Second childhood?

 What would you buy if you had a £5 Morrisons voucher you found in the glovebox of the car? Something sensible? Nope, not me. I went online to see what was on special offer or vegetarian for DS's girlfriend before we went. Wrote a list. Very sensible. And then I saw this. Scooby doo pasta. Yes I bought it. And we had delias meaty pasta bake and I was like a small overjoyed child everytime I recognised a shape!! 

 And look in my overall pocket. Yellow and green courgettes. I don't know why I love them so much...might be the colours, the shine. Just love them..so choppy choppy...sizzle sizzle and a yummy side veg with the pasta bake!

 And as that was far too healthy....

 A big wodge of choccy fudge brownie for desert!! And look what else is coming up.....Patty pan squash! See, I get excited over squash of all kinds..they are just so groovy:)

 And there are enough courgettes to sell some now too, not just eat as many as I can cram in!

I am a happy little fairy! Even though its been raining and I know it'll make the weeds grow like mad! I'm thinking of how much it will make the squash grow too:)
BBS x

Where did the cookies go?

I made cookies didn't I? I'm sure i did! Well the tin was empty again and as it was a rainy day i thought I'd do a serious batch! But before I'd even managed to get them into the tin 3 had dissappeared!
Ok..cookie recipe.
These are soft cakey cookies, not crunchy biscuits.

4oz marg creamed with 4 oz sugar
Add an egg, a few drops of vannilla essence, mix then fold in 6oz plain flour with a tsp of bicarb mixed in. 

You're supposed to add choccy chips at this point,

(I use chopped up 30p chocolate to make chunks instead, about 1/3 bar to a batch) but I have learnt that they burn on the bottom so its much better to drop them on the top of the cookies before baking at 160 degrees for 12-15 minutes. In my oven they take 13 minutes exactly. They don't get really brown but i think thats my oven. 

I made 50 cookies!!! Then I decided to cost them! 
With Aldi ingredients it cost £1.71 for 50! Not including gas. 
3 1/2p a cookie :) DS says they taste like big supermarket ones which cost £1 for 5!!! So a treat at a bargain cost if you ask me and everyone loves them. Jones the steam has had 4 already! OH has had 6 so far..They don't last long do they!

The little box is nearly empty!!

It doesn't look like this now! I like to make my menfolk happy...whats that quote..."Its like they're eating a part of me"..creepy but true :)
BBS x

Itsy bitsy greenish fairy

Can you guess what I put in my little stall today?? Its small and green and not a frog...

Awww aint they sweet? They average about 3-4 inches long :) Size isn't everything!! And they're lovely and sweet and tender and nothing like the ones in the supermarket. And if I can't sell them guess what we're eating this week!! Joy :)

Two 25kg bags of potatoes for the chipshop:) Took me a couple of hours to do because the machines won't fit in the rows yet so they were done completely by hand!! But I do love the fact they go to the local chippy :) And DS turns them into chips!

MORE white chocolate chip cookies...and by the time i thought theywere cool enough to put in the tin three were missing! So theres a fudge brownie cooling in the kitchen as we speak :) Yum!
And another of my mid life moments.....

Hahahhaa I'm blue...I feel like a water fairy in this one...and still I cannot surprise anyone...DS's boss said she wouldn't be surprised by anything I did!! They are accustomed to my strangeness....does that make me normal? Ok, so I definitely have suitable 'hair' for the next night out....now for the outfit!!! I have a cunning plan...
BBS x

Lovely fairy, Maurice says so

Today I got called a lovely lady. That made my day! And it was by lovely Maurice who is 83 years young and really likes my potatoes :) He came on saturday and bought some and wants more for tomorrow. And he told me a poem he'd been taught by his father when he was young, and bless him he wrote it down for me so I'll share it with you too.
Months of the year
January brings the snow,
makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
thaws the frozen lakes again.
March brings breezes, sharp and shrill,
shales the dancing daffodil.
April brings the primrose,sweet,
scatters daisies at our feet.
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
scorching round their fleecy dambs.
June brings tulips, lillies, roses,
fills our childrens hands with posies.
Hot July brings cooling showers,
strawberries and gilly flowers.
August brings the sheaves of corn,
then the harvest home is born.
Warm September brings the fruit,
the sportsmen then begin to shoot.
Fresh October brings the pheasant,
then to gather nuts is pleasant.
Dull Novemeber brings the blast,
then the leaves are whirling fast.
Cold December brings the sleet,
round the fire and christmas treat.
Isn't that lovely, and he must have learnt it seventy odd years ago. I love my customers!!
It must be my potatoes....

Look at the size of those little devils!! Two bags off to the chipshop tomorrow :) And I snuck four in the house for tea....

Baked new potatoes? Who'd have thought that was a good idea...not me...but the lovely lady from the chip shop said they were good, so we gave it a go...

MMM cheese...homemade coleslaw and beans :) Joy of simplicity.
And then there was the cookie moment...

White choc chip...smarties and....

Triple choc chip :-0 white, dark and milk choc...I make a batch of each on saturday morning...there was one left today! The boys seem to love the white choc and if it cools off in the kitchen at some point I'll make them another batch! Gotta look after the boys :) Especially as DS is now officially a trainee:)

Gritty fairy

Today I tried to describe the kebabs we get from the local butcher to mommy over the phone. It really doesn't work without some kind of visual reference! So I took some pictures instead :) These are one of our treat meals..we don't have them very often because they cost 69p each. But we can't afford the kebab shop either and everyone loves these!

Red chinese flavour ones for us grown ups...

Kofta's for DS. Sizzle sizzle on the griddle..

