Author Archives: theolive

Quite a lot has been happening over the last few weeks, most notably it has rained, day after day after day. We are not complaining, as we need the water, but a bit of sun might be nice once in a while. The good news is that we also had some snow, so we rushed up the hill to Smerna to make snowmen etc.

 

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I know itÔÇÖs not much, but for the Peloponnese this really is quite impressive Smile

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So, to get back to the important stuff, this is the time of year that lots of animals are born, and lots of animals get deconstructed and put in the freezer.

Our very first lamb ever arrived on the 5th of February, and is male so is entirely destined for the freezer. Despite this, he seems pleased enough to be here. Our other pregnant ewe is still proving coy, or possibly in denial. Not sure which.

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So, that was the life part of the deal -death has been a little more in evidence; we no longer have goats (HURRAH!!!!), but we do have 30kg of assorted chops in the freezer (also HURRAH!!!).

Oddly, the idea of “doing” the goats was much more daunting than the impending pig dispatching (next month?), perhaps because a goat is too small to shoot, so you just hack its throat open with a sharp knife and hope that you get all the important bits in one go. Therefore we resorted to plan B, i.e. asking a neighbour to do it for us. It helps if your neighbour is also Godfather to your child, and has been killing and skinning goats since he was a small child, and sold you the goats in the first place. so this is how we said goodbye to Allie and Amy, our best beloved one-year-old goats:

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Rachel (our current WWOOFer) was very impressed by the size of the animals – bigger than the ones she’s used to seeing in Africa, apparently.

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Lots of people turned up to get involved – it’s one of those events that attracts an audience.

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Note Yiorgos’ full compliance with Health and Hygiene regulations

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The finished articles, 15kg apiece, hanging on the veranda overnight, much to the delight of the local cat population. We decided the next day that it was too warm to keep them hanging, so we butchered and vac-packed the bits, to go into the fridge for another few days maturing, before being frozen. Butchery 101 was provided by an excellent article here from The Guardian, of all people.

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Note the brand-new hack-saw, which we thought would be a good substitute for a butcher”s saw -it wasn’t. At all. Apparently a tenon-saw works well, but mine is so old and grubby, I didn’t want it anywhere near my lunch, so we made do with just a sharp knife and a meat-cleaver.

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Given that it was a first attempt, and the animals are quite big, we spent the best part of three hours on this, but it really was quite easy, following the guide on the internet one cut at a time. (We did nip indoors with the odd bit of carcase to try and work out which but goes where, exactly – but only once or twice).

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Finished cuts are in the foreground – mainly ribs so far.

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Working into the small hours (6.00 pm, actually) – WWOOFer Rachel doing a great job of boning a shoulder.

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And that’s just about the end – what you can see on the table is two entire goats, minus heads and feet. Hardly seems worth the effort.

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Update – Friday, four days after killing the goats, we had shoulder of lamb a la Jaimie Oliver, and have to report that it was outrageously good. Not trying to be smug – we had many reservations that the meat would have a rank, goaty taste, or just wouldn’t be nice enough to want to eat regularly. Glad to report that one year old goat (no idea what to call it – it would be a wether if it was a sheep) tastes divine. Might not be the same if you have a billy-goat on the premises though.

We also made deviled kidneys, which was a success, and goats-liver pate, which was just about edible. Sweetbreads were enjoyed also. The rest of the grizzly bits are now dog food (although we have kept the intestines for sausage making, assuming we get time).

‘, ‘Life and Death Decisions’, 0, ”, ‘publish’, ‘open’, ‘open’, ”, ‘life-and-death-decisions’, ”, ‘\n(comma\nseparated)’, ‘2012-02-19 14:48:47’, ‘2012-02-19 14:48:47’, ”, 0, ‘http://www.theolivefarm.biz/blog/?p=18’, 0, ‘post’, ”, 0),

Big chicken

Am quite jealous of the neighbour’s chickens – they have much more meat than ours…..

 

In case you didn’t recognise it – it’s probably an emu. Not sure we want any, as the evil glint of mad psychopathy is all too evident if you look at the eyes

Grow-bed update

We have had the grow-beds for a while now, and the consensus is that they are beyond brilliant! We did not run out of water this summer. I think I might need to say that again, only louder: WE DID NOT RUN OUT OF WATER!!!!!

This is a first – actually having plants growing in September is outrageous. here are a few pics to show off our wares:

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Cauliflower, broccoli and cabbages, all doing well, having been planted from seed in August.

