Carrot wine and shoe racks

So I have been lending my hand to a bit of carpentry, Brandon decided it would be a good idea to give me the opportunity to design and make a shoe rack, and okay in all fairness it isn't the hardest thing in the world to make but I had such fun, we made it completely from recycled material, we made it from a large fence which was lying at my nans, first we cut this large fence into a smaller fence and installed it for my sister and then with the left overs from that we made the shoe rack and a shelf for the window sill to put some plant pots to start growing more herbs and vegetables etc. I will put pictures of the above up shortly.
The other day Brandon and I had been driving back from a plot of land we have just hired for veg growing with our friend Mark and we noticed a field of carrots that had been plowed but there were still thousands of carrots strewn across the field, so the next evening we decided to check it out, the carrots had started to be chowed by rabbits and bugs but there were still lots of healthy ones, most were either little or weirdly shaped or coloured, and it became obvious that these were left here to rot and be eaten they hadn't passed the shops high expectation on what veg should look like, so we took a couple of bucket full, and as well as making carrot cakes, biscuits and lots of roast veg we have decided to make some carrot wine, we have bought all the supplies needed such as sugar and sultanas and we are hoping to get it started this afternoon.    

Wedding dress shopping halting foraging

Okay, so now I am beginning to learn that shopping for a wedding dress is quite difficult. Dresses are beautiful, wedding dresses make you feel like an absolute princess. I have been to two shops so far, and have found it an incredible challenge. Although, the first dress I tried on was lovely, absolutely me, it seems to hold beauty and nature if that is at all possible, but the prices of wedding dresses are crazy, the wedding dress I like is £633. Now it has lace and detail and everything you associate with expensive, but I still feel like that is a lot of money to spend on a dress, and that isn't even including having it altered. So at the moment foraging seems to have halted, the cold weather has been part of that, Brandon's had a few days of work, the only thing we have done foraging wise is siphon the wine into different containers before we siphon them into bottles. So it has been very quiet on the foraging front. We are off to Bristol to do some winter shopping today, I am not usually a fan of shopping, but I like shopping for jumpers and jackets, that I find fun. So, so far, shopping for a dress, fun, but hard work, foraging, standing a bit still in it's tracks. I am realising preparing for a wedding and doing your passions can be two very hard things to balance.

Glastonbury and apple orchards

I was at Glastonbury over the weekend with Brandon and our friend Helen Bradley, we were there to help run a free set stall click here to learn more. Brandon and I were worrying slightly about our brew as the port had been over flowing, we emptied some out, asked the landlord to keep an eye on it and hoped for the best, luckily we have had no more problems and it seems to just be bubbling happily away. When we went to Glastonbury we went to a mind body spirit fair and set up our stall, although the day was slow going and we only sold a couple of items I enjoyed the day thoroughly, I had never been to  anything like it, and I looked around the different stalls and there were some very interesting things about, everyone there claimed some spiritual connection and would offer to read the stars for you or some tarot cards, they believe in lots of different items like crystals and amulets. Glastonbury has as many shops related to witch craft and spiritualism as any other town would have supermarkets. Much to my delight they had a baker, butchers and some orchards scattered around, Helen informed me that most the shops were fair trade and I had fun walking around the charity shops and quirky small fair trade clothes shops that were sprinkled around. Brandon was feeling under the weather and it had been a long day we had been on the go since around 6 the morning and the stall didn't close until 7 in the evening, he struggled a little bit but I was impressed by how he push his energy and kept a positive approach. That evening we went out to an Italian and had a drink at a local pub and then headed back to the van where we were going to spend the night. That was when we realised we didn't have the attachment for the pump which is needed to blow the airbeds up, so we spent the next while taking it in turns to blow a single airbed and then a double airbed up. We got there without fainting and snuggled down to sleep, we were so tired we all slept pretty well, although I had forgotten to turn my alarm off and it went of at 6 am and I took a while frantically trying to climb over the front seats in order to turn it off before it got to loud. We ended up sleeping until 9 am, which is a massive lie in to me, we headed to a local cafe and had some toast and a coffee. Helen head back to the stall we went exploring. We climbed the tor and then enjoyed looking around a local orchard I couldn't help wishing more towns opened up public orchards and grow more fruit bushes for the public, but unfortunately it seems like a rarity  we didn't stay around to longs, Brandon's cold was getting worse so we decided to head home so that he could relax while I doted on him. All in all I enjoyed our trip to Glastonbury, and am starting to wonder if I should start up a public orchard somewhere.

