Marmalade Making

The marmalade is now made for 2013, it is a lovely winter job , the house gets full of the most delicious smell when it is boiling away. I usually make 2 different types,  a dark one that has a bit of black treacle added to give it that richer flavour and the popular Saville Orange marmalade. It is now all stored away in the larder ready for  the B&B guests’ breakfasts this year.

Snowy Ponies!

We have had 12 inches of snow which makes walking across the fields hard work but it has been great for tobogganing and the grandchildren have had fun trying to build igloos.

Hopefully it will all be gone by next week so we can  be open for more guests.

So which of the grandchildren have had the chalks out? Lambing starts 10 /03/13

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Autumnal Mist

This was the view over Hexham the other morning, “Looks like the sea” was the comment from the grandchildren! The plume to the left is the chip board factory on the out skirts of Hexham, it sources its timber locally such as Keilder Forest.

Den Building by the Campsite

I shall be sad not to have as many children about now that term time is upon us again. We have had some great children on the campsite despite the rather wet conditions. Here is one of the many dens that have been built in the wood beside the campsite. I do hope that the weather for camping will be better next year!

So what sort of weather will there be tomorrow?

We have had a lot of sun shine and rain, never quite knowing for how long we have one or the other. Campers are keeping their cars off the site in order that it does not get too boggy which is making a huge difference. Our small hide away site is just the other side of these trees.

Winter feed for the sheep gathered in.

We have finally got the field cut for silage, that is grass that is cut, allowed to dry a bit then is bailed into  large rolls and covered with a tight film of black plastic to keep the air out and preserve it for use in the winter. This year despite the rain we did manage to get some of the field bailed as hay, which is when we allow the cut grass to completely dry out in the sun before bailing, this means that it does not need to be covered in plastic but must be stored in the dry in a barn.