COLDHARBOUR COTTAGE

For the first year since I arrived we have had a bumper crop of cherries! There are 2 cherry trees in the old cottage garden amongst the damsons, quince and pear trees. This year the birds don’t seem to have cleaned them out which means that the guests in the cottage have managed to taste some real fresh English cherries. The old farmer and his wife in years past would have relied on the fruit collected from these trees and particularly the blackberries (coming soon) to make jam, chutneys and cakes. There are many varieties of cherry and we have 2 on the Farm. They are RAINER cherries which are large, sweet and have partially yellow/golden skins (see photo of current crop!)  They generally come later in the season. We also have dark red cherries which we think are AMARELLE and they don’t taste so good. These are harder and used mainly for cooking. So its interesting to learn that what was planted many years ago was done so with care and good planning. The sweeter cherries were eaten during the summer and the others for cooking or even jam and stored no doubt in jars in the kitchen larder.

The old farmer and his wife who used to live in the cottage would have planted Lavender. Not only is it an attracted flower it was very fashionable amongst the ladies. So it was one of the many tasks the housewife would have had to do.  Fresh lavender was dried and put into muslin bags and hung up possibly in the kitchen. It was used for wardrobes, to wash walls and furniture and for lavender bags which were stuffed between sheets in linen presses. The lovely aroma was a welcome one to those used to smokey filled rooms due to the cooking fires. It was also used to repel insects, treat lice, to perfume potpourri, in furniture polish and soap, as well as a cure-all in household medicine cupboards. You can see some lavender hanging high up in the roof of the cottage kitchen.

A number of factors including the colder than usual winter has meant that some of the lambs have been born later in the year than normal.  Most ewes give birth from April 1^st but this one decided to leave it later than usual and produced triplets as a bonus ! The farmer will mark the lambs as soon as they are born and will spray their underside to prevent diseases. He will also bring them into the Barn overnight and possibly for the next few days while the lambs gain strength and begin to feed from the mother. The Barn offers protection from the weather and the foxes and badgers.

Any of the lambs which need nurturing are milked by hand using rich full fat milk which is high in protein. This enables the lambs to grow strong and healthy from an early age.  Guests staying in the cottage are encouraged and welcome to help milk the little lambs in the morning and evening !

So this was the day, 23rd April 2010 when Coldharbour Cottage was awarded its highest prize so far ! Having won 2 regional awards in 2007 and 2009 it was only right that we should have a crack at the national award. The Enjoy England Awards for Excellence 2010 was held at the Brighton Pavilion in East Sussex and the great and the good of the travel industry turned up to celebrate. I was flying the flag for the county of Kent. After a fine dinner with the family, the awards were announced in style by a famous comedian (pictured right, can’t remember his name !) and the Chairwoman of the English Tourist Board was on hand to present the certificates. Then the PR machine took over, national media, newspapers, magazines and interviews on BBC Radio Kent followed. Then the entertainment started and the champagne flowed. It was all a bit much and I was glad to get back home on the Farm which I and many of you others have enjoyed.

Like now and in the past, a bit of snow can be great fun for the children. For those staying in the cottage it proved to be so this week as the family made a snowman for a special little person called Pheobe.

It would have been much the same in the old days when the family lived on the Farm. We know that the farmers family lived a demanding and yet happy life. Much of the time spent with the children would be with the Mother as the Father spent most of the day working in the fields whatever the weather. Simple pleasures like playing in the snow would have caused a lot of fun during the snowy winter season. The snowman would have been dressed with carrots (for the nose) and potatoes (for the eyes) from the cottage garden. An old cap and pair of gloves from Dads collection would have completed the figure.

Recently, when travelling in the Arctic with Ray Mears I was taught the importance of the snow ‘doughnut’ to the travellers. I wonder if you know what this is? Water is important and to be able to obtain fresh water in a harsh environment is a great skill. One of the skills you can learn on our Country Tours !

