This page contains my rambling thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19/7/11 I haven't been able to ramble for a while as a lot has been going on, we have had the village Fayre which involves a lot of preparation here at the farm shop not to mention at the Fayre itself. Also this is a very busy time on the farm and in the shop!

We have just been awarded a gold at The Great Taste Awards 2011 for our Sirloin steak.

The holiday cottage delivery service is quite busy, if you are coming to Devon and want good food at your destination when you arrive let us know we are always happy to help.

I have just created a Liver sausage and Corned Beef which have gone down even better that I expected, some of these foods from our quite recent past are very popular especially when they are made with good ingredients and a minimum of E numbers.

I think the reason for this popularity is making them as our mothers or grandmothers would have done, most processed foods (including sausages) have become a cash cow for the manufacturers enabling them to use up the bits no one wants to eat, mushed up with lots of chemicals to disguise what you are eating-----Can you imagine your mother feeding you that!!

I was walking one of our fields today and put up a skylark, having seen where it came from we were able to look for the nest, complete with a young bird in the middle of a clump of grass it was a beautiful round and surprisingly deep nest. I have never seen a larks nest before and twit that I am I did not have a camera with me so that was probably the last I will see as well.

 

 

19/6/11The new dog, Monty is shaping up well, Jack, as seen in the above picture is no longer jealous and is starting to train him so he will be (hopefully) a useful dog when Jack retires himself.

Walking the farm with Steve Payne from Devon Wildlife I was so pleased to find a clump of Orchids in the what we call the potato field (Vera Hill told us they grew potatoes in that field during the war), it is good to see them spreading out from the county wildlife site, although I still don't know how they manage to spread so far apart.

Steve was not able to answer the question I have posed to everyone involved in wildlife (still unanswered), How do Skylarks know what the volume of their song is on the ground? If you listen to a lark rising the volume of the song is the same no matter how high they are.

If you are lucky when you come to the shop you will hear one over the top field and can judge for yourself.

Totally unrelated did you know what the letter at the end of your national insurance number was for?

Apparently the order we would be called up for service in the event of a war is directly related, so if yours is an A like mine you would go first! Though at my age it is very unlikely I would be called up unless they needed a Mr Godfrey!!!

 

13/6/11 Did a days judging at The Great Taste Wards last week, there were a number of very interesting products including a couple of superb cheeses, as soon as the awards are announced and I know which ones they were I will definitely be stocking them!

On a cheese note, did I mention Morn Dew, this is a newish offering from the White Lakes cheese company in Shepton Mallet, it is amazing looks and tastes like a continental cheese with very subtle flavour changes whilst you are tasting it, do try some.

We also have some Sicilian sweet olives cured so they are probably the closest you will ever get to eating a fresh olive (something I would not recommend, I tried one from a tree in Italy and spent the next 15 minutes trying to get rid of the taste!), these however are cured just enough to take away the bitterness and allow the olive flavour through, another great new product.

 

22/5/11 We have had Paul Cook, Master Thatcher at the farm this week re ridging the house. He forgot his lunch the 1st day so we invented the Thatchers Lunch, a pastry containing sausage, bacon, cheese, potato and tomato. This was a great success and is now one of our daily lunch items.

Sam has told me that there will be fresh Rabbit this week, he is intending to go ferreting on Thursday so rabbit stew for the weekend!

Have had some lovely strawberries in from the Tamar valley, ours are coming but not red as yet, we are very high up here so they are always later than those from South Devon.

The car boot sale at the village hall is next sunday where you can enjoy a steak butty made with our steak, we will also be selling steak butties at the St John's Fayre in June.

 

 

14/5/11 This is the first of my occasional ramblings about the shop and farm, so, to recap, last year was a stunningly successful one at the awards ceremonies winning 2 two star golds and one one star at the Great Taste Awards and then a bronze and gold at the Taste of The West followed by the Champion Product!

Now we are in a new year and firmly back on planet earth, running the shop and farming. We have just moved to summer opening hours which seems to be liked by those customers we have seen, being open normal shop hours makes it easier to remember for most, even though we are no longer open Tuesday at all.

We have just perfected the pocket Game Pie, an individual pie which will soon be available in some of the local pubs, I will keep you posted, they are selling well in the shop I guess not everyone has as big an appetite as me!

On the farm the orchids are just about out on the County wildlife site in our bottom fields, we are having a survey done next week which will tell us if we have any other interesting plants (as you have probably guessed I don't know much about plants ).