Deep Fat Frying day is becoming almost as traditional as Christmas at Swallowtail Hill. The deep fat fryer is the one kitchen gadget that doesn’t get used very often a) because it would be exceptionally bad for our health and b) because I hate the job of cleaning it, but we allow the use of [...]
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By Donkeys and the Law of Sheds
There are 53 animals at Swallowtail Hill, including the humans, and not including the bees. You can imagine the grocery bill. One of the humans – the female, as she is referred to in the pub – suffers from obsessive compulsive hoarding. Of animals. So in spite of the occasional tragedy, their numbers inexorably increase [...]
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By Cocks and Hens
It’s all been cocks and hens recently. As you know three hens went broody and hatched five chicks. From the beginning of the process it’s been an impressive exercise in shared motherhood. During the ‘sitting’ phase each of the hens left the nest once a day to eat and drink and while one was absent the [...]
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Rock and bone and water
Autumn’s chemistry set is working overtime right now producing an extraordinary horizon rather as though a mad painter had chucked his paint pots all over the landscape. There’s even pink in there – spindle berries in the hedgerows looking like Barbie’s jewellery box. That aside us farmers are worried about the lack of rain – [...]
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Greek God Flirts With Sarah
We had a holiday last week. This is a tectonic shift in the otherwise peaceful rhythm of Swallowtail Hill, brought on largely by the threat of divorce. ‘If you don’t take me on holiday soon I will divorce you’ is approximately what Sarah meant when she said ‘If you don’t take me on holiday now [...]
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This is the story of a rural life, lived by Sarah and Christopher on their 40 acre Wealden farm, near Rye, which they share with assorted animals, wild flowers, trees, an eclectic array of locals and the odd visitor who thinks it's an idyll. Sometimes it is.
