We Bought The Farm

Tourism Notes

I was kind of tickled this weekend to see the new advert for Wales - "Castles: 641, Starbucks: 6" (pdf). I don't suppose it does any harm to Starbucks to be referenced in this manner - it even gets them a little press for their six outlets in Wales. I was very surprised to find out what big business this campaign is for Wales. This article notes that the "Big Country" campaign, of which this ad is a part, has already generated £165m for the Welsh economy. And the Wales Tourist Board suggests that every £1 spent on the marketing of Wales should result in £30 of "visitor spend" for Wales.

Incidentally, I hate the term "spend" used in that context. Like when a restaurant suggests a minimum spend per customer (or worse, "customer spend"). I feel it totally depersonalises a transaction to have it monetised like that. Your money is welcome in Wales!

Farming in Crisis

Courtesy of the links page at Breaking the Armlock, the alliance site for fighting corporate power in the food chain, I came across this interesting long report, A Rough Guide to the UK Farming Crisis (500k pdf, 54pp.) at the Corporate Watch website.

It's an interesting high-level survey of the inter-related web of structures and pressures that are driving down UK farm incomes to unsustainable levels while allowing supermarkets to make massive profits.

The chapters are short and punchy, with a crusading style, but also a perceptible sense of balance behind the reportage. Myself, I was hoping for a little more detail and a little less rehash of headlines, but I suppose that information might be out there if it starts keeping me up nights.

Birthday Wishes

A very happy first birthday to Daniel Marcos, the youngest member of the WBTF homestead.
Parabens, brasileirinho!

Signs of Springtime

As I went into the shower this morning just past seven, I noticed something unseen for the first time in weeks. Daylight, just a hint of it, coming in through the bathroom window. There's also still a glimmer of twilight in the sky when I leave the office at 5:15. Both sure signs that the darkest depths of winter are behind us.

Many complain that February is the dead of winter. After months of gloom, February seems an eternity of dreary dampness and root vegetables. But we're not even into February yet and I've already started to spot clear signs of springtime. The daffodils are pushing up through the wet garden soil. There are buds on some of the trees. The dawn chorus is in full swing by 3:30, hours before there's any other evidence of daybreak. To me these are all signs of renewal, the promise of life in your heart. Spring can't be far off now.

Toward Confirmation

Deep breath. After a visit from one of our parish priests this evening, I am finally starting the annulment process. This is an essential step in my being confirmed a Catholic, but I don't pretend it's going to be quick, easy or even that it's guaranteed to happen. I pledge to approach it humbly and openly and pray for the wisdom to learn from the experience and for the forgiveness of God and of those who I have wronged along the way.

Leaks

Well, I have a little confession to make. I bought books. Two of 'em. Broke my own rules. But they're both more references than reading material, and I had my reasons.

First up, I bought Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Meat Book. Not being a big television watcher, I've never seen his River Cottage programmes, which some people find annoying and self-righteous, but I find it really hard to argue with what he has to say about raising his own food, particularly meat. I had seen a page excerpt from this book in the most recent issue of The Ecologist that 'exploded' a pig into all of its cuts of meat. I've been wanting something like this that demystifies the British cuts, because they have different names to the US cuts (and the Brazilian cuts), so it had that to offer, and it was 60% off at Borders.co.uk (yes, they use Amazon for fulfillment, but Borders gets a cut - the same applies in the US - and I'm a Borders shareholder). £10 instead of £25. This is a helluva book.

And second, I bought a copy of John Seymour's The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency. This book had been in my Amazon shopping basket for some time, and with their requirement to buy £19 for free delivery, it was the one that most interested me to get my total over that target. So, I saved shipping costs (and 30% on this title) and the net result was 2 books with a cover price of £45 for £24 delivered. At least there was a measure of frugality involved.

Hats off, BTW, to Amazon. Against an estimated shipping date of 22 January, books ordered late on the 18th arrived first thing on the 20th, a whole day before I even received their shipping notification. I suppose it's a little secret of theirs - there really is no difference in their shipping modes, and they are anxious to book revenue, so if they're not busy, there's no point in paying for expedited shipping.

Sourdough

I got to wondering if it would be possible to make sourdough breads in the bread machine. Because you need a yeast 'starter', and you have to be a bit kind to your starter, and you need to hold some it back for the next batch, and the machine might not have a cycle that's starter-friendly. So, I had a little look around. The answer is, "yes, you can make them." But, you've still got to tinker around a bit, and you have to put in some additional yeast or you're not going to achieve the rise in the time allowed. Sounds a bit fiddly and unauthentic.

Still, it made me think that maybe we should just make some sourdough in a more traditional manner(I love the stuff!). A project right up my alley. There's more information out there than you can believe. And there's a deep mine of aficionado-quality information from newsgroup FAQs.

In the process, I wound up sending off for a free tried and tested 160+ year old starter from the US. I wouldn't mind trying to make one of my own, but I'd also like a reliable fall-back.

