Not so mobile chicken tractor

What went wrong? I didn't trust my own design abilities. Not having kept hens before I felt others would know best but I should have trusted my instincts after reading up on their needs and kept it simple and moveable. The result is that it is too heavy and very awkward to move to new positions needing at least two people and two long branches to insert under it. The hens seem happy with it though - so they should be after seeing what other hens are kept in. SO far no foxes have broken through and it has kept them safe from the birds of prey that took three of them when they were free range.

December

For those of you who haven't yet seen it there is a small article on Permaculture and my neighbours and myself in the regional paper. You can see this at :-

http://www.elcorreo gallego.es/ index.php? idMenu=2& idNoticia= 241487

It makes it sound a little idealistic when in fact my finances are almost zero - I am job hunting to support myself and my daughter which in a rural area with few employment prospects is a little difficult but we are ever hopeful.

November

I have not been able to sit at the computer this month as it has been too cold. We have had several nights below zero with heavy frosts. I am really glad to say that at the end of the month the wood burning stove was installed and as it is our only source of heat it has made a huge difference to our life. To have somewhere warm where you don't have to wear coats to eat is great. The wood we had delivered is coppiced oak, which exists between the pine plantations. The delivery tractor dumped it in the patio and we had a half day to shift it under cover before the rains came. The stove has been built away from the wall as recommended by Andres our local builder. This is typical in Galicia allowing more heat to pass into the building rather than straight up the chimmney and people to sit around the table it is built into. The chimmney passes under the seats at the back of the table and up through the house providing some extra heat.

I have been going through the process of getting the finca registered as an ecological finca. I discovered that my land was not registered as a separate parcel so I had to visit the land registry representative at the town hall. TO my horror he told me it must have been divided ilegally. After a sleepless night I then visited another representive the next day as suggested by the mayoress. He told me it must be a mistake as there is an old wall on the property that is at least a 100 years old. I then had to go and clear the old wall of many years of vegetation and take some photographs. I also had to measure the land and mark it on a map. I have to take all this evidence back to the land registry to prove that it is divided and has been for some time.

I have also had to register my bee hives with the agricultural department. Filled in the forms after finding the hidden office and payed my fees. The veterinary inspectors came out to inspect my two beehives and hummed because they were not 100 metres away from the deserted properites in the village. I did point out that in London they have hives on the roofs of buildings but they tutted and told me this was illegal. They departed passing several un registered neighbouring hives on the way. Two weeks later I recieved a call to go and collect my book for my bees. The vet explained to me that as it was not 100 metres from the other property I would have to construct a barrier at least 2 metres tall around the hives so the bees fly up and over. I didn't point out that they would just fly down again after passing the barrier. Surely this is EU bureaucracy gone mad?

October

Magosto - Chestnut fiesta. My daughter and I were invited by neigbours to attend the fiesta. There was typical Gallego fayre - hams, cheese, empanada, roast meat, bread, etc Music, dancing and wine. The following week my daughter's nursery also had a Magosto and chestnuts were roasted in the grounds with children helping. I read that a village in the UK had put up a screen to show a movie of a bonfire after it had been unable to pay the insurance for a real one. Is this bureacracy and threat to sue killing off British culture? Just a thought. A child did get too close and did put his hand where he shouldn't but he learnt from that as did other children.

The trees were a beautiful colour and the weather incredibly mild, thankfully, as we have no heating but the wood burning stove is about to be installed.

This months's produce

Quinces, Figs, Walnuts, Pumpkins and chestnuts. Picking the chestnuts it was safer to put the bike helmet on as they kept on dropping. They are now in the caravan drying. We've roasted a few and they were yummy. We are off to a chestnut roasting fiesta tomorrow called Magosta. I spent a few hours with my neighbours who were visiting from Valladolid and they showed me how to make Quince paste after my own attempt came out like stone. They filled several large pans with quinces cored and quartered. For every kilo of quince 3/4 of sugar was added. It was left over night and then put on the wood burning stove the next day for three hours.

