surface with green manure to gently nurture the soil back to vital health, is one we long for.

With the presence of visitors I am at last finding time to do some constructive work as Maia is happily entertained by others. Today we manage to clear a pair of concrete pits behind the barns that have been used for dumping rubbish. The lower layers carry a rich red soil that reveals the traces of burned rubbish. Originally they were used as incinerators in a time when rubbish systems had not been installed and the influx of plastic was too overwhelming to even consider an alternative form of disposal. At some point they stopped burning and simply dumped, these later layers comprising of old welly boots, bike parts, plastic toys and perfume bottles, wires, rusted iron and the occasional usable bottle.

We load all the rubbish into the front pit with the view to create a flat surface. The rear pit will form the base of our state-of-the-art compost toilets! We are intent on creating a pair of toilets that look good and can be tolerated by even the most squeamish types! One loo will always remain closed whilst the other one fills. Once full, it will be left to rot down whilst the other is in use. The decomposed matter will eventually be dug out and used on the hedgerows and shrubs.

Cucumbers, courgettes, French beans, onions, garlic, potatoes and carrots are now coming up in abundance, and the first tomatoes have ripened. Already the pear tree is dropping ripe fruit and there are some apples almost ready too. Once our chickens arrive and a pair of milking animals (still weighing up the pros and cons of goats versus cows or dairy sheep) our trips to the shops will be rare.

The calm after the storm

Posted on by
Reply

The calm after the storm – 16/07/12

The floods of last week, have not only left their trail of destruction, but also revealed how the landscape needs to change to prevent a repeat… enter the Russian tractor.

Even though its pretty unlikely that further flooding will occur this year, now is the time to consider all possible tactics to divert any future deluge. The week has been dominated by post-flood reparations as well as some serious landscaping to reshape the default flood path from the hill down to the river.

About twenty years ago, the front pasture had been loaded with all the rubble from a new-build next door. This had completely changed the contours of the field and up until this year, the error had not been spotted. Now though it was obvious that this inadvertent landscaping was a recipe for disaster, channelling excess water away from the river and onto the road, where it happily seeks out cellars and low-lying dwellings, swiftly ruining electrical appliances, archives of memorabilia, soft furnishings and anything else in its’ way.

One of our neighbours up the opposite slope happened to see us shovelling rubble into wheelbarrows, back and forth on our ruined driveway, filling up the holes at a very slow rate. So she sent her husband with an old Russian tractor whose large shovel could scoop the equivalent of three or four barrow loads in a fraction of the time.

Suddenly the drive took rapid shape and regained an approximate semblance of its’ former ‘glory’. The tractor also strategically drove into the pasture above and below the track to encourage a new course for the water to take. On one of these trips the front wheel of the tractor ran straight into a hidden hole at least a metre deep and the whole machine toppled over onto its’ side.

The sight was unforgettable. Whilst we handed round cold beers and worried about how we would get it out and whether it would be fatally broken, the driver (and later his wife and other neighbours), light-heartedly waited for a larger tractor to arrive, chatting amiably with no sense of pressure or stress. The second tractor was twice its’ size and hauled it out the hole, intact, with relative ease.

We finished the job a few days later with a rented digger. The northern and front pastures look brutally battered now, but it won’t be long before green will re-emerge.

Repairing our sheep fence is the next job – it had just been completed the day the first of the storms arrived. The little hoofs and droppings of our five small sheep (whose arrival is now well overdue) will certainly help to heal the scars and restore a natural form to the land.

Redcurrants and gooseberries are now in their prime and the apples are ripening beautifully. The pressure is on to sort out a decent kitchen space to deal with the fruit, and the imminent arrival of tomatoes galore. (We will of course manage as we must with our improvised little kitchen upstairs, but with a whole string of visitors lined up for the next few weeks, we must make the most of a keen and willing workforce).

On a big sheet of wood painted with blackboard paint, we sketch the downstairs spaces. After a few drafts we have a pretty good plan of what needs to go where. On the walls we chalk out the electricity points, ready for an electrician to assist us with the finer planning details. We will then lay the cables ready for him to connect up, enabling us to crack on with plastering the walls. With the water points already plumbed in, the electricity is the last thing holding us back from transforming this raw shell into a spacious kitchen and dining room for us and our steady stream of visitors.

