chickens

Growing Our Own Food Feels More Important Than Ever

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Plus learning to forage and preserve…

recent additions, Egg and Shumpert enjoying the garden – image is mine

I’ve always been into growing my own food, but mostly it has been for fun. When I was a kid we grew runner beans, pumpkins, tomatoes and lettuces and my grandfather grew peas, marrows, potatoes and more. Their generation, and to a lesser extent, my mother’s generation, were used to growing their own. They didn’t grow everything they needed, but they grew what they could with what they had. With the rise of the supermarket that trend has diminished greatly and children growing up now are unlikely to even know where food comes from, let alone know how to grow it themselves.

I never wanted that for my kids and I have always grown something. Bags of potatoes are so easy, for example, as are lettuces and beans. Over the years my vegetable plot has grown bigger and bigger and I soon added chickens and ducks, fruit trees and fruit bushes to the mix. I’ve had my successes and my failures, but failing has never mattered that much before. It’s been frustrating, yes. There are always weeds, pests and the weather to battle with when trying to grow produce, but failing hasn’t bothered me too much and I have always learnt something in the process.

That’s changed now and I wonder how many other hobby growers are feeling the same? I wonder how many people who grew food for fun are now buckling down and upping their game? Planting more than ever and worrying more than ever that some of it will fail…

Recent world events have seen oil prices soar and before long that will impact food prices. People were already struggling with the rising cost of living, so it’s scary to think how much of an impact this is going to have. In recent years, I’ve hugely resented the cost I pay at the checkout and I’ve made an effort to use the supermarkets less and less. I get a weekly organic vegetable box from the wonderful Riverford and I have armed myself with knowledge in the form of books. Yes, I Google things from time to time, but there is something very grounding and safe about actually owning the books…

My be-prepared-for-anything books so far are as follow:

The Self-Sufficient(ish) Bible – by Andy and Dave Hamilton

The Forager’s Calendar – by John Wright

Living on One Acre or Less – by Sally Morgan

A Modern Herbal – by Alys Fowler

The Good Housekeeping Complete Book of Preserving

That should do it! I also really want a drill and the skills to knock up animal shelters and fences, but all in good time!

My aim is to keep adding to my skills and my knowledge, even if I don’t need to use the things I’m learning. At the moment, for example, I’m discovering that many of the weeds and herbs that grow in my garden have huge health benefits. I’ve been making refreshing tonics from cleavers, or goosegrass as it’s also known, and warming teas from rosemary and nettle infusions. I aim to try dandelion next – apparently you can consume every part of this amazing plant, even the roots!

I’ve stopped buying stock and instead make my own by saving vegetable scraps and peelings. I also freeze apple cores and peelings and when I have enough I make my own apple cider vinegar. I’ve learnt how to make a natural cleaner from vinegar and pines cut from the Christmas tree. I bake my own bread, cakes, wraps and pizzas at the weekend. It’s all little bits, and I still shop at the supermarket more than I want to, but it’s a process and I am enjoying it. It feels like reclaiming something we have all lost.

And as for the garden, it’s slowly awakening from its winter slumber. The fruit trees have all blossomed and the plum tree already has tiny green plums growing! I took tons of cuttings from my redcurrant and blackcurrant bushes last year and they’re all now in the ground and doing well. I’ve got potatoes, onions, leeks, parsnips and beetroot in the ground and peas, beans, lettuces, tomatoes and peppers all starting off inside.

It sounds a lot but it does not feel like enough! Not by a long shot. I’ve got some wheat I plan to plant in one bed as I’d love to try and mill my own flour. I have a small packet of oat seeds to try as well.

I am sure there will be many, many failures along the way but it really does feel imperative that I grow more than usual, that it succeeds as much as possible – just in case!

I now have two weeks off work for Easter and plan to be outside as much as possible, planting more seeds, transplanting seedlings, making more raised beds and filling with compost. I’ll be exhausted but perhaps I will sleep better at night.

Pandemic Pets; How Our Furry Friends Saved Our Sanity

~ ChanAtkins ~ 10 Comments

Like everyone else in the country, I sat in a kind of shocked stupor when it was first announced that we would be going into lockdown. I think the biggest shock for most of us was the school closures and onset of home learning. As I write this, England is in another lockdown, though a far less strict one this time around. Mostly, life appears to be going on as normal. Of course by ‘normal’ I mean the ‘new normal’ of social distancing, bubbles, hand sanitising and face mask wearing. Isn’t it weird how quickly we all get used to things like this?

