Stirley Farm Community Supper at Hall Bower Chapel

Pick of the Pods - BBC Food Programme

Since my year abroad at University, I've been addicted to podcasts. Without internet in my flat, and being unable to access BBC programmes via iPlayer when abroad, podcasts allowed me to keep up with news and views at home (and were the first step on the path of becoming a Radio 4 addict...).

So I thought it was about time that I shared some of my favourite programmes and episodes. In this post I'm going to be sharing some highlights from Radio 4's Food Programme.

For someone like me with an interest in food and farming, from production to policy, the Food Programme is a dream. Here is a pick of some episodes which are well worth a listen:

I found What is milk?  a very interesting episode having grown up on a dairy farm (and at the time of listening I was also helping out on the farm), but having never actually thought very much about what makes the white stuff what it is.

Having just been on a Forest Gardening course down in Devon, I was very interest in the issues brought up in the Climate Change Farm episode, which featured Martin Crawford who I did my course with!

Being interested in food fairness and sustainability, episodes on coffee, palm oil (which I've blogged on previously), soya and honey production were fascinating. Food price spikes are one of the key parts of Oxfam's GROW campaign, which I've been involved in campaigning for, so this episode on the price of food provided another look at the issues.
 
Margate's Food Stories is a great episode about people sharing food stories through a community art project.

Food foraging is a hobby of mine so the episode on wild food offered a great perspective into the different issues involved.

I love the idea of food clubs and student cooperatives so it was great to hear some stories and examples in these programmes.

If you're interested in what this government's food health priorities are then listen to this interview with Andrew Lansley from February 2011 then a follow up on this nearly a year and a half later.

(Also, being a fan of gin I loved this episode)

did-it!

Between January and June this year I wrote for the Environment and Heritage Blog for Do-it, a national volunteering database and resource. Since starting paid work, I don't have the time to do much volunteer work and definitely not enough time to write about volunteering - so hopefully someone else will soon share their experiences and wisdom (maybe you?).

I thought I'd give a run down of my blogging over the six months as a one-stop shop for my do-it blogs. My first post in January, Learning to Grow, was really and introduction to me, what I was up to and what volunteering means to me. I then wrote about training after going on a community bee keeping course, followed by a post about the volunteering I do with  Oxfam. My next two posts were about community events I was involved with through Stirley Farm - Growing Communities, a workshop day sharing best practice for community food growing organisations, and Potato Day in Newsome. My next two posts were me getting very excited about the birth of our first calf on Stirley Farm and then about the hot weather we had at the end of March (which now seems like a distant memory...) with tips on how to avoid volunteer burn out. My next post was something I'd had in my head for a while about being a conservation volunteer and how people always compliment me on my tan and ask me about how I stay fit... The next couple of posts were about events I ran at Stirley Farm - a wild food event and a history event. My final post, after I had just got myself a job with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, after 18 months of volunteering was some top tips on how to volunteer your way to a new career.

Foraged Flowers

The only problem with foraging - my new hobby - is that it's not the easiest activity when you're time poor! I suppose the exciting thing about it is that waiting for your ingredients to come into season requires a lot of excited waiting and once they are you a real sense of urgency! In May I couldn't wait for the elder to come into flower so I could try some recipes out then once they did I rarely had time on a sunny day to go and collect some! I collected a batch with my boyfriend very early on to make elderflower champagne whilst there were still only a few sprays on each tree and then again just before all the flowers disappeared to make cordial - it would have taken about half the time to collect the flowers for my recipe if I'd had a few more sunny days off or evenings. The elderflower recipes weren't quite right and will have to wait till next year before I can do some tweaking (elderberries later in the year though!), but the rose petal syrup I made is really fantastic! I live close to the very beautiful Scarcroft Allotment in York which have paths running through so that even people who don't have a plot  can wander through and enjoy them (I've got a lot of love for these allotments - maybe I'll write a post about them). The hedge along the path is intertwined with wild roses, so once again with my boyfriend in tow, we went out collecting petals. I'd heard the tip that if you only take the petals rather than the whole head, you still get hips later in the year (I'll be back for those!). Using a generic "wildflower syrup" recipe from River Cottage Hedgerow by John Wright, I layered the petals (we collected a litre icecream tub full) with 1k of sugar and left it for 24 hours. After a day when I came back to my mixture, I emptied the tub into a saucepan and added 550ml of boiling water (55ml for every 100g of sugar) and gently heated the mixture until the sugar had dissolved. At this point, the recipe says to strain and bottle the syrup. After tasting the syrup, I could faintly detect the rose flavour but it wasn't really strong enough. I tried one of the petals and it was delicious - sugary and full of flavour - so I decided to leave the petals in the sugar syrup for a little longer... So I went to Latitude festival and when I got back my syrup was full of rose flavour! I've decided to just leave the petals in because they look pretty and they still taste nice. The roses are still going up where I am so you've still got time to try this recipe before next year!

FOOD POWER!