To build an ark?

Posted on by
2

To build an ark? – 09/07/12

The sun can’t always shine and a bit of rain is always a good thing, but there is a difference between a bit of rain and a deluge of biblical proportions.

The last of the cherries didn’t stand a chance.

On Thursday evening the first of a series of storms arrived, bringing sheets of rain drenching the ground and pelting everything in sight with relentless force. With thunder like gunfire and lightning cracking down just a few seconds apart, all we could do was gaze out the windows in amazement. We watched the banks of the river rapidly recede and a new river form itself in the dip of the northern pasture. Its natural path was straight down our driveway onto the road and over the opposite neighbour’s garden into the stream, now a fiercely roaring river.

Just as suddenly, the storm passed and the air hung fresh and calm whilst the two rivers continued to flow. We retrieved some stray belongings and rectified what damage we could before heading for bed, expecting the worst to be over.

At about midnight Patrick came racing upstairs to announce that we absolutely had to get up NOW. Reaching the bottom of the stairs we climbed into wellies and found ourselves wading through water, into the middle room and then the hall. There we simply stared, totally dumbstruck.

Standing in over two feet of water we could hear the sound of gurgling drains in reverse, bursting upwards into the room carrying objects floating between islands of the sofa, bed, cabinet, anything too heavy to move. Worst of all was the smell.

The whole scene became like a slow motion nightmare as the reality of the situation gradually dawned on us: the saturated ground could take no more so the torrents rushing down from the hillside had found a new path, directly along the edge of the main house. There the cesspit had filled beyond capacity. The only course for the excess water to take was up into the house by way of the original drainage built in for when animals were kept in the barn.

Sandbags and rocks were jammed into the drainage holes as best we could, and with buckets and shovels we mechanically began to attempt to reduce the level of the water. It felt like ages before the pressure on the drains finally started to give way, and the direction of the tide began to turn.

The following day the sun came out as usual, sweltering hot, beautiful and calm. Everything felt pretty normal, albeit for the flattened grass and water-logged pumpkin patch. The whole day was spent clearing the ground floor of all objects, piling up laundry and stacking things safely in the old metal workshop, away from the path of the flood.

Neighbours gathered on the road to clear rubble and share stories, commenting that this was pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as 2010. Everybody worked with full power to restore the area to good working order, believing the worst to be over.

Then the next storm arrived, earlier this time, and with a force far greater than the first, making mockery of our sandbag barriers and flushing out the rocks of the driveway as if pebbles on a beach.

Another day of restoring damaged areas and reinforcing barriers with slightly less optimism than before, and along came another storm.

We dragged ourselves back out to the drive for the third round. No road vehicle could reach our farm as the last three metres of track were now a deep pond with sheer sides where the rubble had simply broken away.

There is no doubt now that this is truly the worst flooding the area has ever experienced. It has been disheartening to watch, yet somehow quite magnificent. The solidarity amongst the folk of the neighbourhood has been incredible to watch and experience. Each stoically supporting one another, patiently accepting the inevitable, as the sheer force of nature has made blatantly obvious the errors committed by poor planning, over-zealous construction and misguided agricultural practice.

It has also cleansed our farm in a way we could never have anticipated. By the third round the water in the hall came up much cleaner and the process of flushing it out has brought the original colour back to the bricks in the floor. It feels as though the very bowels of the farm have been flushed through, revealing aspects we had not yet discovered and demonstrating the lie of the land in all its’ visceral glory, showing us (amongst other things) exactly where not to plant pumpkins!

Cherries and walnuts

Posted on by
Reply

Cherries and walnuts – 02/07/12

Odi reflects on a week of fruit leather, jam, citizenship, and patchy green shorts.

Cherry season is in full swing. All the lower branches of our prized tree are pretty much stripped now, but still Saskia and her friends manage to spend hours hanging in the branches, stuffing themselves to their hearts’ content.

We have our large pot over the fire, filled to the brim. The cherries release a lot of liquid and rapidly reduce in volume. Once cooled, we sieve out the stones, saving them to dry for later inspiration. We shift some of the mixture into another pot to cook down further for fruit leather, adding a packet of agar agar gelatine, mixed with fruit pectin and arrowroot. The resulting thick sauce is then spread thinly onto a baking sheet to dry in the attic.

