Gorse Flower Wine

I've said before that we seem to be farming gorse and I'm always looking for a way to do something useful with it - why waste a resource?

So when I saw Gorse Wine on an episode of River Cottage, I was intrigued.  The timing was great too, all the gorse was in flower.

I found the recipe on River Cottage's website and went off foraging.

Three hours later, I hadn't picked anywhere near enough flowers for this recipe, my fingers were bleeding and sore from all the prickles I'd gotten from the gorse and it was time for me to head inside and start thinking about cooking dinner for the family.  So I adapted the recipe to suit the volume of flowers I had.  Mine ended up as:

Gorse Flower Wine



4 pints gorse flowers - approx 2 litres measured with a half-litre jug.
6 litres of water
680g raw sugar
Juice of 2 lemons - my lemons are rather small this year

Gorse flowers heating in pot.

5g sachet of white wine yeast - I had this in the fridge from a previous wine making expedition

Place flowers and water into a stock pot, bring to the boil and then simmer for 15 mins.  Add sugar and stir until dissolved.  Move into a large bucket or brewing barrel and add lemon juice.  When cooled to just above room temperature, add yeast.  Cover with cloth and leave to stand for 3 days.  Strain and pour into demijohn or brewing barrel with airlock.  Bottle when fermentations stops - roughly two weeks.

I'm glad I used a much reduced recipe - this small amount almost filled my stock pot, I wouldn't have had the capacity to do much more.  It smelled like freshly mown grass while it was sitting for those first three days.

Six bottles of Gorse wine on the bench

I make a habit of regularly having a wee taste while my wines are fermenting, I find it interesting to notice how much the flavour can change in even two weeks.  The bottled product tastes to me like a dry white wine, I'm not noticing the coconutty flavours that many people have talked about with this wine - but then again, I'm not a big fan of white wines.

Granny Squares - Snowflake Style

I always seem to end up with partial balls of yarn.  I've been given bags filled with them by people who see them as rubbish.

Granny squares are easy and a good way to use up left-over bits and pieces.

The simple and plain snowflake pattern squares are probably the most common, as well as being a good starting place for making squares.

A guide to the abbreviations I use (US abbreviations and stitch names) can be found here.

Snowflake Granny Squares:

Snowflake Granny Square in one colour

1st Round: ch 6, slst into 1st ch to form foundation ring.
2nd Round: 3ch (to form first tr of pattern) 2tr, 2ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 2ch, slst into first st, then sl st to 2ch gap.
3rd Round: 3ch (to form first tr of pattern) 2tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 1ch, slst into first st, then sl st to 2ch gap.
4th Round:  3ch (to form first tr of pattern) 2tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, slst into first st, then sl st to 2ch gap.
5th Round: 3ch (to form first tr of pattern) 2tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, 3tr, 1ch, slst into first st.

Lots of small Granny Squares made into a blanket.

Most of mine will stop at four rounds if I'm making basic squares, or you can continue in this manner until you reach the size you want.

I have made entire blankets as one 'square' that I've just continued until it was bed sized.

You can change colours for each round if you like.  In that case, after the slip stitch to complete the round, fasten off that colour and start your new colour in the corner 2 chain gap.

Blanket made from Granny Squares including big squares.

In one of the boxes of Grandma's stuff that Mum recently gave me there is a huge amount of old magazines and pattern books, several of them contain different types of Granny Squares, as well as different uses for them.

There are cushions, made the obvious way, but also so that the joined squares make an X in the middle of both sides of the cushion.  Baby blocks made from six squares joined in a cube and stuffed.  There are Granny Squares made out of heavy yarn and turned into coffee mug coasters, hot pot stands and pot mitts.

In a Woman's Day Super Special from 1983 - titled Granny Squares & Needlework there are several patterns to make jerseys and cardigans from Granny Squares - one is made up of several Granny Squares of varying sizes joined for the body of the garment.  Another is one large Granny Square as the front and another for the back.  The sleeves are ordinary crochet.

See the pretty (??) jersey made from Granny Squares on the cover

There are other styles of Granny Square and other shapes - round ones and hexagonal ones.  Some have flowers, some are still square, but are done as corner patterns.

