Fracture Friday

Forgetting the parable of the tortoise and the hare I slammed my fingers in the big iron sliding door of the tractor shed as I rushed to get several jobs done before lunch.  About 20 minutes of primal wailing followed and a trip to Witney minor injuries unit, where it was revealed that I have broken the top of the ring finger on my right hand.  Typing this is a lot slower than usual as are many farm jobs.

Truth and reconciliation for victim and perpetrator!



The word 'fracture' has an onomatopoeic quality to my ear, something rather crunchy about it, though perhaps it summons more the cracking of a creme brulee than bone and blood!

Above an elder cutting that expired in the mini-drought.

The Easter weekend was indecently hot and I spent much of it like the hunchback in Jean De Florette straining my ears and eyes for signs of rain. Recently there has been more of a temperate chill in the air but still no waterworks.

Although we farmer/gardener types grumble about lack of rain, I suspect it is a happy sort of grumble as the rewards of nurturing our plants are much of what draws us to this work.  If our crops did not need us to care for them by watering, weeding etc, our relationship would be more distant.  We would not be called to know them in the way that we are.

The blackcurrants are already moving from flower to fruit and would be happy of some water to swell them.  So far I have concentrated on keeping the smaller cuttings alive but I may soon turn my attention to the larger plants.  In bush years the one above is in early adolescence.

Foul Play!  A teething hare or rabbit the most likely culprit.

The dandelions are as rampant as ever and most have now moved into their fertile clock phase.  Meanwhile the field's weed du jour is buttercup.

The dry weather meant that last year's raspberry canes, which I cut down at the beginning of the year and then rather embarrassingly failed to set ablaze in front of one of the wwoofers last month, went up like a flame thrower with only a single piece of lit paper stuffed into their heart.

 

Turned to a circle of ash in moments, quite a vanishing act!

ENTER THE DRAGON!



It's that time of year again, the field has become thick with dandelions, tough couch grass and deep rooting cow parsley.  If they are not to overrun the berries and currants I must reignite my seasonal love affair with the Massey and its topper attachment.  'Our survey says' second most photographed entity on this blog is likely to be my red reaper. 

I have a friend who used to be the librarian at the Scottish Agricultural college and she told me that one quiet afternoon she found a group of students staring lasciviously at one of the computer screens.  She expected to have to deliver a lecture about viewing 'adult' material on University property only to discover as she drew closer that the images being leered at were those of large farm machinery.  These days I get where they were coming from, though my ardour is directed towards a small engined compact tractor, which would probably be regarded as the equivalent of nursing half a shandy through an entire night out with the rugby club.

Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair!

Before

After



Once I've mown down the lanes in between the rows, I come back again with the light infantry, strimmer or scythe, to reckon with the weeds that have grown too close to the mulch mat for me to get with the topper.  Bits of juicy dandelion and cow parsley stem spit in my eye as the strimmer rages.

The secret farmer - silhouette of a strimmer man in the shepel window.

The extraordinarily hot and dry weather has meant that the grass et al has not been too prolific in my absence but this also means that what I want to grow needs watering which is a laborious hose pipe process as I don't have a fancy irrigation system in place.  Strangely, given how freely they grow in the wild, the elder cuttings seem to be the first to perish in dry spells.

Nothing will kill these tough nuts though, whose charms I tend to be blind to as I spend much time trying to keep the fruit free of them.  These are far enough away to admire.  I have tried to make use of the flower heads by turning them into wine, but the results were v poor tbf (too be fair) - really quite bitter and needed a lot of disguising in cocktails in order to offload.

The sword and the harp

96% alcohol 100% legal

HENMANIA!!  Declan the local customs and excise officer has just told me I have the thumbs up to become a Trade Facility warehouse.  This means I can buy in the 96% proof organic spirit that I need to fortify the liqueurs 'in duty suspension'.  This is a big advantage business wise, not least because a 25 litre tub of spirit costs approx £880 duty paid but only £112 sans duty.  I still have to pay duty but only on my finished product rather than on the raw ingredients so anything I lose in the making process will be a lot less costly.

It has been an extremely long and muddled 'journey' getting to this point in which I have received contrary advice/instructions from different departments at national level, which people at local level have, in turn, contradicted.  Declan, however, has proved to be the acceptable face of the taxman, finding a way to apply the spirit of the law without getting eternally bogged down in the letter of it.

The final piece of the jigsaw is now in place and when I return from holiday I will begin fermenting my first commercial batch - a raspberry liqueur.

Not thrilled with this potential capsule for the blackcurrant - a tone too on the lurid side of Imperial.  What do you think?

In the field I've conducted the first mini-inventory of the season, with slightly disappointing results for the currant tricolore row.  50% of the blackcurrant cuttings are showing no signs of life, despite the blackcurrant cuttings in the next two rows being 100%.  Happily the red and white of the tricolore are faring better scoring 79% and 69% respectively.  I have back up for all of them in a separate cuttings bed which I can use to replace those who have fallen in the line of duty at the end of the growing season.

Must try harder!

These currant cuttings are not ready yet but I imagine it an important rite of passage for a young stem when a bird first deems them robust enough to perch on.  I was not quick enought to catch it but below witness an elder cutting that's recently 'been there'!

Meanwhile as the wild plum sheds its petals the blackthorn takes over as belle of the ball..

And finally a panorama from the high point in the field

The shepel featuring as a distant anchor.  I will return my dear!