Since my earliest days on the Internet, reading the Homebrew Digest on CompuServe, I've been amazed and inspired by how much good quality information is made available by communities of like-minded people who care about doing things traditionally, and about sharing the love - good for karma! I'll post back when I get 'started' with the sourdough.

Miles To Go

This past weekend I finally did something I should have done ages ago. I paid a guy to come out to the house and sort out our wireless network. I've had the hardware in hand for months, but have never managed to get the configuration working properly. Apparently, this was the result of too much network baggage left over from our last ADSL installation competing with our cable installation. The guy managed to iron out all the wrinkles by uninstalling everything and then building it up step by step. In all, it took him about an hour and now we've got Internet downstairs nearer the hub of family life. As I've wasted many an idle hour trying to sort this out, I consider it money well spent.

This, in turn, has enabled me to do some more CD ripping. With the laptop tied to the cable modem, I catch holy heck if I spend too much time upstairs in our study. My wife starts to complain of "seeing too much of the back of my head". But without an Internet connection, ripping CDs doesn't really work, since you need access to the Gracenote database to save typing in all of the titles yourself. But now we're portable and the PC has moved downstairs.

All of that has enabled the joy of rediscovery. On Sunday I ripped a couple of Miles Davis records - Kind of Blue and 'Round About Midnight. Now I've got them available on my iPod for my commute. Which really takes the edge off the morning.

I reckon I bought these discs in the late 1980s while I was at university. I've listened to them over the years, but we didn't have them with us in Brazil, so it's been a few years at least. And now I'm delving into the back catalogue and finding treasures such as this, as well as some other cool jazz - Dexter Gordon and John Coltrane have made the leap; Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Monk and Ornette Coleman are on the shortlist.

And all this stuff was there on the shelves for the taking, waiting for me to slow down and listen again. With finds like this, I can say I'm looking forward to looking back.

Homebrew Update

Although I felt really rushed, I did manage to get another batch of homebrew into the fermenter this Sunday evening. I started with another Woodforde's kit (Wherry). I much prefer the 3kg kits (two cans of malt) to single kits. This one promised 40 pints at 4.5%, but that's 6.25 US gallons, which is a stretch in my fermenter (it holds about 7 US gallons, but you need to leave headspace for the froth), so I brewed to 5 USG, which ought to leave my final ABV at about 5.6%. Strong.

I also bought Cascade hops and hopped toward the end of the brewing. I never achieve a proper boil with these kits - I'm not that patient and it's not technically required - so I put the hops in toward the end of the "boil" and got the temperature, finally, to about 75C.

My aim here was to try to approximate the hoppy flavour of Sierra Nevada. If I do this right, I should be in good shape on alcohol and hops, although I haven't been following an explicit Sierra clone recipe.

I pitched the yeast on Monday morning. So far, the results are a bit sluggish - I had some fermenting, but it's a bit stuck at present. I'm going to give it a few days before I try to kick-start it again. I know it hasn't had enough fermentation yet to be done.

Cost for kit, hops and sanitiser was £24.39. Expensive. But Sierra (now available here) would cost me about £75 for the same volume. And I will have some leftover sanitiser for the next batch.

I spoke to the guy at the brew shop about taking his course in mashing. Currently scheduled for April. We're busy that week, but I might still make the course.

Breaking the Armlock

This morning's Guardian has a wonderful article on the power of the supermarket chain Tesco. The article focuses on the strong-arm tactics of the supermarket giant to grow its business to the point where it now commands £1 of every £8 spent in British shops. That's astounding!

Supermarkets argue that they are just giving the consumers what they want. But read this article...read how Tesco's enters the markets. Read how it is buying itself big, then bigger. What Tesco's does with its pricing is driving the smaller retailers off the high street. The question is, how far can it be allowed to go on? Remember Wal-Mart in the US. How many small towns with dried-up Main Streets have I visited? The life is sucked out of the small towns. Competition disappears. And what happens when there's no competition?

I don't want to be too alarmist here. Tesco does what it does quite well. It wouldn't be where it is if people didn't shop there. We shop at Tesco's (among others), and it does serve a purpose. But it does come down to choice and education. Cheaper isn't always better.

The article pointed to a campaign I was unaware of - Breaking the Armlock. Their point is pretty simple - the bigger the supermarkets grow, the more powerful they become - not just vis-a-vis consumers, but also with farmers, suppliers, local governments and even the national government. As they become more proficient at manoeuvering the machinery of power, it becomes harder for individuals - consumers - citizens to have their way. Thus, Breaking the Armlock aims to challenge them in the halls of power. And it's backed by some pretty powerful players in the NGO arena.

This month, we're doing an experiment to track how much we spend on groceries. This will include our organics deliveries, farmers' market spend and even (if I get around to it) the homebrew kit I buy. I'm sure we do better than we used to, but having some kind of baseline to work from gives us some idea of how much progress we might yet make. We're not yet ready to say, "F#&% corporate groceries!", but it does pay to watch where you spend what you spend.

