Newsletter 13th October 2008
Monday, 13th, October, 2008
One again, I am writing an autumn newsletter after a summer of floods and seemingly endless rain. Yes, we did have one lovely, sunny fortnight (and a wonderful weekend for the O Party!) but it is generally agreed around these parts, by those that know, that we have had the worst time for harvesting in living memory.
The happiest event of the year was the birth of our new donkey foal Jenny. The photograph is of her at a few hours old with her proud mother Millie.
Despite the rain we have done lots of pig roasts and barbeques this year. The community-run village shop in Whitbourne had its first birthday on the only dry Saturday in the whole summer and we, once again, obliged with a barbeque. Thanks to the hard work of its many volunteers, the shop is going from strength to strength and provides a “shop window” for local small suppliers like us.
We have six steers to sell before the end of November so please place beef box orders NOW!!!. Even with all you enthusiastic carnivores out there, it is doubtful whether we will be able to place such a large quantity of beef through direct sales and some of it will sadly have to go through local butchers shops. The sooner we know what you need the better and don’t forget, grass fed lamb is available all year round.
Sorry to be mentioning Christmas in October but if you want to order a turkey, please place your order now to avoid disappointment! We have a combination of bronze and blacks this year and for some unknown reason they seem to be growing much faster than in previous years. Now that my (much) older sisters have retired and are watching the pennies, they will both be coming down to help by “plucking their own”. Perhaps this idea might catch on and we can develop a new enterprise, charging OAP’s for dressing their dinners!
We will have a large number of our free-range Tamworth porkers ready from the end of October onwards. We are happy to sell it by the box or to your own specifications. If you are considering a pork roast for Christmas, now is the time to think about ordering it. As we have pork available over the winter I am hoping to cure an air-dried ham in the garage again this year. The last one we did was a great success but didn’t last five minutes because it was so delicious.
If you are planning to develop your charcuterie skills then do drop us an e-mail to discuss your requirements. Bacon is especially easy to cure in a plastic box under the bed. The main thing is to have something suitable for slicing it thinly though I sometimes just chop it into chunks and use it in casseroles or bolognaise.
The Tedstone Traditional Meats website www.tedstonetraditionalmeats.co.uk is now up and running. Because we only have meat for sale as and when our stock is ready, we are not anticipating operating the shop as an online facility but do hope to develop this section so that you can see what we have to offer. Pay us a visit and help us to get to the top of the search engine hit lists!
Happy Eating!
Harvey and Diane Richards