Planting flowers, foraging and brewing

We have two elderberry ports and elderberry wine on the go at the moment, I will be brewing another elderberry wine this morning and we will be transferring the other wine in to a demijohn tonight, it is all very exciting. I was planting some flowers for my nan yesterday, I do her garden once a week and it brings me great pleasure, although I know almost nothing about flowers being out side brings the best into me, I love being in nature, touching looking, smelling. My nan who we have called dee dee before I was even around, also feeds me and my fiance up to the max, pies, fruit, cakes it is quite phenomenal. After that Brandon and I did some more foraging, we got caught in the rain and went under some trees for a little shelter, it is beautiful looking across the fields at the rain pouring down. We were in Lacock again and got a substantial amount of blackberries and elderberries, we then arrived back at my mums starving ready to wolf down her bacon and cheese flan, garden peas and potato waffles followed by my little sister Beth's delicious forked biscuits. All in all it was a fantastic day, although Brandon does seem to be showing a few flu like symptoms, we are praying it doesn't come to anything, we are off to Glastonbury tomorrow to a mind, body, spirit fare to sell fair trade products from India such as bags, it is all to do with a company called Freeset who give women prostitutes a chance to earn as much money by making bags and clothes. So we will be staying the weeks end in Brandon's van with our friend Helen, hopefully Brandon won't be suffering while we are there.

Foraging and brewing pictures

Late night brewing

We decided that yesterday was the day for brewing, we couldn't wait any longer, the problem came when we weren't quite ready for brewing at 4 o'clock because the fruit was thawing out, and then Brandon had to pop to look at a job, after that he came round mine and had a cup of tea, the time was sneaking on and by the time we got back to his it was 7 o'clock, then we got into a deep chat which involved some tears and some honesty (we sometimes talk for hours about how we feel about certain subjects) time was sneaking on it's half past 8, Brandon is eating his dinner, I am starting to feel sleepy (I am awful with staying awake in the evening/night time I am such a morning person) I am also getting a little grouchy and the more tired I am the more I trip my words up and say random things. So we decide to brew anyway, we start at 9 o'clock we get EVERYTHING sterilised I didn't realise you have to be so meticulous, the sides, the untensils, the sink, the buckets, us, the demijohns, you name it we sterilised it. Then we cracked on with making elderberry port, it was then we realised we were missing a few key ingredients, namely oranges, sloes and suger. So off we went to the shops, the only shop open at quater to 10 is tesco on the other side of town, so we drive there, we pick up the oranges and suger and pop back to my nans to get the sloes and back to making the port at Brandons, we decide also at the last minute to make elderberry and blackberry wine, so we do that too, it takes a few hours to put all of the ingredients together (hopefully I will have the videos up soon, just need to firstly get Brandon to send them to me and then edit them) I am in bed by about 12:30, and although that may not seem late to anyone else, to me that is quite a late night, especially for brewing alcohol. But I am VERY excited to see the results, hopefully we haven't made a sleepy mistake!

My birthday and making smoothie

I turned twenty two on saturday, I still find it very hard to believe I am in my twenties, and I can tell that I am going to just move through them quickly and quietly, I won't even notice as they slip by. It only seems like yesterday I turned eighteen, before I know it I will be twenty nine and to be honest I am not too freaked out about getting older, I'm not sure if it's because I have seen how openly and happily my mum has excepted age with open arms or the fact that my role model is the old tortoise from kung fu panda, even so I am excited that one day I will be eighty, not that I am wishing my life away, I love life in every form of the word. I was so excited about my birthday, I had the classic kid syndrome of being up very early, jumping around waking everyone up, I share a birthday with my younger sister who has just turned eighteen, so we opened our cards together (you know you're getting older when you have more cards than presents) then my handsome fiance came over with a massive bunch of flowers, a gardening book, a new look voucher, some chocolates and lots of food ready for our picnic in avebury, and then we made the most beautiful smoothie I have ever tasted, we used the raspberries and sweet apples that we picked the other week (not sure how many we had to be honest), we add, two bananas, two oranges, four table spoons of honey and a little bit of water, and there you have it, I have never tasted a nicer smoothie, we bought it to the picnic and our friends agreed, it was a good smoothie.