After this it was liquified and put into plastic containers to solidify. They say it is very good with queso fresco - fresh cheese. I also made a cognac and some marmalade from them.

The walnut tree has been great and I will definitely be planting more. I've also stuck some walnuts straight into the ground and will see if anything sprouts from them - if the mice don't find them.

Another produce has been the figs - I've preserved a lot of them in sugar syrup although some people don't add sugar at all as they are quite sweet already and I have made fig jam. I have a feeling it would do well in a tart like treacle tart. When I have more time to experiment I'll give it a go.

It has been frosty the last couple of mornings and the temperature has fallen. We are hoping to have a wood burning stove in before Christmas,

which will be our only source of heat - I can't wait as we have to decamp to a bedroom, which we are heating with an oil radiator in the evenings. I missed the delivery of gas cylinders this month.

A living museum of bees - what a great idea!

Here is the laboratory when honey can be analysed. The next picture shows the extraction room where the honey is extracted from the combs. On the next floor down were the settling tanks. The honey flowed into these using natural gravity.

The bottling room.

A demonstration of how bees, when left alone, will build up their own comb.

The workshop - Frames with comb.

An old chestnut hive.

A cross section of a hive.

A replica of an apiary in the mountains built within a stone wall to keep the bears out. Note the use of chestnut stumps for hives

Outside apiaries.

Did the donkey get stung?

The patron saints of beekeepers.

.

Bee Keepers Excursion - Cooperativa de Erica mel

We set off on our trip which was part of the organic beekeepers course organised by the local agricultural school. First stop was the honey cooperative which was an interesting insight into how honey from many different sources is managed and produced under the Miel de Galicia label.

The honey is poured into a large tank where it is heated to a specified temperature - This particular batch was mixed flower honey but both Chestnut and Eucalyptus honey were produced.

It then passess through several filters to ensure purity.

It was then passed through via pumps to be bottled and labelled.

Making Cider

Can't seem to do enough with all these apples! My Uncle's simple cider recipe came in very handy - I hope it tastes as good as his. We don't have a cider press so this recipe is ideal and neighbours have been asking for it.

Step 1 - cut the apples into quarters

Step 2 - pop them into the mixer if you have one to chop them finely if not it's a longer job by hand

Step 3 - put the apple into a large bucket and add the water, sugar, lemon juice and rind and grated root ginger if wanted

Step 4 - Stir twice daily for 3 weeks

The proportions of the recipe given to me were as follows:-

Steve's Cider Recipe

3 lbs apples

3 lemons

2 lb sugar
fresh grated ginger (optional)

Chop complete apples and put through blender

Place in bucket/ container add 6 pints water,lemon zest& juice and sugar

Stir twice daily for 3 weeks

Sieve and bottle (not too early as very lively...)

I actually multiplied it all to do 30 pounds of apples.

Will let you know how it turns out!

The grape harvest - Vendimia

I was fortunate enough to be offered some temporary work harvesting the grapes on the banks of the river Sil. Having no other income at the moment it was welcome. This is the famous Amandi region with some very steep precipices which had me wondering why I had cancelled my life assurance. The views were amazing. We were taken to different vineyards in different parts of the Amandi. I had never picked grapes before and it was hard work! We started at 8.15am and on one day finished at 8pm. We were fed four course meals with as much wine, beer and liqueurs or water as we wanted. After two and half days (I did it at the same time as the beekeeping course) I was covered in bruises and sliced my finger but the company was good and the scenery amazing. There were four different nationalities in the grape picking force which also made a nice mixture. How wine is sold so cheaply though I do not know as we scrambled over the rocky terraces and boxes of grapes were carried up and down the steep descents.

