The Beast of Radford

    It’s big, its yellow, its dirty and its quite clever! It’s a bad, bad boy. It’s our 1973 JCB. 

    It’s very handy to have a powerful and versatile machine like this on the farm. It's engine is a 4 cylinder diesel that in its heyday, pumped out 76HP. It's still going strong after 39 years of service. Sometimes however it does need a little work and here we see the injectors being removed for checking. We have just treated it to a new battery and fuel filters and will shortly be changing the air filter and throttle and stop cables. That should just about do it for another 39 years!

    Last may we built a fab new bridge to ford the Cam Brook, that meanders through the farm. The JCB was right in there lifting the finished item into place. Note that it works best with several people standing nearby, studiously watching and offering advice.

    The JCB is used for moving heavy items around, digging out banks and ditches, lifting work, banging in large posts, digging trenches, shifting manure and all sorts of other random things.

Long live the Beast of Radford!

Flying the Nest is Such a Wren-ch

    Birds have been nesting in our workshop and today I got the best view of one so far. This little fella had just jumped out of the nest and was wondering around on the floor. It's probably a good job we don't have cats!

    I think it's a Wren, the commonest breeding bird in the British isles. They are often seen on farmland and in wooded areas but rarely use chainsaws and tools, so why he's in our workshop I don't know. Lets hope he's had his safety training.

    The RSPB website says the Wren eats insects and spiders, which explains his reluctance to eat the worm I dug up for him. Lucky for the worm, who crawled away unharmed to wriggle another day.     

Seaching for Our Pot of Gold

 

It must be close!

A view across our valley yesterday evening, looking at Summer Leas field.

Out On The Tiles

    Our philosophy on life is the old and well worn mantra, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Why spend your hard earned moola on new stuff when there is perfectly good stuff available for free or almost nothing. Every time you buy something new you are using up valuable resources for no valid reason.

    With this in mind we are keen addicts of freecycle and freegle in our local area. Just last night we collected a used toilet, a couple of beds and a great treasure... 307 roof tiles in perfect condition. They were collected from a builder who had been doing repairs on a property and just wanted to get rid of them.

    Big result!

    Here are the guys unloading. We have no exact plan for these at present but you can be sure we will put them to good use soon.

     It's mind blowing to think of all the raw materials that have gone into the products we have bought over our life times. Think about all the energy consumed to collect, process and transport all those raw materials and the energy used to make the products. Then think of all the energy to drive the ships, planes, trains and vehicles to ship the products around the world, just so you have the latest thingamy Dyson Mc-i-wotsit, just like the neighbours thingamy Dyson Mc-i-wotsit. We are all a bit susceptible to advertising and peer pressure but maybe it's time to actively say 'no' and start to reduce, reuse and recycle, all the time!

    Why not find your own freecycle or freegle site and become a member. Not only can you give your unwanted stuff to people who will use it but you can also collect your own items from others and save yourself a little money. And best of all... it's free to join and use! Good luck!

http://uk.freecycle.org/
http://www.ilovefreegle.org/
http://www.ilovefreebiesuk.net/free-cyclesites.htm
http://www.freegive.co.uk/

What's Cooking Arnault?

    So what will you do if you come to volunteer with us, here at Radford Mill Farm. Well we do our very best to try and vary the work but when it all comes down to it, we have a lot of manual work in the soil (I'm trying not to say the 'W' word ...  weeding!). It's an organic farm so to produce great tasting healthy food, the weeds are a part of our life! C'est la vie :) 

    Sometimes though we change things around a bit. A snapshot of the tasks from today is as follows: planting leaks, picking gooseberries and blackcurrants (and weeding them), weeding out an invasive species (Himalayan Balsam) from our willow plantation, repairing a trailer, planning a rainwater harvesting system, doing improvements to the mill building, collecting a large number of old stone slabs and a used toilet for reuse (thanks freecycle!), more planning for our soon to be fitted new solar photo voltaic systems and of course everyone over the week, takes turns washing up and cooking. 

