We also have a few unusual gifts too and we will keep you posted on Southlands Farm “Parma Ham” coming soon!

For those of you who are local we are having our first “FARM SHOP OPEN DAY” on SUNDAY 11th of DECEMBER OPEN 10am till 4 pm. All very welcome… Come and see where we are ,whats in the freezers and to make your trip feel festive a complimentary mince pie or or two!

Hopefully see you then,
Charles and Dee

With the wind bashing our trees recently I have had rather a lot of fallen apples to deal with. Now the weather is getting colder we have an excuse to make all those delicious cozy puddings.One of our family favourites is Tarte Tatin. It is the perfect way to use your apples and tastes delicious too!
This classic French tart is made in an ovenproof frying pan, you can purchase a Tarte Tatin dish from cookware shops, not cheap but I use mine time and time again,

Ingredients;
6 large eating apples
4 oz/125g butter
4oz/125g granulated sugar
8oz/225g puff pastry
Oven 400F, 200C, Gas 4

Firstly melt the butter and sugar together in the pan,
Peel, quarter and core the apples,
Arrange in concentric circles around the outside of the pan, on top of the melted butter and sugar.Continue filling the middle with apple this time going the other way.Repeat until the whole pan is filled in.This is what makes the pretty pattern of apples.
Place the pan over a high heat until the mixture begins to caramelise.This will take apron 30 mins.When the bottom of the apples have begun to caramelise (apron 20 mins) carefully turn each one over so the other side also goes a rich golden colour.
Remove from heat and cool a little.
Roll out pastry into a circle apron 1 inch bigger than your pan, the thickness of a 2p coin.
Place over the top of the apples and tuck in any extra pastry down the sides of the pan/dish.
Prick the top 3-4 times with a fork,
Cook for 15 to 20 mins until brown and crisp.
Leave to rest for a few mins then loosen around the edges with a flat knife and turn upside down onto a flat plate.
If the odd apple sticks just lift out the pan and replace on the tart.
Serve with a dollop of thick double cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
(p.s. DID YOU KNOW ….. We are now stockists of the delicious Doddington’s Ice cream in our NEW FARM SHOP! I find their hint of ginger or honey ice cream goes really well with this recipe. You can also substitute the apples for pears. )

Gasket's puppies and Rosie's toes

Friday 21th May, and after much deliberation our plans changed. Charles, Hector and I were off to the wedding of Charle’s cousin and Rosie and Widget ( small hairy terrier) were  going to stay at Granny and Grandpa Gordon as Rosie was mid g.c.s.e.’s and snowed under with revision.

‘The girls’ (Three black labs; one Gassy; heavily in pup) were going to stay with John and Dott Clark (the lovely Gun dog trainer and his wife) but Gassy suddenly showed signs of a more imminent whelping so Granny and Grandpa came to the rescue and took residence here with Rosie and ALL the dogs…Cows,Pigs,sheep and hens to look after!

We had a fantastic wedding and they coped famously and Gassy hung onto her puppies until we got home.

Two nights later and Gassy was restless, firstly she went missing and was eventually found stuck (as she was so fat)! trying to ‘nest’ under and old vehicle in the field, but after gentle encouragement from a very relieved Charles and Hector. She was then settled her in the prepared nest, the old Pig sty. In the Pig sty Charles had made a great whelping box  two storeys high (great for when Mum needs a break from  Puppies) and even made a door and flight of steps for the puppies when they are older so that they can venture out into the open area of the pig sty. We had scrubbed it from top to toe (as it was 3 years since we last had a litter),washed all the bedding, dusted down the velvet curtain (courtesy of Charles Mum) that stops any draughts! rigged up the heat lamp and we were all ready. Gassy settled down a little reluctantly and I was woken at about three in the morning with woofing from the kennel…dressed in my dressing gown I let Gassy out for a pee,  supplied a good midnight feast and whispering sweet nothings of encouragement  to her. She eventually settled down again (this is a dog who loves her home comforts be it sofa or Hectors bed!!!) and I went back to bed.

An hour later and more woofing and it was Charles turn. He let Gassy out for a pee and immediately she headed back to the old vehicle up the field. Worried she might repeat her previous antics he dragged her out by the back legs just as she was disappearing under the vehicle, he was knee high in nettles and only clad in his dressing gown!!! and a bit more TLC and she was settled back in the pig sty and Charles eventually came back to bed.

Hector was the next on shift duty and by then he declared”there are feet” after a little while and a lot of effort on Gassy’s part a big GOLDEN puppy was born, quite a surprise but Gassy’s grandpa “Otto” is a beautiful Golden Boy. After this big chap six more puppies came in succession. Two bitches and five dogs.

I have to say no matter how many litters one sees be it puppies, calves, lambs or piglets born the last is still as wondrous as the first. After only approximately 65 days ! these perfect beautiful little puppies arrived ….a wonderful day!

Gassy is proving to be a great and very efficient Mum. She feeds her babies very well then does the old ‘woof’ and gets a little glimpse of the home comforts again before the next feed!!! Our aim now is to find good homes for the five fantastic dogs as the girls are spoken for.  One is to go to the family we got Sproket (Gassy’s Mother) from ten years ago so that the line may carry on. Hopefully they might go to working homes as Gassys beau Hamish is not only very handsome but a great gun dog too. Well done Gassy! Today two puppies opened their eyes.