And then there are the wealth of books filled with many different types of Granny Squares.  See below for a selection - there were nearly 900 returns on a search on Granny Squares.


UPDATE:

One of the things that I've always struggled with somewhat is joining the Granny Squares.  Today I found a fantastic website that has links to 10 different tutorials each showing different ways to join the squares - most are fairly invisible.

That link? Knot Your Nana's Crochet

Crochet Abbreviations and Stitches

I think it's worth noting that in this blog, with the crochet patterns that I post, I use US abbreviations.  I find them more sensible than UK abbreviations and many of the patterns that I am finding and adapting are from the US.

Abbreviation	US	UK Equivalent
Ch	Chain Stitch	Chain Stitch
Sc	Single crochet	Double crochet
Dc	Double crochet	Treble crochet
Tr	Treble crochet	Double treble crochet
Hdc	Half double crochet	Half treble crochet
htr	Half treble crochet	Half double treble crochet
slst	Slip stitch	Slip stitch

What Those Stitches Mean

Here, I've not only described what those stitches mean, but there are also simple instructions on how to crochet.


Chain Stitch - hook through loop and pull a loop through.

Chain Stitch complete

Chain Stitch beginning

Single Crochet - hook through stitch and pull a loop through.  There should be two loops on the hook.  Pull another loop through both loops on the hook.

Single Crochet beginning

Single Crochet half done

Single Crochet complete

Double Crochet - wrap the yarn around the hook before pushing the hook through the next stitch.  Pull a loop through the stitch on your work, three loops on the hook.  Pull a loop through the first two loops on the hook.  Pull a loop through the last two loops on the hook.

Double Crochet beginning

Double Crochet, pull first loop through

Double Crochet, pull loop through first two loops

Double Crochet, pull loop through remaining two loops

Treble Crochet - wrap the yarn around the hook twice before pushing the hook through the next stitch.  Pull a loop through the stitch on your work, four loops on the hook.  Pull a loop through the first two loops on the hook.  Now there will be three loops on the hook.  Pull a loop through the next two loops on the hook.  Pull a loop through the last two loops on the hook.

Treble Crochet, yarn twice around hook before pushing hook through work

Treble Crochet, pull loop through stitch

Treble Crochet, pull loop through first two loops

Treble Crochet Complete

 

Treble Crochet, pull loop through next two loops

Half Double Crochet - wrap the yarn around the hook before pushing the hook through the next stitch.  Pull a loop through the stitch on your work, three loops on the hook.  Pull a loop through all loops on the hook.  This differs from a double crochet as you don't pull the loop through two loops at a time - it's all done in the one loop.

Half Double Crochet, yarn around hook before pushing hook through work

Half Double Crochet, pull loop through stitch

Half Double Crochet Complete

Half Treble Crochet - wrap the yarn around the hook twice before pushing the hook through the next stitch.  Pull a loop through the stitch on your work, four loops on the hook.  Pull a loop through all stitches on the hook. This differs from a treble crochet as you don't pull the loop through two loops at a time - it's all done in the one loop.

Half Treble Crochet, yarn around hook twice before pushing through work

Half Treble Crochet, pull loop through stitch

Half Treble completed.

Slip Stitch - push the hook through the stitch on your work.  Pull a loop through and through the loop on the hook.

Slip Stitch complete

Slip Stitch beginning

More Piglets

Darla - Photo Copyright 2013 Tee Marie Photography. All rights reserved.

Just after Darla had her previous litter of piglets (like the next day) we saw our boar on her making more.  Doing the maths meant our next litter of piglets was due mid-August.  We were going to try to make sure that this lot wouldn't be abandoned by their mother so we decided to build a farrowing shed and as is typical for us, we only really started work on it about two weeks before we thought she was due.

Some of the stuff we pulled out of the truck canopy.

Our first big issue was a shed.  We had an old garden shed, kindly donated by Hubby's parents when they left their red-zoned house in Christchurch.  It was in a paddock but didn't cope with the winds there and tried to fly more than once.  It's now in pieces behind the big shed and Hubby didn't think it would be worth trying to use it.

Floor in and pen started.

