Reading Time: 14 minutesWhat if I were to tell you that plagues, through time, were caused by comets and meteor strikes? You’d probably want to gently whisper about black rats, fleas and bacteria. And, suggest that ideas associating plagues with comets were the fanciful fears of prehistoric ancient peoples and medieval peasants. Yet, it appears that our ancestors’ […]
Climate
Life Is Not All Carbon: Should We Ditch Carbon Footprint Calculators?
Reading Time: 8 minutesCarbon footprint calculators have been on my radar for a long time now, and lately ‘Net Zero’ has crept into the frame. Having followed green-living news out of interest, it’s inevitable; I could hardly have missed either of these terms. I’ve tried plugging my life details into a few carbon footprint calculators, out of curiosity, […]
Herdwick and Swaledale Yarn, Local Cloth, Local Landscape
Reading Time: 3 minutesHerdwick and Swaledale Yarn; local yarn for local cloth. Actually this isn’t local yarn to me, but it’s locally distinctive yarn. It’s shorn from sheep able to weather windy hilltops and cold winters of northern England. With their slightly kempy (hairy) woolly coat, they produce a durable, hardy yarn that’s more likely to make it into […]
What’s the Softest British Wool? Could It Be Ryeland?
Reading Time: 10 minutesAs I drove up the track, I saw Helen. She waved at me from behind a full-sized skip bag of, what could be, the softest British wool – Ryeland wool. Fifteen Ryeland fleeces in a big sack. We exchanged talk about the journey over, then she said ‘I decided I might as well add in […]
Charcuterie in the Pantry: The Meat Cure
Reading Time: 5 minutesCharcuterie in the pantry or larder. That’s what charcuterie has always been made for. For thousands of years we’ve been dry-curing and smoking meat (before we could import food from all around the world) because we needed to keep going in lean times. And lean times they were, as we had to produce from the […]
Store Cheese in the Pantry – Ditch the Fridge
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 […]
