What did you eat today that you grew, made, caught, dried/pickled or bought locally?

I am frying trout we caught, microwaved sweet potatoes from the garden, and some onions I grew and dried in the veg consume soup. (from a packet, stock cube, and odds and ends off the shelf. The stock cube is a meatless, Kosher, 'chicken' stock cube bought for almost nothing as they had an expired use by date.) (I have a rooster who needs croaking, but keep putting it off.)

And wanting a break from kale - frozen peas, and A buy one-get one free, frozen mincemeat pie (this is the second one - they were excellent!) with eggnog ice cream (also bought). + Aerosol whipped cream - so handy - to jazz it up even more.

 

18!!! Home grown items Shiney! Wow. Only thing missing was salt you got by boiling down sea water and honey from your bees.

And my breakfast was the local sausage taken from the casing and made into a wafer thin disk and fried crispy - with an egg from my bad chickens, on a soft white bun. Also a small pot coffee and a bowl of raisin bran. Raining out - first time in ages, bleak, gray, cold... so second breakfast was called for.

 

And you know how I ramble off - but so many memories were brought by that. In my childhood in remote places we always saw the ox tied to his pivot wheel going round and round on the grain to thresh it -

For Scripture says, "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages."

(being a tradesman who has hired a lot of helpers the second bit has always guided me)

Then seeing the women standing on any rise or even roof to catch the breeze, tossing the threshed grain in their wide baskets so the wind can winnow it - over and over, all the women and girls, tossing and catching, tossing and catching the grain to clean it.

My 93 year old father grew up in a large extended family of successful farmers in the 1920's where the work was done by human muscle and horses - and harvest would be massive family efforts of collecting the grain (which had previously been scythed, tied in shocks, piled in stands of 4 to cure) on huge draft wagons with man height wheels and massive work horses and carried to where traveling threshing machines would be set up to separate the straw, chaff, and grain for a share. Farmers then did not own their own threshers - then the threshers would pack up and off to the next farm. Still within living memory.

The gathering, threshing, and winnowing was always the hardest part of grain farming.




This is going way back, a traveling horse powered threshing machine - a gas engine was used in my fathers day. Like this.



The people were like iron - the grain shocks weighing 60 pounds, all day, sunrise to set, pitching the grains 6 to 10 foot in the air to men who stack them high - and then handling it into the machine and working the output - day after day as all the family and neighbor farms were harvested collectively - no man was an island in those days. I have never been tempted to try growing my own grain.

Different place, but hand threshing - reminds me so of the stories of 'dancing the shrimp' from this area.



They really did know how to work then. (edited)

 

I had porridge for breakfast with my own honey drizzled on top

 

Spruce - I have a pint of honey given to me and wonder how, of if, it would work in jam making.

 

jam making use cheap sugar instead!!!!

 

I had a nice pork chop today with home grown potatoes,leeks sprouts,washed down parsnip-swede=carrot mash,washed down with the help of onion gravy. for tea it was fry up time as I cooked too much for lunch.

Colne,looking at your photo' s brought back the days I spent on the farms after I left school in 1952,spent some long hard days in the fields at harvest times,7.30 a.m. start and you where lucky if you got home in day light.when I was at school I can remember the old steam traction engines that went round the farms,but when I started it was tractors that brought the machines round.
On the first farm I was on we had 2 of those wagon's that you were saying about,these where used for when you got to the top of the stack so you had the extra height to get the shaves to the top of the stack.

 

I had some salmon, bought locally in Northampton Asda....lovely

 

Only been here a couple of months so nothing "grown" (except my rosemary used for the lamb); one of my chooks is still giving us an egg every other day so those were used for the Yorkshire pudding.

 

NG where was the Asda store in Northampton that you went to as we were going to NGH to visit Mr Kandys dad last Saturday when his fuel light came on as we were nearing Riverside but as it was too far to go back to Asda in Kettering where it was cheap we ended up going to Tesco's in Mereway as we didn't know where the nearest Asda was for the cheap fuel

We had fish and chips tonight for tea and the only home grown stuff the peas that went with it,but no doubt on Sunday when I cook the Sunday dinner all the veggies and roast spuds will be ones we have grown and stored this year

 

Kingsthorpe

 

Thanks @Northants Geezer,will have to have a Google as I am not sure where the Asda is in Kingsthorpe(where I grew up)unless it is near Waitrose?but wouldn't know if it has a garage attached to it.I need to fill up tomorrow so will head for the one at Kettering before we trek over to NGH tomorrow afternoon.Thanks for the info.

 

American Cress, Mizuna and Shallots

 

Yeah, its just up from The cock, but not as far as Waitrose , so inbetween the two
Its not huge, but its ok for most things. No petrol station though .
I don't think any of Northamptons Asdas have petrol stations. I go to Sainsburys at Sixfields