Eating (almost entirely) for FREE!

Everyone loves the sound of that and I can confirm that the reality is even more spectacular - photo above is of our lunch today which comprised of roasted courgette soup  with creme fraiche and chives (recipe found on the following link from a previous blog - http://pretendfarmer.blogspot.com/2011/08/veggie-patch-envy.html), the only shop bought additions to the soup were the 125g of frozen peas and the creme fraiche.  The soup was accompanied by croutons made from stale bread which although bought (the intention is to make bread but having such good bread so readily available makes it difficult to make this a priority!!), and a salad comprising of yellow courgettes, cherry tomatoes, onion, basil and feta with an olive oil and balsamic dressing - the feta, olive oil and balsamic were all bought in - everything else was from the garden.

And of course the table was decorated by a beautiful sunflower from my ‘sunflower patch’ - I almost had to do battle with a bee for this particular one but didn’t feel too guilty as there’s plenty more for him to enjoy!!

Our piggery is taking shape and I shall be posting pictures tomorrow of the amazing progress made in just 3 days - watching these guys work is brilliant - it’s a husband and wife team and they’re truly amazing - I’m jolly glad it’s them and not us doing the stonework - they’re salvaging some lovely big pieces of stone from the walls they’re removing in order to build a back patio and fill in some of the existing doorways to make them into windows.  It really will make a spectacular independent cottage once done - we shall let you know once the ‘booking calender’ is open! :)

We’re off with some chums this afternoon for a picnic in what are supposed to be some beautiful gardens not far from here so will be sure to take photos and report back tomorrow - having had such lovely sunshine for so long we’re just hoping our planning a picnic won’t coincide with the weather breaking - on that note we’ve given up with the online weather reports (which have been consistently wrong for the duration of the summer) and will start relying on the farmers who definately seem to know more than the weather men!