We decided on an old truck canopy that was being used for storing all kinds of crap - actually, we've been through it, but haven't added anything to it, this was all left behind by the previous owners!  This is just one of three sheds that were chock-filled with might-be-kinda-useful-one-day type of stuff.  It didn't take long to empty it and sort out the contents.  Finding a new home for them is going to be interesting though.

Patched holes in the roof.

Pallets make useful pens.

Add a creeper rail to give piglets a safe space.

So our first job was that it needed a floor.  As it sat on a slope between two trees this was a bit of a challenge, but propped up to roughly level pallets on the downhill part and plywood over top fixed that.

So next the walls.  I found two pallets that were in pretty good condition and roughly the right size to be walls for the pen.  At my direction, Hubby made a creeper rail and the gate.

I got the wiring all ready to go, just needed the last few fittings and to be connected up to the power.  We were also worried about the potential for leaks dripping on heatlamps and wiring (and piglets).

It was nearly there, but I was sure she was due to drop them any day now.  I spent several hours most nights figuring out what I'd do if she delivered them before we were ready - as a result, I spent a week exhausted and running on about two hours sleep each night.  It was not the safest time for me to be up a ladder riveting the roof patches on, or cutting the last piece of plywood for the floor, or really doing anything much.

Mid August came and went.  No sign of piglets.  Darla's udder swelled up and her nipples were pointing out sideways, but semi-regular checks showed no piglets yet.  The urgency to finish the shed waned.  Then we had the big storm which put many things on hold while we cleaned up that mess.

We dithered and added a little bit here and there, it was nearly but not quite finished for the next six weeks.  I kept looking at my sow and asking her when those babies were coming.  She'd just grunt sweetly at me and flop down on her side for a belly scratch.

In the little hut all three big pigs normally share - about an hour after the last one was born.

Just over a week ago, we had visitors.  Our friend came to visit with his lovely Philipino fiancee.  She adores the pigs and came out to help Miss Seven feed them.  I noticed a smear of blood and mucous around Darla's nether regions.  Right, we have piglets on the way.  None yet that we could see - I'd interrupted her with food.

Hubby and I rushed to finish the shed, while she dropped a piglet in the paddock and then took herself off to the little house that all the pigs share.  I picked up the little white piglet and followed her.  My friend (who'd ended up nursing the previous litter) stayed and kept an eye on things while we worked on getting the farrowing shed finished.

In the new farrowing shed.

We ended up with just five piglets, but this time, Darla was a very good, patient and attentive Mum.  I watched piglets climb all over her, bite her face, and wander all around her.  She'd lift a leg and let them past or just tolerate being a jungle gym.  She lies down slowly, giving them plenty of time to get out from under her, and checks on them constantly if she's outside and feeding.

Under the heatlamp

We've got them moved to the new farrowing shed and the piglets are growing well.  She even took them outside and had them out in the sun over the weekend. :)

For those who are interested in such things they were born in this order:
White, female - named Wilbur (Miss Seven is Charlotte's Web obsessed).
Black, female - named Lims-Kragma (Master Fifteen is a fan of Raymond Feist).
Spotted, female - named Perdita (would have been Pongo if male).
Black, male - named Stefano (actually seems to be stripes - not sure on the source of this name, Miss Seventeen chose it).

Out in the sun.

White, female - named Ghost (she went missing the morning after they were born, she disappeared in daylight but turned up in the paddock - no idea how she got out of the hut - 3 hours later perfectly fine and warm).

Five one week old piglets, sleeping in the sun.

Yes, that's right, four girls and one boy.  Order of birth: White, black, spotted, black, white.

We thought that was pretty cool.

Wild Weather

There was a wind warning for Tuesday night.  Expect gale force winds of up to 140km per hour.  Make sure that everything outside is secured.

We walked around to check everything.  The new partially finished roof on the farrowing shed was secured by cargo strops.  The outdoor furniture was folded up and moved to somewhere fairly secure.  The rubbish pile behind the shed - bits of wire, pallets waiting to be cut for firewood, random bits of crap that we’ve picked up from all around the place, the window we took out of a bedroom - was looked over, but there wasn’t a great deal we could do with it.

