FLOWER POT KITCHEN: WEEK THREE AND LOVE LOVE LOVE OUR PIGGIES

5 Nov 2012

WEEK THREE AND LOVE LOVE LOVE OUR PIGGIES

Week three of our pigs at home, they are now coming up for 12wks old and have such great characters, Ginger Ninja is so friendly, and what gentleman he lets Lemongrass bite his ear and shove him out of the food and he lets her have more than her fair share... This I feel is a bit like my fabulous husband, he always gives me the very best, but I always make sure he actually gets the very best bits of everything.

Lemon grass gently biting Ginger to get more food...

Head to head as always for breakfast and dinner time, what one snout gets the other must have too!!!

LEMONGRASS

Ginger after my massage, he just loves a good cuddle and a good scratch, he just flops down and lets me pamper him, he stays laying for quite a few minutes after just relaxing and enjoying the afterglow of the rub, my husband says he is going to go and lie in the mud too...

Love him Ginger grunting to say thank you for his daily massage.

We are so pleased that we have gone ahead and had our pigs in our garden, we were very concerned about not allowing a smell and our neighbours reaction as we are URBAN, but we have received so much support and well wishes from our neighbours and distant neighbours we did not know, so in all having the pigs has brought our neighbours closer to us and in a positive way.

Week 3 and all going fab, we have had 5 x the rain fall in Oct and Nov of last year already, the local golf course at the bottom of the road is closed for the week and we have mud mud mud... But the pigs and I love it The pigs do have some high ground as well as wet ground therefore all going well. However I do feel the mothering need to go in and dandy brush off the dried mud off their faces but I have noticed that they are washing their faces in the water troughs after every afternoon feed and after a day of rooting, they seem clean and tidy without any of my help !

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LIFE MY PASSION

Welcome to my daily life of cooking, one winters day many years ago my family and I were all inspired by a back to back rainy day of River Cottage this got us to stop talking about and start actually doing, suddenly three weeks later eight vegetable beds were dug, greenhouse erected and our first vegetables were propagating, this was the start to raising and growing our own food, our fabulous son Oscar changed our path in life which lead us to sell our small thriving restaurant of 10 yrs and to start our new life (Terrifying!) a life of the self sufficient in touch with nature and seasons, taking a step back and looking forward to a slower change of pace and making the most of every moment.

My passion for cooking was stronger than ever and having time at home with Oscar I found I had a new direction and I was no longer striving for perfection, I was suddenly very passionate for the enjoyment of the other side of food, something I had not realised, being the Chef/Cook and every other duty of your own small restaurant made me see that I never actually took time to cook what I wanted!

So there I was muddy boots and hands digging deep in more than one sense and I found myself transported back in time to where everyone grew some of their own food, it is a wonderful world with a real sense of achievement and loss, Slugs Snails and Caterpillars! But thats another story! Childhood memories of summers when I lived with my grand parents reminded me of so much that I had learnt about the make do and mend generation that I had forgotten.

Now as a family we love our free wild food days where we gather what nature has provided, have gone from being mini mini garden urban small holders, who did raised pigs at home because we could not wait to find land and supporting ourselves from our garden to now owning a very small farm that allows us to grow more vegetables for the whole of our family and neighbours, raise our own gorgeous Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, (Sausages!) and pets! Dorset Down sheep, chickens for eggs and pet goats! Suddenly having large quantities of produce started to wake up the Cook in me!

The Cook was awake that part of me that wants to cook for the masses and I found myself setting up Flowerpot Kitchen, a Farmers Market Stall, I wanted to use our honest raised meats and make old fashioned pork pies, rabbit pies and game pies from the local game keeper along with old fashioned techniques and the best hot water crust pastry. This in turn grew to a small cottage industry from home weekly supplying three farm shops and a deli along with also attending three farmers markets A few years later there came a time when my son Oscar's health changed and it was an easy decision to stop.

I still hold the occasional pop up 40 seater restaurant or gourmet lunch which we do for local charities for the love of sharing food and to remind that Cook in me why I love our go slower self sufficient life!

So here I am sitting amoung the vegetables watching the chickens loving that every season nature teaches me something new and that nature is in charge! She has taught me to just go with it and grow. Give it a try from a tray of salad on your windowsill to a few tomato plants it all counts.