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The bare patch is jam-packed with potatoes, that are just starting to make an appearance. We broke the cardinal rule about no-dig permaculture to dig in some fresh manure (chicken and cow, to see which does best), as our original compost made from olive branch chips doesn’t seem to have enough nitrogen.

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The tomatoes didn’t do well – they never do in August, but we also think that our compost is to blame, so we are now making a liquid fertilizer out of chicken manure – basically half fill a bucket with manure, fill up with water, and then wait a few weeks. You need to dilute the finished product (we are trying it at 10:1 at the moment, just to be safe, but will be upping the ratio slowly to see what happens).

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The joy of planting under poly-tunnel is that you can hang things from the poles – beans particularly seem to be happy climbing up string hung from above. This means no more cutting bamboo, which is a godsend, and will please many a WWOOFer. Actually, the new ones won’t know what they are missing, but some of our precious volunteers may get a bit bitter if they find out, so shhh!

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A few things we have learned – onions don’t like straw mulch, and initially the wicking beds don’t seem too happy to wick. I know that rotovating land reduces water evaporation by reducing capillary action, so I wonder if a freshly dug grow bed doesn’t work very well. Since we had a downpour that filled all the beds and then some, they seem to have been much more effective, but then it has dropped from 36 degrees to 28, which will also make a difference.

The patter of tiny trotters, or how not to collect straw.

On Friday, we organised the collection of 150 bales of straw from the other side of the village. As we don’t have our trailer, we borrowed Tassos’ little green one, and set off (having taken the dog to the vet for his anti-itching injection). The first thing I did was put my back out (clever to do it at the beginning of the day, don’t you think?).

When we got back to unload the first 50 bales, we found this waiting for us…

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Followed by this:

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Then this:

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Then this

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Dear old Mrs Pig had decided to have her piglets outside, in the full sun, and it was HOT!

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We had to urgently rig up some shade for her, whilst catching piglets, and all with me hobbling around bent double after looking at a bale of straw that morning.

The saga continued….

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and continued…

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All in all, ten piglets (plus one that didn’t make it), who are all happy, suckling and fit. So far. The only issue was how to convince Mrs Snuffles to move into her new, bijou residence, complete with comfy bed and heat-lamp for the piglets. The piglets were fine, but mother was exceptionally hot, and utterly indifferent to the idea of standing up. As she weighs more than 300 kilos, persuasion seemed an unlikely prospect. First I turned the hose on mother (not in the crowd-control, anti-riot sense, but to cool her down. She seemed suitably appreciative, and I got a chance to clean up all the gore so she would look good in the photos Smile

Next, I put all the piglets in a box (that is SO much easier to type than to do, even with fat finger syndrome), and put the piglets in the house. Piglets then left and went back to mother – heat-lamp not appreciated. Plan B – same again, only this time I bothered one of the piglets until it started squealing – I am now holding a litter of irate piglets, with 300 kilos of enraged maternal instinct barrelling down on me, with no back door to the sty. [Note to self – must make second door in pig-sty, for escape and evasion purposes]. All this, and I can hardly walk, let alone run, because of the back/bale thing. I am please to confirm that all went according to plan in the end, and I am still alive, and the piglets are doing well. I did need a change of trousers, however.

At 24 hours, they are already playing the cute-card:

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The following afternoon, they made their first foray outside…

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….for an al fresco picnic….

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The stripes come from their dad, who is half wild boar (wild? he was livid!)

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Finally, did I mention that we still collected the other 100 bales? This is how we stacked them –

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….well, it had been quite a long day…

and my back hurt…..

Ferrocement Grow-bed

Given the success of the four grow-beds we made earlier in the summer, we have decided that all new planting will be in grow-beds, unless it is winter-time and we have enough water, obviously. However, this rather begs the question as to what form the grow-beds should take – the first ones were made with “cheap” plastic and a few bits of wood, and a hell of a lot of digging.

So, as we took the opportunity to buy more poly-tunnel poles to make a new greenhouse when we ordered the pig-pen steel, we need to think what style of grow-bed we want in our new 15 metre poly-tunnel. Having learned that 2 metre wide grow-beds are too wide, we think making grow-beds out of ferrocement, based on a plywood sheet base (just to help form the base) would be a good size – 2.5 x 1.25 metres. That would give us just over 3 square metres of grow bed. The only down-side is that we will need 18 of the things, just for the new greenhouse.