Thanks to Mr “B—-y” Fox we have been without chickens since Christmas, but I promised myself I would wait till spring and brave it and get some more.
My aim had been to adopt some battery hens. Sadly due to the change in rules of housing battery hens (Well done Compassion in World Farming and Chicken out keep up the good work!) there is a big hold up in supply for some reason and I was not able to get any for some time. I have signed up as a fan of re homing battery hens and have become a member of  The Battery Hen Welfare Trust. I will still endeavour to house some as and when I can.
In the meantime I found a new supplier on the web  C & G Farming, Hagg Farm Teviotdale. Suppliers of good quality birds at and not too far away. After talking to Grant Shields the owner I reserved fourteen birds.
I love my old hen house that Hector made me but the winds had bent the roof hinges and it is a bit tricky to muck out and a little on the small side for the 14 birds I had enthusiastically ordered. So I decided to keep the old hen house and store it away to use if we ever had a broody hen.
As for our mounting housing crisis we had a brain wave… to convert my old underused potting shed into a des res hen house.
The old apple tree had draped its boughs over the  shed roof and it had rotted through so we replaced that with new struts and plywood then cream sheets of corrugated metal. There was already a shelf inside and Charles added some high up roosting bars.
Years ago in our old kitchen I had painted a set of shelves turquoise blue I found them again  in the garage and they are now screwed on the inside back wall,  filled with straw and very “shabby chick” nesting boxes. For the door Charles cut a cool Indian inspires doorway to add a little style!!!! And an ingenious  pulley system to open it from the outside. Two sturdy bolts on the door and to finish it off I painted it “our” farm pale green. Aesthetics being high on my priority list!
We collected the chickens and shut them in the new hen house for a couple of days.
It is wonderful to look through the window and see a huge row of chickens all roosting along the bar. We have a mixture of: Two brown Goldline, four White Star, three Light Sussex, two Black rocks and three White Ambers, fourteen in total.
Now they are happy settled chooks pecking away all day and I have been rewarded with small but perfectly formed eggs of speckled, pale brown and brilliant white. I feel every day it is such a treat when there is an egg or two lying in the straw …and best of all they taste amazing.

Rosie has been spending a week doing work experience lambing at our friends the Fenwicks; Tony, Sarah and their son Jack at Crookdene Farm. She has had a wonderful time thrown in at the deep end. She has risen to the challenges set. Delivered lambs, Tail docked, castrated, revived, stomach tubed, bottle fed. Leapt off the quad to flatten a sheep, brought in flocks, and turned them out, depending on the weather.
However the thought of having sheep here again has crossed our minds (possibly not Charles!) and Rosie’s stint at the Fenwicks seemed to catapult the idea. Half way through her week the idea of pet lambs cropped up and under the guidance of Tony and Sarah they hatched a plan that Rosie could take home six pet lambs. On the last day I got a phone call saying could the lambs come home with Rosie that night!
I then spent the day mucking out a stable, disinfecting it, filling it with lovely fresh straw and a few bales round the sides for extra comfort for our new arrivals….a trip to Farmway to get lamb milk, teats etc. and we were ready. Pampered lambs or what!
By tea time the chosen six were marked and ready to go. We put them in the boot of the Grolly (Charles’ ancient Range rover) and brought them home. They seemed pretty small in the stable at only four days old.
They have been named Blossom, Florence and Clover all white faces. Wonk because it has a wonky ear, Pixie as it has a little pixie face and Kid because it is grey brown and looks more like a baby goat! They are getting round the clock TLC from Rosie with GCSE revision sandwiched in between bottle feeds and they seem to be thriving on it!
A week on it is wonderful to see them leaping from bale to bale and skipping about. Kid had a naval infection but we hope we have caught it early and she is on a course of antibiotics which we think are doing the job and her feeds are picking up. All the lambs are ewes and Rosie has already made plans that they may return to the farm to be bred from next year. Then we will be “Lambing Live” here too!!!
Rosie has been so lucky to work with such a lovely family and has signed up to help again next year. It is a big commitment to bottle feed for several weeks but if they all survive it will be very rewarding and they will be the beginning of our Southlands flock.

We arrived in Shropshire at their farm, tired and late to see four tiny bundles of fluff one was exceptionally fluffy the colour of soft brown sugar with four white paws and a white bib, she kept coming back to my mind. Because we had to motor on to collect our Bull it was a swift good buy and we said we would have to return if we were interested. The Puppy was to be our daughter Rosie’s so we took photos and told her all about them on our return, it was going to be up to her to choose and I had to remain silent.

Another trip followed three weeks later when they were seven and a half weeks old. Luckily Rosie fell for the golden ball of fluff and she was named Widget. Charles and I drove the four hours home with Rosie and Widget blissfully fast asleep! I know I am totally biased but Widget, sometimes known as “Spat the Rat”, is utterly irresistible, too cute for her own good, a living hot water bottle, best mate to Gassy our youngest Labrador, funny and entertaining and Rosie and Widget have mutual adoration for each other. Charles and Hector like to think she is not a “proper Dog” because of her small stature but Rosie and I have witnessed the hugs she gets when no one seems to be looking she really is part of the family.