The rest remains in the large pot, with a load of sugar, simmering away for jam.

This whole process is made so much easier by the fact that we now finally have running water plumbed in for the sink upstairs, the bathroom sink, and bath and shower downstairs. Following a thorough investigation with a neighbour plumber, planning the best location for the pipes to be fitted, Flo and Patrick took it on as their very first plumbing job (and their very last they swear!). After a few frustrating trips to Poland for the parts and a couple of false starts, the system is now running brilliantly.

Green walnuts have been soaking in salt brine for over ten days now. The brine rapidly darkened even after the first day – a rich dark brown that stains anything in sight. After changing the brine, I heat up the first batch of liquid and experiment with dyeing a pair of shorts, simmering them for about half an hour before rinsing clear.

The dye has taken well, but is patchy in parts; probably due to the fact that I didn’t ‘scour’ the fabric first (give it a thorough soapy wash and a long soak). There appear to be many approaches to dyeing with walnuts – some separate the hulls and husks, using either or both, but most say a mordant is not needed as walnut juice is naturally colourfast and light resistant. The experiments continue…

Every night now, with the weather being warm and mostly dry, fireflies bring magic to the garden, drifting around like airborne plankton, occasionally drifting indoors, illuminating the stairwell and dark corners of unlit rooms. Their eerie presence draws our attention immediately, bringing everything to a momentary standstill, enthralled, but never quite close enough to identify the source of light as a very common-looking little bug.

Wild strawberries continue to crop up everywhere. We laid a small batch out in the attic to dry and they have done so well, albeit with a gritty exterior characteristic of the slightly rougher skin of the wild fruit.

This week also saw the completion of my application for German citizenship – I now have the luxury of being both German and British, which will substantially ease our bureaucratic floundering – as well as the long-awaited signing of the contract that will officially hand over the ownership of this farm.

It has felt entirely natural to be here, gradually building things up at our own pace on a handshake agreement with the previous owners. Yet sharing food and champagne in celebration of this step in the right direction felt substantially different for all four of us. We talked a lot about things they’d started, ideas in incubation, aspects they added to or took away. They are ready to let it go, but are also particularly happy to see it in our hands, heading in a direction that they can fully identify with.

Weinbergschnecken

Posted on by
Reply

Weinbergschnecken – 25/06/12

Odi and family experiment with snails for supper – with questionable success.

The time has come to experiment with a free source of protein that exists in abundance on our farm – snails. We all know the French treat the humble snail as a delicacy, yet few of us northern Europeans actually go as far as trying them (let alone cooking them ourselves). I tried snails once about fifteen years ago in the Pyrenees. They tasted okay (as long as I didn’t look at them) and I can imagine with the right sauce they could enter the league of mussels, perhaps.

It has to be worth a try! We collect over sixty ‘Weinbergschnecken’ (a really large variety of snail) and put them in our largest pan with a handful of iceberg lettuce. With a rock on the lid and a thin stick jammed between to allow in some air, they wallow in the pan for three days, munching lettuce. Apparently this is the length of time needed to clean out their systems, which is clearly visible after the first couple of days – their deposits turn from black to vivid green.

On Sundays we do our utmost to have a day off and this time manage to get out to a nearby lake for the afternoon. By the time we get back we are starving. The menu has to be snails (whether we relish the idea or not!) as their three days are up and if we don’t do it now, we never will.

First we tumble them into a pan of boiling, salted water (with garlic, spices and fresh herbs) and cook them for a good few minutes. Then we ease each snail out of its’ shell using a skewer, revealing a perfectly formed spiral. Rolled in flour and doused in beer batter they are then deep fried to a golden brown. They look fantastic. Served with buttery mashed potato they could well be part of any Tapas menu.

Maia happily gives them a go, and even seems to like them! Without the idea of snail in your mind, I imagine they could be quite enjoyable. I have to take a deep breath before going for it: the spiral end tastes tender with a texture a bit like squid, but sadly I cannot ignore the trace of slime still lingering. Three are plenty for an experiment! The boys try many more, determined to find the best way of processing them – boiled in a white wine broth, grilled directly over the fire…

It is possible that with a lot more rinsing and longer cooking, they could be much more palatable. In the end it is worth the effort if only to discover that we would much rather rear our own protein with four legs. A slightly queasy feeling lingers even now, a day later…

Whilst keeping an attentive eye out for the lime flowers to emerge on our three linden trees (the flowers only appear for a very brief time) I begin to give the walnuts some attention. They are ripening now into oval shaped fruits that look a lot like olives.