So, having never made anything like this before, we bought ourselves some chicken wire and made a start:

First off, laying out the wire frame. We used some thin reinforcing wire, over which we will lay the chicken-wire:

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The frame complete, ready for chicken-wire. Very confident at this point, as it took hardly any time, and seems to be perfectly sized. We have worked out that we should have enough wire to make 6 grow-beds, at a cost of about 80 euros for the wire, so not hugely expensive per grow-bed.

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We had hoped that tying all the corners together would strengthen and tighten up the sides, but it is looking a bit floppy at this point, especially along the long sides. Still, it’s getting that organic, flowing look that ferrocement people seem to enthuse about….

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So, it took two of us about 4 hours to get to to the point where we are ready for the cement – slap that on tomorrow, and all finished. Two days per bed – can’t be bad.

Next day – cement. No photos of the process, because we were covered in cement and therefore not really keen to get the camera out, but the “finished” article is here:

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We seem to have made a boat! A fairly grumpy morning’s work, as things did not go well. Firstly, we didn’t wire the two layers of chicken-wire together, so when the cement went on, the two layers moved apart, and so our lovely thin ferrocement walls got thicker and thicker. We had to stop cementing to spend forever putting more fiddly bits of wire in to pull it together.

Also, there is no way that a single application is going to be enough. There are holes and gaps and quite a lot of wire showing through, so a second coat will be required. Mixing the cement is tricky, as it is either too wet or too dry, but only rarely just right. It also used a lot more cement that we anticipated – this thing took an entire bag of cement, assuming sand and cement weight the same (which I don’t think they do), we have a 200kg duck-pond, in completely the wrong place. Here is the current duck-pond:

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So, in conclusion, we have learned quite a bit. We had no idea before we started just how much materials would be needed. Total cost for a 2.5×1.2m grow-bed, is somewhere around 30 euros, and that doesn’t include thicker steel to keep the sides from bowing out as they are cemented.If we only wanted one or two, that’s fine, but we need 18 of these grow-beds just for the greenhouse, plus another load around the house. At about 10 euros per metre, there are certainly cheaper options  available, which we shall be using from now on. Just making a pored cement structure would be a similar price, but much, much quicker and easier. Plastic sheets in a trench will definitely be the best option for the greenhouse  – a 15mx8m sheet is 80 euros, which will do 4 grow-beds; the price per metre is going to be 1.33 euros, or just about a tenth of the cost of a ferrocement bed. However, ferrocement is for ever, but we can replace the plastic every 5 years for the next 50 years before we start to lose money. I think I know which way we will be going Smile

Making the pig-sty

Here is a picture of Mrs Pig’s current accommodation – it is certainly spacious and airy, but the roof leaks somewhat. Given that she is expecting the patter of tiny trotters, it is time to sort something out. The only problem is that it needs to be cheap, and PIG-PROOF. Cheap is easy, but we know from experience that the pig-proof part will be tricky. So, here goes:

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The joys of reinforcing steel – never a problem to get hold of rebar in Greece. At least we know that this is going to be earthquake proof Smile

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Having made a steel cage, and cemented it onto the floor, I cut a door out of one end. Instant pig-pen, but still no roof.

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The finished article, with a plastic sheet spread over more reinforcing steel on the inside and some plywood to keep the drafts out. We will run the electric fence wire all along the bottom edge, so hopefully they won’t dig out underneath it.

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And here is Mrs Pig (or Mrs Snuffles, as Lexi has now christened her) completely ignoring her new home. We fear change, apparently.

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The night we finished it we had a huge storm, with 10 cm of rain in 24 hours. Mrs Snuffles resolutely stayed out all night, (it was still over 20 centigrade, so not really a problem), but when I fed her inside the next morning, she decided that a new bijou residence might actually be just her thing after all.

Don’t have a cow, man!

So, having completely failed to heed Bart Simpson’s advice, here she is:20120817-001

Allegedly, she is a Limousin, but having googled a few pictures, we think perhaps not. Hopefully she will grow up and give us baby cows, and maybe some milk, but right now just keeping her alive is going to be the tricky part. As you can see, we don’t have a stable (why would we – we don’t have a cow!), so building something appropriate before winter would be advisable.

Probably the most exciting thing for me is the compost! How sad is that? Brand new, shiny animal, and I can think about is poo. There seems to be something the matter with my lifestyle…..

Poor little beast is very nervous, so I am currently “making friends” with her by patting her on the back at every feed time. What this actually means is that I am chasing the poor calf around her pen constantly, a bit like lunging a horse. Round and round and round she goes, when she stops, I could get kicked. Ho hum.