Author Archives: theolive

Why double-glazing is a really bad idea.

All w arm and snug and cosy, tucked up in bed with no drafts, no ice on the inside of the windows, no eleventh blanket to keep the cold out – why not have double-glazing?

Because it’s sound-proof, that’s why. Last night (actually, very early this morning), we lost 15 chickens and 3 Guinea-fowl, brutally murdered, and we didn’t hear a thing. It wasn’t until we were making breakfast that we finally heard one of our Guinea-fowl making a racket (which is why we have them!) and I wandered out to investigate. Bits and pieces of chicken spread all over the place, some very sad and sorry-looking survivors, and two unknown dogs rushing about in a frenzy. So much for electric fences and predator-proof chicken-coops.

Now, I don’t object too much if we lose animals to foxes or pine-martens (actually, I object a lot, but you know what I mean) – they were here first, they’re just trying to earn a living etc. But dogs? We have toted up the year’s losses, and at over 50 birds we have decided that the chicken-ark system is just too expensive to carry on with. No more moving our animals around the farm, ensuring a even spread of grazing and manure. All locked up in a big secure cage, just like the locals do it from now on. And why?

Because the worthless, feckless, useless idiot Greeks have a great system for un-needed dogs – if you don’t want it, throw it away. But don’t do anything responsible, like find a new home for it, take it to a rescue shelter or some such. Oh no, much more sensible to take it off to the countryside and release it into the wild. “Fly free my beauty! Cretins, the lot of them. What they are actually doing is saying “I don’t want to be responsible for killing this dog, so I’ll get some other poor idiot to do it for me”. So, one dog, suddenly homeless, makes a bee-line for the nearest house, gets side-tracked by chickens, and blood-bath ensues. Dog then shot by owner of chickens, and good result all round, except for the poor chickens.

If it was just an occasional thing, I could understand it, but it is constant, and getting worse, what with the economic position at the moment. So, if you are Greek, and reading this, tell me please why you are so offensively uncaring. unthinking, and generally all-round useless. Thanking you in anticipation.

In case you think I am being a little harsh – here is what we salvaged from this morning’s entertainment.

Hard to believe, but this used to be 20 chickens….

Had to count up heads (the only bit left in a couple of cases) to make sure some weren’t just missing in action. Our final surviving Guinea fowl is very sad now – hardly has the heart to bully anyone. Here’s another question – if you are planning to breed guinea-fowl, and you only have one, who does it work? Immaculate conception? Cloning? Answers on a postcard, addressed to the dogs’ original owners please.

Still, there is some good news – we still have a pair of turkeys, and the sheep weren’t bothered (locked up for the night, but then so were the chickens ). We also have 25 layers still, so we can fire up the incubator and crack on with the next generation, just as soon as everyone gets over the shock of new housing and starts laying again. The circle of life continues.

Chipping (continued)

Joy of joys, we are still chipping branches. Have finished our land, and moved on to Tassos’ We have been offered so many people’s branches this year that we might still be going in May, which is a pretty daunting thought. Have to keep reminding ourselves of all the compost that it will make.

[Doug the WWOOFer (spring 2010) posing with chipper]

Here’s a picture of last year’s chippings in October, with shiny new pigs on top. As you can see, the chippings have not done much over the summer (far too hot and dry), but the pigs have done amazing work and the pile has gone from 6 feet high to about 6 inches. Strongly recommend that everyone gets pigs to put on the compost heap. Outstanding result, and free bacon afterwards.

All we need now is a current picture of pigs and compost- must organise that.

6 month-old chickens

Having been set back by the olives, we have dispatched a dozen chickens a little later than usual – two months later to be precise. However,they are such a good size, with more meat than usual, that we are thinking that this might be the better way, despite the additional cost.

Given that 25% of everything that a chicken eats comes out the other end a few hours later, it is not a big problem to keep them for longer, but it makes the cost of each bird outrageously high if you were looking to make a profit on the deal. For us, chickens are the most effective method of fertilizing our land, with the added bonus of free eggs and meat.

A little note, we have finally got a result with the hot water and plucking issues. If you heat the water to 65 degrees Celsius (70 according to our thermometer), and dunk it sufficiently, the feathers come out without force! At last! All those internet posts and books saying how water loosens the feathers, and us tearing and heaving and cursing – you NEED a thermometer – scientific process and all that! Ellie can now pluck a chicken faster than I can draw it – the whole process is no longer a stress. Can’t wait for the motorised chicken-plucker, though!

Turkey for Christmas

Having bought ourselves three turkeys, it seemed sensible to dispatch one of them for Christmas. Question is, how do you decide which one? Bless their cotton socks, neither of the two fugitives seemed to be playing hard to get, so the decision came down to which one was closer. We had lots of theories about keeping the larger of the two for breeding purposes, by frankly, how do you tell? They are (were, in one case) both enormous, and with all that constant posturing and displaying, it is nigh-on impossible to tell how much is bird and how much is feathers.

So, grab a turkey by the leg, do the necessary, hang it up and pluck it. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezey, as Lexi would say. Actually, as it was the first one, it seemed a little daunting. Just killing the thing was a puzzle, and then dry-plucking and drawing a monster (6.5 kilos = 14lbs). Not the best way to get into the Christmas spirit.

For those who need to know, put a stick on the ground, put turkey’s head under stick (with back facing outwards, breast towards you, so the stick goes on the back of the neck), then put a foot on either end of the stick and pull upwards). Works a treat with chickens; turkeys are a little more exciting once the flapping starts. Our volunteer WWOOFers were on-hand to experience the full Christmas spirit, as it were, with anatomy class and guess the name of the internal organ game played to the full.

To our surprise, dry-plucking was nowhere near the mission we were expecting, which made life easier. Drawing was easy too – just like a chicken, but not so fiddly. We use tin-snips to cut off neck and feet, and don’t worry about the tendons –there’s so much meat on the bird you won’t find them until three days after Christmas, when you are stripping the last of the meat off the carcass for that curry, mmmmmmmmm

We decided not to hang the bird with the guts in (nowhere to hang it in sunny Greece that is cold enough!!), so we plucked and drew it straight away, and then shoved it in the fridge for 5 days.

Never had a turkey like it! Moist, succulent, astonishingly fat (perhaps we have been overfeeding them?), and more flavour than you can shake a stick at. Finally understood why they are considered worthy of a Christmas Feast. Quite looking forward to the next year, assuming we get the two remaining birds to breed.

Deep in the olive harvest

Not entirely possible to write a great deal, as all is chaos and confusion at the moment, i.e. the same procedure as every year.

A disappointing harvest from a quantity point of view – 16 sacks of olives pressed so far, from about 100 trees, giving us 135 kilos of oil. We are not planning a world cruise just yet.

The good news is that things have picked up in the last two days, with another 33 sacks at the press right now, and another 100 or so trees to go, so we might not have to buy extra olive oil for the kitchen this year.

The oil itself is really, really exciting – a vivid, day-glow green, and the taste outstanding (well, we would say that, obviously). The volunteer consensus this year is that it tastes of leaves, and olive oil.

Speaking of volunteers, the WWOOFers have excelled themselves – long hard days with no end in sight, and still only enthusiasm and laughter and more hard work. We are suitably impressed.

My CMS

Organic Farming in the Peloponnese