Ring In the New

Looking ahead to 2005, this won't be the year of a big leap, since we're still penned in by the US capital gains tax code, but we're content to hunker down and make incremental progress on a lot of fronts. I'm envisioning a year of waiting, downshifting and of slow "progress toward". I'm also envisioning an overhaul and some tweaks in the way I run things chez WBTF.

I had a regular medical exam in December, and as a result I'm resolving to look after myself better in 2005. My doctor recommends a low cholesterol diet, losing 35 pounds and cutting back on the booze. All of these are sane and reasonable suggestions, if not that much fun. I'm also aiming to increase exercise, particularly by working some hill-walking into the mix and also wheeling out the bicycle once the days are a bit warmer (and longer).

I'd like to see us start to learn more about food production at first hand. I'm going to write about some of our experiences:

I have a friend who has a pig farm, and I'm tempted to go "half hog" - buy and process an entire half pig (there are good instructions for "whole hog" in Paul Bertolli's Cooking by Hand). I've made sausage before and would like to get back into that practice, since it gives you good control on what meat goes into the mix.

We've really been enjoying the organic box scheme so far and especially the challenges of cooking with seasonal vegetables - lots of cauliflower, celeriac and Brussels sprouts of late. We're expanding our intake here to include milk, eggs and butter consistently. We'll supplement with produce from our local farmers' market and greengrocer when practical and strictly limit trips to the supermarket (although I concede we still need to make them).

Using the bread machine will let us cut back even further on prepared foods, and I'd like to try my hand at homemade fresh cheese. We'll also make more pasta and pizza at home as I think it's not only good food but good fun for the kids.

I'm aiming to expand output in the "brewery" to be a larger percentage of what I drink. By cutting what I drink and drinking more of my own production, I'll cut down costs, duty paid and the purchase of prepared foods, plus improve my health and lower the intake of so-called "empty calories". Sounds like an all-round winner to me.

This is the first year we'll be in our home for an entire growing season, so we will have the chance to make something out of our garden, even if only with limited space. We'll aim to do some container gardening (tomatoes) and grow lettuces and herbs in our only raised bed. We managed to get a few radishes this past season, but we had such a late start that it wasn't practical to grow much else.

Our finances need a dose of belt-tightening this year. The moratorium on things like new books, CDs and magazine subscriptions has made a big dent in discretionary spending - to the point where I have a pretty good handle on our outlays, and many of them are fixed. This will make it hard to realise additional economies, but I'll be looking for them where possible. I'd love to see the Bank of England cut rates in the new year - it would really take some pressure off our mortgage. And I've pledged to do more to "sweat the assets" we do have, at least those we're free to invest. I aim to write more about that in the new year.

I've renewed our memberships in the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), the Brogdale Horticultural Trust, and Slow Food for 2005. Our membership in the latter two had lapsed while we were overseas. Beyond merely being members, I've also pledged to be active in Slow Food this year, working on developing family-friendly activities particularly aimed at teaching children where their food comes from. I want to visit Brogdale with the kids through the growing season, and Brogdale also gives reciprocal visiting privileges to Kew and Wisley, both in our neck of the woods.

Having moved back to England, and aiming to economise on our holidays this year, I have the idea to make short visits to places in the UK we've never visited before. Places like Bury St Edmonds, where I've recently learned I have a distant relative on my maternal grandmother's side. We've booked a holiday in Scotland for the springtime (before the midgies come out in force). If we do travel further afield, I'm thinking either Ireland or Scandinavia by ferry.

I'm also thinking to concentrate my reading on things English this year. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I haven't had a lot of room for fiction in my reading slate of late, and I do have shelves full of books to read already, but I can imagine reading some of the classics I've somehow managed to avoid to date, and maybe go back and re-read some of the books I read in school. I can see the library being a good source for this type of reading.

In terms of my faith, I've got some work to do. I've been attending the family mass pretty regularly with my daughter, but I can do better. I also need to get moving on the annulment process so that I can be confirmed (maybe Easter 2006?), and I need to work harder to make time for reading and prayer. I was into a good routine before the holidays, but it's been suspended for the past few weeks now. I feel a bit like I've just been going through the motions lately - nothing like the sensation I had during Lent last year when I was at mass daily and really felt some of the sense of communion and real presence of Christ. I know He is there, but I've been missing Him of late.

I'm aiming to ramp up my writing here, both in quantity and frequency. If we can keep all of these things ticking over, moving forward in 2005, I think 2006 can be a breakthrough year for our family. I wish all my readers a prosperous and joyful New Year.

Home Brew

This holiday season we've really been enjoying the Bleak Midwinter Ale. With the addition of extra malt extract and dry hopping, it's a potent winter warmer that's extremely pleasant to drink - might be my best-ever batch. I also found the slight reduction in priming sugar to have been a complete success - it's not as fizzy as previous batches have been - much more to style for an English ale. I'd try this one again, although for regular consumption I'll be aiming for something lighter in the next batch.