Organic Beekeeping Course Practical

Bee hives were being introduced to the local agricultural college with the objective being that they are good environmental scensors. I am a little concerned for them having been told by the tutor that the college still uses the chemical that has been banned from France due to colony collapse mentioned in my previous beekeeping post. The tutors at the college are trying to get the powers that be to change to organic methods but they are encountering some resistance. It is through supporting courses such as this organic beekeeping course that may persuade them to change. Let's hope so.
The session started with a novel way of fitting the wax sheets into the frames using a 2 Euro section of wire attached to the car battery. This was then attached to the metal threads running through the wax which expanded as it was heated fitting it snuggly in place. Biodynamic beekeepers prefer to let the bees make their own wax rather than buy in foundation, which seems to make sense to me and what I would like to give them a chance to do
in the future as it seems a natural part of their process.



Here a practical solution for the lone beekeeper is being demonstrated as the Supers can get heavy. To be honest it seemed to be a bit too much hastle for my liking.

Here you can see frames being transfered from the nucleus (a small colony of bees divided this year) to a full sized hive.

This frame is loaded with honey stores - just the thing to get the bees through winter.

Here you can see a frame with brood on being held up to the sunlight. We were not fortunate enought to spot the queen despite several experienced beekeepers being with us. I had failed to spot my own a couple of days before so didn't feel such a novice.

One colony of bees happily marched up into their new hive which was probably an indication that they could sense that the queen was already in their. The other colonly had to be persuaded to get going with a little bit of smoke.

The course has been really useful to link up with other organic beekeepers some with many years of experience who have already invited me to go and visit their apiaries and use their extractors when I need to. I have learnt beekeeping vocabulary in Gallego and Spanish and more importantly I have learnt how crucial it is to go organic and give bees a chance to build up a natural resistance rather than bombard them with antibiotics and chemicals at the first sign of trouble.

Young Beekeeper, masonry stoves and Transition Totnes

Can you spot the young beekeeper? Having looked on the Internet to find that beekeeper suits for youngsters cost £40 + we improvised. Not practical but for observing the bees coming and going it was perfect. While we sat watching the bees do their stuff we saw one of them throwing out a coddling moth grub - at least I think it was. No sooner had it been thrown out than a wasp desended upon it and seemed to make a meal of it.

My copy of the Permaculture magazine arrived today and it makes great reading. We have been looking at masonry stoves as an ecological option to heat our home but the costs have placed them out of our reach so to see a home build example in the magazine was perfect timing. If your're interested then look at http://www.envisioneer.net/ is the website of the reader who sent it in.

It was also great to read about the progress of Totnes as a Transition Town and all the positive things that are happening there particularly the beginnings of their own local currency. Wouldn't it be great if each town had its own currency! More local buying - more local enterprise - more people looking at living sustainably? To know more take a look at

www.transitionculture.org

Polytunnels and potatoes!

I gave a friend some chilli pepper plants back in Spring. She is fortunate enough to have a large polytunnel and I couldn't believe the difference in growth between her plants and mine so I decided to do a mini polytunnel using what I could find. The big one comes later! I am the least practical person known to my friends who are a little suprised at what I'm doing. I picked up a piece of tubing and a metal pipe. Cut the metal pipe in four and the tubing in two and together with an old plastic sheet had the makings of a polytunnel. Can you use a hacksaw to cut metal? Is that what they are for? It worked. Ok so it sags a little in the middle but it does the job.

Slight back ache yesterday after recovering from helping my neighbour get his potatoes in. I never imagined there were so many in his little plot. The so called small ones that we separated out for his pigs would have been sold as good new potatoes back home. He kindly gave me two large sacks of potatoes that will see us through winter and beyond and I was then fed the usual galician empanada (meat pie), roast lamb, salad and organic red wine. I then had to attend my organic beekeeping course which was in Gallego and for some strange reason (the wine?) I understood perfectly!

