Reading Time: 7 minutesCheese: take the milk, skim off the curds (solids) from the whey (liquids), press, ferment and age. Hey presto, you have a solid form of milk. We’ve long used this to extend its life and get us through lean times. A tradition thousands of years old. Store cheese in the pantry, and it’ll taste and […]
Animals
Animals and Ancestors: A Life Lived With Animals
Reading Time: 2 minutesCould a life lived with animals be in our DNA? We’ve evolved from hunter-gathers, into farmers looking out onto pasture, cornfield, hedgerow and wildwood beyond. Today the wildwood has retreated, and for most of us even farms too. We live in an increasingly artificial environment, and few of us live off the land. Yet we […]
Lost Words and Nature-based Solutions
Reading Time: 5 minutesRegain lost words and seek out nature-based solutions. Simple swaps, which we’ve heard so much about during Zero Waste Week, are a great way to make a difference. But, alongside a focus on stuff (avoiding buying stuff; wasting less stuff), I want to bring in another dimension. For this week, think also zero waste of […]
Save Mother Owl – Support Nature-Friendly Farming
Reading Time: 4 minutesMother Owl is sick and dying. She perches in a tree, looking down on fields of broccoli, cabbages, carrots, oilseed rape and cereals. The landscape that is the cause of her demise. She may not be able to reach her chicks in a nest nearby. She can hear them, but, she has fatigued muscles and […]
Red Rock Farm: Food From the Hills
Reading Time: 3 minutesThe image above isn’t from Red Rock Farm, but I’ve been talking about food from the hills. I’ve been on a journey around the English West Midlands, where I live, thinking about food that saves the planet. I started in Shropshire, and now I’ve moved round to north Worcestershire, where food and farming culture is […]
Fleece and Fibre at the Small Breeds Farm
Reading Time: 3 minutesMy obsession with fleece and fibre is growing. Not only do I now have a basket of some new types of wool top to spin (new to me) to add to a mountain of Ryeland fleece that I already possess, it seems like a good idea to connect the fleece/fibre to the animal. In the week […]