Homemade potato salad...

Salad, raw cabbage and onion and a pitta...

Yum!! And its a meaty treat :) Definitely deserved it as four more rows hoed! And some shove hoeing. As it was most hot (29 degrees) and windy the weeds died quickly today. But it was making the soil blow about alot. Not quite 'fen blow' but close. It was like being sandblasted...and the grit got everywhere....

Hahhhahaaha lovely 'fen tan' going on there!! I wear trainers and ankle sockies...

Honestly there was grit in every nook and cranny!! I went and had a cold bath and washed it all off....I left a lovely tide mark in the bath (yes I washed it off)..most people I'm sure don't leave grit in the bath...do they? 
So start again on monday...if it rains there are bound to be more weeds...i love to hoe!! 
And with the warm wind today i got 3 loads of washing dry outside...splendid! And I found two little patty pan squash :) Joy.
Happy 4th July...I can hear the fireworks now going off at our local USAF airbase! 
BBS x

Sticky fairy

Hot syrup anyone? I can remember making fruit salad in cookery class at school many many moons ago. We were shown how to make a light syrup, which I now do by 'feel'. But as I bought myself a candy thermometer i thought I'd give it a try!

My 89p melon and the 2 packs of 49p grapes, one long forgotten pears and some of our raspberries :)

 Half a little jar of last years grape juice and chop chop...

Isn't that a pretty thing! But do you know something, as soon as I make it all I want is chocolate, everytime! DS had some for his lunch. And as it was fajitas for tea with withering peppers and multiple onions DS must have had his five a day! I'm having mine for supper. 
Today has been a hoe ful day again, six more rows to go and I'm back to the beginning again! 
Hopefully soon I'll have enough courgettes to sell some and not just eat them. And three weeks till carrots can be picked. Now that I am looking forward to! And hopefully that means I'll be earning more! I live in hope!!
BBS x

Hoe my goodness fairy

Down down down. Sometimes this job can really get you down. You can understand why the suicide rate amongst farmers is the highest of all profesions. I know of two in the next village from my youth who killed themselves. Cheery!
I say this because yesterday Jones the steam pulled about some weedy land for me ready to put the last beds of carrots in. (He likes to be helpful)I told him not to pull about the top as I'd drilled beans and beet. I'd even put up a stick. Him no listen it would seem as when I walked the doggie this morning all beans and beet gone and lovely and flat again. :( I gotta do it all over again with more seed. Think positive, there are even fewer weeds than before!

And OH's list of things to do is getting longer as he has alot of work on. Turn it over and add some more..

 Some things have been transferred from list to list about 4 times now. (thats my kitchen wall planner...I've had it about 13 years now and the white is coming off! And yes, its colour co-ordinated, my jobs are green, DS is blue and OH is red!)

 Thankfully they are mainly jobs that can wait, like take trays back to the nice man who gave us potato seed. But one of the things was spray the leeks. I had a look today. What leeks? I have a delightful bed of weeds :( We really can't do leeks the way dad did! Next year I'm going with plants instead so the weeds will be less of a problem.
On the way back I had a rootle in the Agria potatoes in case they were big enough for the chip shop. They make a lovely chip. Blight. Last year we had to top all the potatoes early because of it. Which in turn means little potatoes. Which means the chip shop can't use them and alot get wasted. (Well, we eat them so thats not really waste...its more waist..as in mine from eating alot of buttery mash and small chips!) 
And birds have eaten alot of the brassicas too.
And we were £3 short in the money box on monday AND someone stole my pink and blue chalk from my little stall. Honestly, two two inch pieces of chalk? Why?!
When I saw the beans and beet were gone I actually cried. When you see the work you've put into something just gone it so frustrating and miserable. I actually asked myself why I bother doing this. Well I asked the dog out loud but she didn't know as she was busy looking for cat poop.

So, music on, hoe in hand I shall just plod on, as thats what you do. Theres always next year. Dad always said "I'll get that right next year".
Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. I know we are definitely learning from our mistakes.
But buggrit its a hard ole life!
And the hoeing is paying off...

See those weeds? They are dead or dying :D

The most weed  free part of the farm is the bit I have tackled with nothing but a hand hoe and an old shove hoe. No sprays. 

Very close and careful around each and every 6500 plants with my sharp little hoe. (A tadge too close to a few, maybe not 6500 anymore..oops! And I actually say oops out loud everytime I kill one :-o)
 Those lovely rows are down to a hard working, hot sweaty fairy! Smug :D
And I had another one of my furtle's...

Ah..teeny tiny courgettes...and in comparison to my finger they are...

Little finger size! I love them tiny, they are like a treat!! And soon I'm sure we'll be inundated with them and I'll hate the sight of them. The yellow ones aren't quite big enough to ransack yet:) So we had homemade rice-a-roni and cougettes fried in butter..

And clean plates all round! Yum :)
And as we've discovered Aldi is open now till ten after tea we went shopping! How exciting is that?! Ok, my life is centred around hoeing, just leaving the farm is a treat for me! 

Would you look at all that? DS paid for his nasty energy drinks, there was even dog treats, enough fruit added to what I have dried and frozen to make fruit salad tomorrow and all for....

£22.75, minus the £3 for DS's drink £19.75, no wonder I love aldi! I'm keeping the shelves and the freezer stocked AND there's fruit for a treat. Oh my, that sounds sad doesn't it? Having fruit for a treat. I've had cherries from the tree today and raspberries, I decided to eat them again. Yum. Posh friut for a treat then...grapes and a melon! I wonder if last years grape juice would be too strong added to the fruit salad...we shall see :D
BBS x