Busy Bees

I attended a free course at the local agricultural school. It was all in Gallego and not Spanish so it was fortunate that I had some knowledge of what they were talking about having done a beekeeping course at Derby Agricultural college. It was about organic beekeeping and I have registered to become part of the organic beekeepers of Spain. I was interested to know how they treat Varoa and Foul Brood diseases using organic methods. In Derbyshire there was a great deal of worry about the spread of the Foul Brood diseases which had hit neighbouring Leicestershire before I left so they were waiting for the first signs of it. In the UK the procedure if you felt there was something of these diseases in your hive is to notify the man from the ministry of agriculture who was assigned specifically for beekeepers. If the worst fears were confirmed then the hive and equipment would be burnt. Here the only person you inform is the vet who will give you a prescription for penicillin. Apparently it is not a cheap treatment and any honey that comes off such a hive would be sold as Galician honey rather than as organic because it would have been treated with antibiotics etc. The disease spreads via spores which can remain active for decades. What they have said is that we will experience this disease here as it is now endemic and although people are supposed to report that they have it not everyone does. Because of the threat of forest fires any equipment that is disposed of is buried in the ground. They also recommended the open floors for the hives in deterring the varoa mite which is what Steve Rose of the Derbyshire Beekeepers has been doing for some time now. Interestingly varoa originated in the forests of Asia where they have not been treated for it and where the bee colonies have not been wiped out. The view of the agricultural technician leading the course is we need to help bees build up a resistance through good practise and selective breeding and not through the use of chemicals and medicines. To be an organic beekeeper you have to be at least 3km away from any form of intensive farming. I wonder how easy this would be in the UK? It seems to have a lot in common with biodynamic beekeeping which I'm also looking at.

Today, as I went to empty the compost bucket on the compost heap I heard a tremendous buzzing. I looked up to see the ivy that covers the wall in flower and a swarm of bees enjoying this late and important provider of nectar.


I was about to start feeding my bees to build them up for winter but they said no sugar syrup is allowed. If you must feed them it must be organic honey. It does make sense but as the colonies are new and I've yet to take honey off them I will have to see if I can find some honey.

The different diseases/illnesses etc that the bees could go down with was quite depressing. I think the most disturbing and one which shows just how sensitive bees are to man's meddling with nature is Colony Collapse Disorder. Please view the following link for this very worrying sign of something being very wrong! http://www.bbka.org.uk/articles/imidacloprid.php Also check out the following link of this very interesting organisation http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/info/info/enviro/the-need-for-organic-beek.shtml A recent article in the Times on line also asks people to wake up http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/ben_macintyre/article2231321.ece This is a very good reason to make sure we get our plant seeds from organic sources and not just off the shelf from any outlet. It has certainly made me think about some sunflowers I planted from a pack that I picked up and I certainly won't be doing so again. I usually stick to HDRA seeds where possible.

I do worry that I will miss the signs of one of these illnesses as I am relatively new to the world of beekeeping but I've been told that as long as I check the hives regularly I should begin to notice if things go array.

Apparently Germany are the leaders in honey production and investigation. It was their analysis of honey that led to Chinese honey being banned for two years from the EU due to high traces of antibiotics along with honey from other countries. Please buy organic or biodynamic honey wherever you can. I am convinced having attended this course that it is the only way we can help the bees to survive these diseases and enable them to build up some kind of resistance.

Rudolf Steiner gave eight lectures about bees, which he considered to be more important to agriculture than any of the domesticated species because of their vital work in pollinating crops. Albert Einstein considered them so vital that he predicted an early end to human life on earth should the honey bee become extinct.

Blackberry jam and Apple Pectin

There is no artificial pectin here to make the jam set so I collected up a bag of windfall apples which I had been feeding to the neighbours sheep and set about trying to make my own pectin. It took a long time to cook them down to an apple sauce like structure and then not having any muslin to strain it through over night I had to sacrifice a white T shirt.

The jam still came out a little bit on the runny side after using the pectin but I think that is more to do with my impatience with the boiling process. Next is cider making. Most apples are left on the trees to drop as people seem to want to buy shiny, waxy, tastless varieties from the shops than pick their own. My uncle has a simple yet effective cider recipe so get ready for some explosions!