Excellent news regarding Bumblebees. Coldharbour Farm has been selected as an ideal place to reintroduce the short- haired bumblebee. This bee was last seen in the UK around Dungeness in 1988 and a special project led by Dr Nikki Gammans visited the Farm last year. Following which we were invited to an detailed field visit and open day on the marsh around Rye to discuss this exciting project and how we could help. Apparently the environment around Stone is ideal for these special types of bees. Nikki is now in New Zealand overseeing the breeding of these bees and soon will be transporting them back to the UK and so once again they will be seen in England.  We are pleased to get involved in this activity, not only do many of you staying in the cottage find it interesting but it is a very worthwhile cause to be part of. Lets hope it all works out !

 Further information and literature is found in the cottage and on www.bumblebeeconservation.org/subt_project.html and before anyone mentions it, the photo is a swarm of wasps which I saw on the Farm in 2006, they are not bees !

This is a busy season for the farmers. With over 300 sheep now on the Farm constant watch or lookering is required on a daily basis. With the added problem of the snow the sheep can’t reach the grass so have to be fed with hay. To balance the diet the farmer also feeds the sheep some small protein pellets in the troughs spread out over the farm. The severe weather has bought on a shortage of hay which is a worry. Farmers usually store hay over the winter but with the deep snow stocks are often used very quickly creating a supply and demand problem. In the old days the hay was stored in stacks and bought into the old barn for winter storage. This was very hard work and remember, in those days the farmers didnt have the luxury of tractors to lift those huge round barrels of hay which fit into the circular feeding bins !

This morning many of us in the South of England woke up to grey, gloomy skies and a blanket of snow. This causes the farmer more than a few problems, especially dealing with his stock. But in the old days the immediate farmyard used to be the responsibility of the farmer’s wife. She was the one who woke very early in the morning (usually 4am), stoked the fire, boiled the water for washing, collected the logs from outside and cooked the breakfast. Then she had to brave the elements to open up the poultry houses, refresh the water and feed them with the daily allowance of corn and scraps from the kitchen. But the lady living in the cottage was smart, she kept an eye on the weather the previous evening and could see the storm clouds gathering and so took all the water drinkers inside to stop the water freezing. She covered the feed boxes from getting damp and would have a larder full of preserved pickles and even smoked bacon for use on cold, windy days like this. On top of all this she had to make the cottage ready for Christmas. This included making the holly wreath for the front door, Yule logs, pomanders and homemade crackers. In the morning, the farmer would have walked up the track past the Coldharbour sign to check all the sheep in the surrounding fields. It was a long and lonely walk and it must have been bitterly cold. These were brave folk. You can learn all about the life of the farmer, his wife and young family by reading all the historical notes displayed in the cottage.

When I was turning out all the leftovers in the old Barn and I found this. It is very old and rusty and not a lot of good but it does give us an indication of life on the farm in the old days. Its a traditional cast iron pig feeding trough.  The bars on the trough stop the pigs stepping into it and tipping it over. A new one of these would be anything up to £200 at todays prices. On one of my visits to the Archive Office in Lewes I found a very old document by estate agents called Vidler & Son who used to be well known in this area for agricultural sales. In this little booklet there was a very interesting list of all the items for sale on the Farm when it was sold in the early 1900s. As well as old wagons, milk churns, stepladders and many others items of interest, the sale involved some livestock. Sheep, poultry and a few pigs. The pigs would have been an essential part of a small farm holding in the last century. They would have been fatten during the year using scraps from household waste and spare vegetables from the the cottage garden. Often farmhouses had curing rooms to smoke the pork and preserve it for using in the winter. It is been very interesting discovering these items and figuring out how the old farmer and his family used to live on the Farm years ago.

Its the time of year and all of a sudden there are lots of mushrooms in the fields. The ones in this photograph are in the field by the Barn and are called Parasol Mushrooms or Macrolepiota procera. They start off short and stubby with a compact cap like the shape of an egg and then as it grows the edges fall off and opens out into a large flat mushroom. It has a distinct chocolate brown centre that is leathery to touch. It only takes about 3 or 4 days from the immature cap shape to form into quite a large flat mushroom. It can be eaten and is delicious cooked in butter, they have a pleasant nutty smell.  Always be sure to identify mushrooms before you attempt to eat them as some are poisonous. Happy hunting.