Mushrooms and smoothie

I have put those too things together in this blogging title but they aren't actually directly related (although a mushroom smoothie may be interesting I have never actually had one) I just want to blog about them both. I have a bit of an obsession about the thought of picking wild mushrooms as my fiancee would tell you, as soon as I see one I get so excited, there is a yellow one on the tree out side my house. The problem is I have no idea which ones are edible or poisnous and although I have been longing to chomp my teeth into one I have had to resist because the little resreach I have done hasn't really helped me be overly sure which ones are absolutely fine to eat. I've looked into going on a foraging course but they're just so expensive. So if anyone has any information about mushrooms or foraging course, I'd be very grateful for input. Now the smoothie is just a side thing, we have decided to use the raspberries that we picked the other day along with some very lovely sweet apples we found to make a smoothie, which I am very excited about, we have decided to make it on my birthday which is this saturday, which will be then followed by a picnic. I am going to be 22, which feels weird, I always imagined I'd stay at 18 but here I am moving quickly through my 20's. I have great hopes for this smoothie and will share the recipe when we have found/made one.

Getting married and picking raspberries

This post will conclude that even me, someone I view as pretty laid back, can freak out about wedding plans, since Brandon proposed to me in August I have been pretty laid back about it all, flicking through a magazine here and there throwing out mad and wild ideas of how I see the whole event in full swing, I think it was only yesterday it really occurred to me, weddings cost money, in fact if you are buying anything remotely attached to the word wedding people will try and charge you as much as they possibly can for it. So yes I started to freak out about marriage plans, I don't want an extravagant wedding, we have decided on a bring a dish theme, hopefully a marquee in a field with all our family and friends around us. But there are a few things I'd like, some bridesmaids, a pretty dress, a suit for my handsome groom and his best man, flowers, a cake, we need tables and chairs, maybe someone to keep track of the food, a portal loo, table cloths, glasses, cutlery and I am sure I am missing a few essentials. With us now starting up a company and neither of us earning a regular or very substantial wage you can imagine our budget isn't massive. So yes I freak out, it took quite a while for my lovely fiancee to calm me down and help me remember the real reason I am getting married (yes, I can sometimes be utterly selfish and materialistic, something I don't to often like to admit) but picking raspberries yesterday did cheer me up somewhat, we went to the farmhouse where Brandon used to lodge to lend a ladder to a house mate, and it was there we were pointed to a delectable bush of raspberries growing nearby, I have never seen such huge raspberries in my life. We were hoping to pick some plums from a nearby tree which is usually weighed down by plums at this time of year, but unfortunately it would appear the weather throughout the summer has had a pretty bad result on the plum tree, there wasn't a single one to be seen. I hope that isn't the case for all plum trees this coming autumn.

Beginning to Blog and Forage

As I am new to blogging and foraging this will definitely be a learning process which I am eager to pursue. I have been itching to get my hands 'dirty' and get going with this whole foraging scene for a while. But what really began to motivate me was when my man Brandon Pheiffer proposed to me. Getting married feels me with an unending amount of excitement, and while discussing wedding plans we stumbled on a beauty of a plan, home brewing. Making alcohol to have at the wedding, now this poses a few problems, one being we have never made our own before and we could easily do something wrong, another being we actually have no idea what we are doing, so these next few months will I'm sure as well as happiness, fun and excitement, bring some frustration, annoyance and possibly some disagreements (lets hope not). So far we have had an immense amount of fun and I have some film clips I would like to share in the near future and some pictures of us the happy couple. We are based in Calne and have been foraging in Lacock, stockley and the surrounding areas. As we are on the road quite often working in construction  (PheifferPropertyServices) it has given us ample time to scope out some new foraging sites. So please, take a walk with us as we delve into this new world of blogging and foraging.