We all live such day-to-day lives now, don’t we? We really can’t plan too far ahead. Especially when it comes to things like weddings, birthdays and Christmas. We all just shrug helplessly and say; ‘we’ll see what happens.’ And that’s a weird and unsettling way to live your life, not being able to plan much, not knowing anything for sure. Young children are good at living like that; they tend to live in the moment, not looking too far ahead. Animals are the same; they have little concept of time or future and so don’t worry about it like we do.

During the first national lockdown, there was a growing and slightly worrying trend of people purchasing ‘lockdown puppies’. For anyone who already had a dog, or had been planning to get one, this was probably a sensible idea, as long as social distancing rules were adhered to etc. But for anyone who bought a puppy on a whim because they were bored, not so good, and I fully expect to see a lot of these lockdown puppies end up in rescue before long.

Having said that, I truly believe that owning pets is massively beneficial to your mental and physical health, and perhaps that was what drove some of this. As well as puppies and kittens, there was also a huge increase in people chicken-keeping for the first time too.

I’ve been an animal lover my entire life. I grew up surrounded by a much loved menagerie of dogs, cats, guinea pigs, gerbils and rabbits and I’m just the same in my adult life. We have dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs and ducks and chickens and until recently pet rats and hamsters too.

Often, I prefer animals to people, or at least I prefer their company and find them generally a lot less stressful to be around. During the first strict lockdown, in the messy middle of home-schooling and juggling work, I found myself turning to my animals even more. I spent as much time as I could outside, and we were so lucky that the majority of the lockdown weather was absolutely glorious. I felt so blessed to be sat in the sun in my large garden, with the cockerel crowing and the ducks quacking.

We were one of the families who got a lockdown puppy, though ours was planned before lockdown happened. In February, a month after I lost my beloved lurcher Skipper, I came across an ad from a lady whose beautiful lurcher was due to have puppies in March. We made contact, spoke on the phone and after she had carefully vetted me, I was put on the list. The day before the puppies were born, we went into lockdown and it became very uncertain as to whether we would get one or not.

As luck would have it, the travel restrictions were lifted just as the pups turned 8 weeks old and we were able to pick our beautiful boy Jesse up mid-May. He certainly entered our lives at the perfect time. We were starting to lag…starting to get on each other’s nerves, starting to get itchy feet. It was getting hard. But having Jesse and integrating him into our family was the perfect distraction and gave us all something positive to focus on. I will always be grateful to him for that. He is now 7 months old and a truly beautiful boy with the sweetest soul. I’ve never had such a loving loyal dog before, he is just adorable in every way, and so smart too!

Jesse at 8 weeks

But even before he arrived, I was so grateful to have my pets in my life. At the start of home schooling me and the kids fell into a routine, where we would start the day with PE, do a few lessons and then take our older lurcher Tinks for a long walk before lunch. We really looked forward to these walks, and it was lovely to have the kids with me and Tinks, when usually they would be at school. We integrated some of our learning into the walks, sometimes had picnics, played in streams, ran down hills and played hide and seek. I’m not sure we would have done all those things daily if we had not had a dog to walk.

Beautiful Tinks

My dogs are my best friends. They are my family. I love them so much I cannot bear being away from them. It’s hard to explain to someone who doesn’t have a dog or who doesn’t like dogs…quite what they give you in return for a warm bed, some yummy food and long walks. What we give them is small in comparison. My dogs welcome me home with wagging tails, warm kisses and the absolutely adorable ‘lurcher lean’! They watch me, listen to me, follow me, and love me for me. They don’t expect or demand anything of me, other than the above mentioned food bed and walk! They make me laugh every day with their antics and loopy smiles. They challenge me – to keep going, to get out, to talk to people, to socialise, to train them, to get better, to be better. I would be far, far less without my dogs and I hate to imagine what lockdown would have been like without them.

As for now, as we navigate through another lockdown and balance precariously between old normal and new normal, between hope and fear, between fragile mental health and steely resilience, I turn to them more and more because they are steady, they are sure, they are always there, just being them. Just being dogs. Living in the moment, not worrying about what tomorrow might bring. I hope that anyone who got a lockdown puppy, kitten or flock of chickens is feeling the same right now, because to have pets in your life during tumultuous times is truly a wonderful gift.

Home schooling with chickens in tow

How about you? Did you get a pet during lockdown? How is it working out? If you already had pets, tell me about them and how they have helped you during the pandemic. I’m starting this as a new guest feature so get in touch if you and your furry friends have a story to share. It can be a non-fiction piece or a story or a poem!