We harvest a small batch to begin experiments with pickling. Pricking each hull a couple of times with a pin has left a dark brown stain on my fingers. (Walnut dye is very strong and resists a lot of wear and light. Infused oil was once commonly used as a tanning lotion).

Covered in a salt brine for the last few days, the liquid is now black and there is a distinct olive quality to the fruits. Once pickled, they can be used much in the same way as olives – delicious sliced thinly onto pizza, chopped into salads and added to sauces and stews.

Today we will harvest in earnest. With a good crop and sound techniques, this could well be the delicacy for a niche market…

Enter the polytunnel

Posted on by
Reply

Enter the polytunnel – 30/04/12

Some white paint brightens life, and a home for tomatoes arrives and symbolises the start of farming in earnest.

With both girls asleep upstairs (and it is still early evening) I sit outside with a glass of wine and a dim sliver of moonlight hardly able to see the keys on my laptop straining forwards in the only place where I can receive clear reception from my dongle. Half an hour passes just like that. I realise how seductive this screen can be, causing me to lose all awareness of my beautiful surroundings, completely missing the vast night sky reaching out above the rooftops with only a slight breeze to remind me that I am somewhere other than our stuffy flat in town. Half an hour is more than enough!

This is our third consecutive night at the farm, due to the May Day bank holiday… and I already feel totally at home. The week gone by has seen the return of twenty something degrees and bright sunshine, long distance views and clear balmy evenings.

I have finally managed to eradicate the sombre dark red tones in the living room of the flat with a coat of thick white, something to neutralise the space and enable some sensible planning. The previous owner was ever so proud of her earth pigment paints with which she decorated the whole place for less than fifty euros! Yet in compact indoor spaces they simply serve to highlight the blemishes of mediocre plastering and only add to the sense of run down loveless neglect that pervades the entire interior of the flat.

Outside the walls come to life with the terracotta pigment and look like they have been that way for years, somehow almost Mediterranean, especially in this light. The austere grey plaster beneath that remains visible in sections captures the recent memory of life under Communism where everything looked similar, unified and homogenised by a mean average of human need and collective intention.

Out back the boys (Flo and Patrick, our self professed ‘knecht’ willingly slaving away for us for a couple of months, fed and watered into the bargain!) have been tirelessly preparing the ground for our huge polytunnel, given to us by a friendly young biodynamic farmer ten kilometres north of here. We met him on our first visit to this area just over two years ago and he has proved to be a great ally and friend.

This plastic dome is now the one aspect of our farm you can easily spot from the top of the hill, yet just hidden enough to remain this side of being an eyesore. In an ideal world we would have installed a big glass house with self ventilating windows in the roof which would have looked magnificent from any angle. Sadly, this is well out of our budget.

The polytunnel is crucial to our operation at this stage, set to house the thriving tomato plants that have been lovingly nurtured from seed suspended from the windows of our flat in town, now desperate to snuggle into the earth and stretch out, to grow and bear fruit.

Our neighbour to the southeast, beside the stream, has shown real interest in our endeavours and has no objection to the view of the poly tunnel from his garden below. He is quick to offer a small generator to assist the drilling of the frame, as well as his two fat sheep to graze our lush, overgrown pasture.

After breakfast this morning we set off to continue preparing the ground for the tomatoes in the polytunnel. Just as we round the back of the barn we see a tractor in the field above with a huge metal arm reaching metres either side, spraying a thick shower of what we guess must be fungicide onto the grain crop that stretches north and south above our enclosure. The smell is immediately perceptible. I quickly go indoors with Maia, before taking her for a walk away from the farm, furious that it is not customary to inform inhabitants of imminent spraying and saddened by the fact that so many land workers still find it necessary to pollute the soil, wildlife and groundwater for the sake of large monocrops that require little human interaction, defying the laws of nature and leaving the land depleted and inert. Can we really call these crops food? Is this what is left of the culture of our land?

Our work has only just begun, but our vision feels all the more necessary now. When the grain crop is finally harvested, two and a half hectares of that field become ours and at last we can begin the slow process of nurturing the soil (and the culture of our farm) back to life.