We looked at the empty 30 000 litre water tank that we’re planning to use for rainwater and irrigation.  This has flown before.  It used to reside behind the big shed, but we moved it so that we could start to set it up.  It was on it’s edge in our woodlot and we’d been trying to figure out just how we’d roll it onto it’s flat side and move it to exactly where we wanted it.  One morning we got up to find it up a slight hill and halfway over a fence.  There had been a small tornado hit a town nearby, so I wondered if we’d had a taste of it here too.  This time though, the tank was wedged between two Macrocarpa trees and blocked by a fence.  We couldn’t see it moving anywhere easily so judged it safe to leave as it was.

We thought we’d done as much as we were able and went inside to have our dinner.  The wind was picking up speed and strength.

There was an odd noise an hour or so later.  A rumble that came from the wrong side of the house to where the wind was coming from.  Looking out the window showed nothing obvious.  Maybe, we thought, it was just the wind ripping across the tunnelhouse covers or the tarpaulin on the dog kennel.

Hubby remembered the trampoline.  A large 14’ round one.  We rushed outside to dismantle it.  That was terrifying.  I stood on one of the feet to be ballast while Hubby pulled the springs out.  Once he was about halfway round, the wind did the rest.  I held onto the mat which was now flapping like a sail and threatened to take me flying with it, but I did manage to fold it safely, if roughly. 

Hubby couldn’t settle at this stage.  He turned the electric fence off as he could see the sparks and arcs from it - it had taken some damage and was obviously in contact with something it shouldn’t be.  But as there were a lot of sparks from all sorts of random places, fixing it was a job for daylight and no wind.  He kept prowling around the sheds and the outside of the house, checking and double checking that all was as secure as it could be.  I started to walk down into the wind, to the farrowing shed to check the corrugated iron roof, but quickly realised that if a branch broke off or the tin came loose I wouldn’t see it in time or have any chance to get out of the way.  Instead, I shone my little torch in that direction.

This is where the water tank used to be.

It took me a couple of seconds to realise that I had an unhindered view of the shed.  “Where’s the water tank?” I asked.  Hubby came running.  “That’ll be what that noise was”.  We walked all around our house and the immediate vicinity, there was no sign of it.  I looked along the road, as far as my little torch could shine, nothing.

As we walked back to the house, I noticed that the house had gone dark.  Power was off.  Not surprising really.  It came back on and then went off again just as quickly.  At that point we turned the mains off.  I’ve had a washing machine die recently from a power spike and had no intention of letting that happen to any other appliances.

After that, there didn’t seem to be much we could do.  The kids were already in bed.  In the complete darkness of an unpowered house in the countryside with the wind roaring all around us, we went to bed and tried to sleep.  The darkness was split by a sudden bright flash.  Now we were getting lightning too.  I couldn’t understand this as the sky had been clear.  I got up to get a drink of water and looked out of the kitchen window towards Mt Grey.  There were some clouds over the mountain, which were brightened suddenly by more lightning.  Ah, so that was were it was.  I could see an orange glow, coming and going to the south of us, near the mountain.  It looked like a light from a small plane or helicopter, but there was no way they’d be flying in this weather.  From the worried texts I’d received from my family in Christchurch, reports said we were getting winds of 200km/h.  I shrugged it off and went back to bed.

I didn’t sleep very well though, as much as I tried.  I’d be almost asleep and there would be another blinding flash of lightning, a crash or the whole north side of the house would creak and flex and I’d start worrying about the windows blowing in, or a rogue branch breaking off and hitting a window.  I must have slept at some stage.  I recall waking up to silence during the night and realising that the wind must have settled down or stopped.

I was woken up by a text message on my phone.  It was 7:30am and Miss Seven’s school sent a text to say they had power and water and would open as normal, but the buses would be running slowly because of the roads.  We got up and woke the kids.  Hubby got his camp fuel burner out to make us a cuppa.  It hadn’t been used in several years and we soon found that it leaked when he nearly set the whole kitchen alight.  It took all day to get rid of the smell of the fuelite gas.  We started the coal range and put a pot of water on to boil.

Our special tree before.

Our tree taken from the same place.

We had a brief look around outside to survey the damage.  Hubby was anxious to find the water tank, I was worried that the water tank had caused damage to fences perhaps letting someone’s stock out or had taken out power lines or was maybe blocking a road.  One side of the Chook run was down, so this needed fixing before the dog was allowed to run - he’s already killed one hen who was a determined escape artist. 