    Many people find it a challenge to cook for 10 or 15 people but theres always help at hand and once completed, you can enjoy a great sense of achievement, when you produce a nice meal for everyone. Don’t forget to cook something for the vegetarians though!!

    Here’s Arnault from Brittany, one of our long term WWOOFers, cooking us all pork chops, which were yummy! Arnault will also give you advice on anything to do with Cheese because everyday is cheeseday! Arnault is also a big fan of cakes and is a dab hand at making them.

    This chocolate treat graced our dinner table for nearly 2 whole minutes! You can't buy any of Arnault's cakes as we are guarding them with a high security fence but we will be selling our freshly picked, organic gooseberries and blackcurrants throughout July. You can get these at the Radford Mill Farm shop, in Picton Street in Bristol. Pop in if you're nearby and treat yourself! 

www.facebook.com/#!/radfordmill

Look No Rain

    Yes it's hard to believe but we almost had no rain today! At least it's quite good for the crops but the little sunshine we did have today, put a smile on people's faces and everyone was in a good mood.

    WWOOFers come, WWOOFers Go. Here's the current gang at Radford Mill Farm. From left to right we have Richard, Lea, Rico, Aida, Liam, Arnault, Lou, Chris, Valentin, Carlotta, Sam, Cyril, Tom and Mikael. Shortly before this picture was taken we had just had a lovely pasta dinner and an impromptu game of Boules!

Run Away Chickens!

    City folk who go out on an evening, often see foxes roaming the streets. Sometimes furtively and sometimes as bold as brass. I myself saw an adult fox last winter, sitting on top of a VW Polo in a London street. The fox was watching its cubs playing in someones front garden, just half a mile from Tower Bridge!

    The country however is a different matter and foxes here are far more wary of people. Just recently however, we have been graced with some sightings of a new resident on the farm. Ok its not a great picture but here is the new fox in the neighbourhood, caught on film a few days ago one sunny evening (yes we did have a sunny evening), down in the Alder Bed close to or willow plantation.

    We had been keeping an eye on this fella as we previously lost 2 chickens within a few days. Foxes are known to stalk their prey just like a cats and they often play with it before they kill it. If they aren’t hungry they may even catch a small animal just for fun, then let it go. A fox’s hearing is very sharp and they can hear a watch ticking 40 metres away. I saw this particular one on a disused railway embankment we have here, about 100 metres away and he sat and watched me for 2 minutes. As soon as I started talking on my phone he ran off.

    Apparently the fox is seen as a sacred animal in Japan so perhaps we should treat this one to an all expenses paid, one way trip to Tokyo. Sadly we shall probably have a friend come in and take care of the problem, as we only have 10 chickens left now. Its still nice to see some real wildlife and not just an animal hanging around some dingy bins, behind a back street Chinese restaurant.

It's Not All Fun, Down On The Farm

    Working hard as we do, to grow our crops and bring them in, we work our machinery and tools quite heavily too and sometimes they break. It’s quite frustrating at times but fortunately we have a number of people with some engineering skills, to get things moving again. In the last few days the safety brake on the chainsaw and the steering arm on our little Yanmar tractor have both failed.

The Husqvarna 230 is a cracking little chainsaw

    The chainsaw part was a nice simple fit once it arrived, courtesy of an excellent ebay shop. A quick clean of the air filter and a top up of chain lube oil and its ready and safe for action.

 Yanmar mid repair

    Here is the Yanmar mid repair, with the kingpin and bearing in clear view. Of course the spare seal we bought to compliment the new steering arm wasn’t the right size!

Our Yanmar Workhorse 

    The Yanmar 1500D is our main workhorse for all the small jobs on the farm. We have 5 tractors in all and the bigger ones are used for lifting and ploughing but the little Yanmar mops up all the small jobs nicely. It’s perfect for shifting loads of stones, soil or building materials around and moving tools or irrigation water to newly planted leeks and squash. A quick trip to Shepton Mallet and a new seal for £3 will get her back in action shortly and we shall be working and smiling again. Yesterday evening after dinner we had a lively debate about whether work is necessary to be happy. A working Yanmar certainly is necessary to keep the farm running smoothly and happy!