Meanwhile, away from the farm…

Posted on by
Reply

Meanwhile, away from the farm… – 16/04/12

A slightly different column this week, as Odi spends a week away from the farm, but very much in food and community.

Away from the farm (visiting family and friends back in England) it all begins to feel a bit like a dream. The view from above sits on my screen available to view from anywhere in the world – a memory or a plan, as mood dictates.

Whilst my big girl does the rounds of grandparents and friends, little Maia and I settle into community life for a week – a job to finance this journey, yet also an insight into a way of life that attracts so many, but never quite captures them all.

My role is to make sure a good hot meal is on the table by exactly a quarter to one, to monitor all the laundry, listen to daily gripes and double check medicines, take phone calls, do the shopping and support the preparation of supper for precisely ten past six.

Habits and routines are essential to the smooth running of Camphill, a place where different generations of mixed abilities coexist in a village setting that provides food, work and a home for adults with special needs and their carers. I have dipped in and out of this work (covering for house parents in need of a break) for the last five years and revisit it now to make this trip possible. It could well be the last stint away from our farm for quite a while.

My favourite part of this job has always been the walk up to the vegetable shed first thing in the morning. There the day’s pickings are neatly laid out along the shelves in piles and in crates ready to inspire the flavour of lunchtime creations.

The next best part is the larder – a walk-in cold room filled with staples like flour, oil, legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices, as well as treats such as olives, chocolate and wine.

Cooking in this way – led by the daily harvest and consolidated by an abundance of basic ingredients – makes the creation of a meal an absolute pleasure. Sharing it is the central point of each day, the coming together that enables everyone to check in and air joys and grievances and to remain up to date with any new activities or changes ahead.

Eating together is essential to well functioning community life. It is also the glue that binds family and friends; the only context that makes meetings worth attending; a child’s best teacher; and the ice-breaker that transcends all verbal and written language. Partaking in the food culture of another is to experience the visceral reality of the ‘other’ in a way that sight-seeing, screen technology and academia simply cannot rival.

We have made a conscious choice with our farm project to begin alone. This is both challenging and empowering. To address the challenge we will need to develop a network community that reaches across borders and inspires participation, enabling our power to remain focused on a clear vision for the future.

Our very first step is to welcome and encourage interest by opening our doors for the month of August to friends and acquaintances from near and far. We will provide a place to camp, hot meals for the workers and plenty to do. All that is needed is a sleeping bag, all weather gear and lots of energy.

Our ongoing network community will be nurtured and developed thereafter through the sharing of seasonal food on the farm once a month, whatever the mood or the weather.

The local emporia

Posted on by
Reply

The local emporia – 09/04/12

After a first night at the farm, Odi goes on a shopping mission to the village.

We pack up the car with sleeping bags, pillows and blankets, lots of fruit, vegetables and bread and set off on an adventure to the farm. This will be our first overnight stay!

The flat is now clean, the hole sealed up, a makeshift kitchen set up and a wood burning stove fitted (found, discarded) in the end room. We have managed to find enough mattresses for all of us along with a treasure trove of useful items up in the attic – woolly socks, cups, cushions and a thick jumper, old pans, a coffee maker and stacks of great books.

We make our evening meal outside in the courtyard over a small fire – a hearty vegetable stew cooked in our huge, cast iron potjie pot (cauldron) that travelled with us all the way from South Africa a couple of years ago.

Cutlery and candles are two things we have neglected to bring and that the attic has unexpectedly failed to yield. So I tie Maia to my front and we take a stroll down the road, just a few hundred yards to the village stores.

There are three options – a ‘drinks market’ where you can buy beer by the crate (a whole range of local, national and imported, cheap, superior, dark, medium, light) and various juices for the feint hearted!

Next door up some steps is where I find what I need stacked amongst souvenir trinkets, plastic bicycles and flipflops, china figurines and greetings cards, little bits and pieces that clutter the place with the promise of being useful to someone at some point, perhaps.

I walk away with a packet of plastic spoons and a pair of slightly warped candles, as well as a printed newsletter that keeps the village up to date on any activities or changes afoot. I wonder how soon it will be before we drift onto its pages?