Our tree again.

Then we saw the tree.  This tree has always been special for us.  Not only is there something magical about the tree itself, but last November we were married under it.  We loved that tree and are much saddened by it’s loss.  Okay, compared to many around us, it’s a pretty minor thing and we were lucky, but it was important to us.

I rang a neighbour on their mobile to make sure they were okay.  I’d taken her to the Doctor’s last week and I knew she was very sick.  They were fine, he’d dug out the old transistor radio and they were listening to the news.  There was a huge forest fire west of Amberley - which is about where we are - could I see anything?  I thought it might have been on the other side of the mountain.  We could see no smoke, but had been hearing helicopters on and off.

We took Miss Seven to school.  By the time she was up and organised it was nearly time for school to start.  Master Fifteen got ready for school (which is an achievement in itself) and we were going to drive him to his school in Rangiora.  On our little road, which sees hardly any traffic, we were stopped by a neighbour who was driving around checking up on people.  We mentioned the water tank, and they knew where it was.  Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere.  Then another neighbour drove up and asked if we were all okay, did we need anything?  The neighbourly spirit in rural areas really is heartwarming.  Master Fifteen, with all his teenage cynicism thought it was a clever and polite way of being nosy and checking out how much damage everyone else had, but I pointed out to him that emergency services are further away for us, we help each other out because we hope that someone will be there for us when we need it.

The water tank now, at the neighbours.

After dropping Miss Seven off at school, Master Fifteen received a text message to tell him that his school was closed.  We went up the road past ours, up the next valley to check on friends who lived up there.  We could only go about halfway.  The road was closed by a fire crew and a helicopter was just taking off from the paddock beside the road.

Trees were down everywhere.  Carnage is the only way to describe it.  We live in a high wind area at the best of times, so there are a lot of tall hedges and shelter belts.  They were a mess.  Splintered, snapped branches jutted out from nearly every hedgerow.  Branches littered the sides of the roads, in places you could see that they’d already been cut into manageable lengths and pulled off the road.  Entire trees, trunks a metre thick were pulled up and lying down in paddocks.  Massive clumps of dirt still tangled in their roots and gaping holes showed where they had once stood.  Road signs were snapped off at the base and a local sign with steel tube legs had turned 90 degrees - one leg has obviously broken.

Steel legged road sign - turned 90 degrees.

I sent a text message to the friends we couldn’t reach.  They were in the UK, but their neighbour had been evacuated because of the fire.  They were feeling a little odd.  Last time they’d gone back to the UK there were the September 2010 earthquakes.  I joked that their sense of timing was incredible, they joked that they obviously can’t leave us to look after the place.

The chook run

We fixed the side of the chook run, a quick and temporary fix, but enough to work for now and had a slightly better look around at the damage.  Fences that we knew were tired and needed work were now flattened.  Fortunately, all the cattle were in other paddocks.  Two windows from the larger unit that we’d taken out of a room had flown about 10 metres and landed unbroken.  I’m really not sure how they managed to fly over a lot of lighter stuff, not to mention all the bricks they must have come in contact with and still not break.

We could see the water tank now, down the creek at the neighbours.  It looks fairly well dented in.  The neighbour was impressed, it had gone over 2 fences and several plum trees to get where it is and there is no noticeable damage to the fences or those trees.  My Dad has schemes for it if it’s no good to hold water anymore.  He thinks it’ll make a good pig house with a little modification.

Hubby went off to work for the afternoon, but sent reports of pink batts and roofing iron on the roads.  The power came back on mid afternoon - in time for Miss Seven to get home from school!

I quite enjoyed having a day with no power.  I got so much done that I probably normally wouldn’t have.  I also came to the conclusion that living rurally requires a certain level of self-sufficiency whether that’s your goal or not.  We lose power at least once a year, usually in a storm.  With the coal range, candles and board games, it’s an annoyance rather than a problem.  We may get a generator now though - we have our first cattle beastie in the big freezer and that would be heart-breaking to lose.

The yellowish clay in the centre of this picture is the dirt clinging to the roots of a mighty fallen tree.

An entire hedge uprooted.