The third outlet is a mini supermarket located round the back of a garage. It feels a bit like a warehouse at first, with crates of local apple juice stacked up on all sides. Through the glass door is the shop proper. Everything on the shelves is in twos and threes, neatly arranged with ample space between as if to emphasise the importance of each item. They are mostly uniform, cheap brands of basic food items and it almost feels like how I imagine wartime rationing would have been like – nothing fancy, nothing unnecessary, everything simple, functional and without a particular identity. The back of the shop is dedicated to work gear – boots, overalls, tools and basic building and gardening materials.

Craving black tea I have to settle for peppermint and leave the ‘shopping centre’ having spent less than three euro! The simplicity is cost effective for me with my particular taste and obsession with quality and immediately as I leave I see in my mind’s eye a full colour three dimensional image of our farm shop with sweet smelling fresh produce, brightly coloured jars of sauces and pickles, jams, wines and unusual experiments, the smells of cooking and freshly ground coffee… and I wonder with a smile how many of our fellow village folk will venture our way, intrigued or disapproving, curious or dismissive, embracing our endeavours or set on keeping things just as they are?

The battle of Plaster Ceiling

Posted on by
Reply

The battle of Plaster Ceiling – 02/04/12

Spring seems to have sprung a leak, as Odilia attempts to turn her hand to plastering and demolition.

All of a sudden, the weather has turned.

Driving to the farm today is a steady battle to stay in the right lane (no longer an English car, so no excuses!). The wind blasts hail against the windows pushing our little box car further into the middle of the road, spinning the turbines in the open field beside us faster than feels comfortable and drowning out any hint of conversation. Maia refuses to sleep, cranking up her own volume to join in the fun.

We arrive rather battered and in need of some peace. The greenhouse has suffered. A roof panel has blown off into the bed below and the glass beside the door has shattered from the force of the unfastened metal door frame swinging relentlessly against it. We hadn’t thought to secure it as the last few weeks have blessed us with clear blue skies and only gentle breezes.

After roughly fixing up the greenhouse with boards and planks, we set about our mission for the day (dictated by the weather and imminent visitors): spruce up the flat in the main house to a respectable standard.

The living room and two of the bedrooms just need a sweep and an airing and some mattresses dragging across from the pile in the main room. The kitchen will need a gas hob and bottle and a stock of water. This basic set-up will invariably feel like camping, but so far it scrubs up rather well.

The main bedroom proves to be the real challenge. A section of the ceiling plaster has been ripped out (it appears to be the beginnings of a plan to build an access into the attic). Any heat escapes right through the bared wooden slats of the attic and straw and old plaster litter the floor beneath it.

We figure we can patch it up without too much trouble and begin by stapling chicken wire across the whole surface to aid the grip of fresh plaster. It soon becomes clear why plasterers take time to learn their trade! First the mixture is too stiff and drops off like sand. Loosening it with water we then experiment with the trowel at different angles applying varying degrees of force. Needless to say, we are quickly covered in blobs of the stuff and precious little clinging to the ceiling.

Working on a vertical edge beside a window proves pretty straight forward and delivers good results, but nothing to encourage any real progress on the part that matters most – the roughly hewn square above our heads that ensures the room will never hold its heat for very long.

After a brief call to a brother who knows about these things, we liquefy our mixture and literally throw it up onto the raw ceiling making a lot more mess and decorating the walls like a cow shed. The result is lots of small dabs of plaster dotting the entire surface of the hole. Once dry, these will apparently help grip the next round of slightly thicker mixture using the trowel as it was designed for. We will be bracing ourselves for the next stage in our training!

The other foul-weather job is to dismantle a shoulder-height-right-angled wall in the small house on the ground floor. Although it is a priority right now to create a ‘summer camp’ in the flat, it is the small house that occupies our thoughts and begs for some clear design time. Our intention is to have it fully fit for us to move into before the next winter sets in.

This freshly built wall appears to be the beginnings of a cloakroom or a small toilet. Regardless of the plan it feels superfluous to us with our vision of an open-plan food-centred living space.

It is incredibly satisfying tapping the bricks free of their cement, quickly sensing how much force to use and the most effective angle to approach from. The dust is phenomenal but in a couple of hours the space is clear. Now at last we have a good view of the ground floor and can begin in earnest to design the all-important kitchen that will become the centre of our family life for years to come.