After four days intensive campaigning with Oxfam at Latitude Festival, I'm now home, thoroughly cleansed, refreshed from a night in a proper bed and ready to share my experience with you! As always, volunteering with Oxfam is inspiring and motivational (I'm feeling motivated to revive my blog a little...) and this years campaign focus was very close to my heart. Oxfam's big campaign at the moment is called GROW, which is campaigning for a fairer food system. There are 7 billion of us on the planet (and increasing rapidly) and 1 billion of those people go to bed hungry every night. Oxfam believe that there is enough food to feed everyone, it's the system that doesn't work - favouring big conglomerates over small scale farmers, with markets speculating on food causing massive price spikes and developed countries (like us) getting into bad food habits, becoming so disconnected from our food that we don't really respect where it comes from, how it got to us and how much it costs to produce. Oxfam is working on campaigning against climate change, for equity for small-scale farmers and against unethical activities such as land grabs - but if GROW is really going to work, the movement needs to start from the ground up.
At Latitude (as at all the festivals Oxfam is campaigning at this year) we were asking festival goers to tell us about their food power. Food power is the power that all of us have to make the world a better place simply through the choices we make about the food we eat. Our aim was to inspire and celebrate what people already do, rather than to make them feel guilty for not doing enough. People shared their stories and ideas by writing their "food power" on a board and holding it up for us to photograph. The pictures will be used to make an inspirational e-book to show just how many people out there care about fair food and as a way to share ideas. We met lots of vegans and vegetarians as well as carnivores who thought that we could make a big difference by eating a little less meat, people who hate waste, windowsill gardeners and allotmenteers, fair trade and local lovers. It was certainly inspirational for me. Here were some of the favourite conversations, quotes and tips from my campaigning:

• "Your local market is super"
• Chatting to the lady who has a mobile farm that she takes around schools to teach them about where food comes from
• "You don't have to be vegetarian to enjoy vegetarian food"

At the end of our campaigning, we all did our own board and mine read:

• "I believe teaching people to cook healthy hearty food (on a budget) with fresh ingredients is the most powerful thing we can do"

If you're going to a festival this year, look out for Oxfam campaigners in their pink Food Power tee shirts, but if you're not going to a festival then feel free to share your food power, how are you eating your way to a better world?

Moonriders, away!

After months of not quite preparing as much as I should have... the time arrived for the Moonriders event - a 100km overnight cycle from North London to Brighton. We left Alexandra Palace at 11.40pm and set off into the night.

After 40 miles we stopped for hot food, change into a dry t-shirt and to spend a little time wrapped up like a jacket potato.

 And at last we arrived smiling into Brighton Racecourse at 8.30am... Not even a last minute puncture could stop us cycling over the finish line to collect out breakfast butties!

We've raised £450 for Oxfam so far but we'd really like to raise a little more... So please sponsor us if you've enjoyed following the Team Toots journey!

Change of scenery, and a change of name...

The last 18 months has been an amazing rollercoaster ride of volunteering adventures... And now my patience and hard work has paid off as I started my first proper, full-time paid job in conservation! Well, technically it's two part-time jobs, and one is temporary... but it's definitely a step in the right direction! For three days a week I am a Communications Assistant for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and for the other two days I am Dig In Project Assistant, also for the Trust.

So as I am no longer working for free, I feel the need to change the title of the blog. My boyfriend joked “Yes, I've sold out” but I thought “Yes, they pay me to do this!” was more appropriate!

Ideas on the back of a postcard, or in the comments section :)

Beer Pizza!

I'm trying something new on the blog today... I'm going to attempt to pass on a recipe which I just can't keep to myself - a quick, simple pizza base made using beer! There's no need to leave it to rise, it's ready straight away and tastes as delicious (if not more) than regular pizza crust.  I can't take credit for coming up with the idea, I first heard about it from my sister whose Spanish housemate makes them so after investigating Google we managed to find a recipe but the measurement weren't quite right. Most of the cooking I do amounts to a good deal of guesswork - I don't even own a set of scales - but I think I've just about perfected the recipe now.

To make the base you will need:

Two cups of plain flour (that's a 250ml vessel. If you're struggling to find something a large wine glass is generally 275 ml... you can see I'm used to guess working!)
One cup of beer (So far I've used lager type beers or pale ale, I'm going to give it a try with something really dark at some point though!)
One teaspoon salt
One teaspoon baking powder

You can double up the recipe if you like, it freezes brilliantly. And now to get pizza making...

1. Start by sieving your flour into a large mixing bowl and adding the salt and baking powder. Gradually add the beer and mix as you go, I use a spoon at this stage then get stuck in with my hands later. This is very satisfying as the beer foams up and you'll see it creating a doughy texture straight away.
2. Bring the mixture together into a ball, you may want to add a little extra flour or beer as you see fit. It should be springy and elastic already.
3. Turn your dough out onto a floured surface a kneed a little, it shouldn't need much, until you're satisfied with the consistency.
4. Now to shape your base, the way I do this is to use a rolling pin to make the rough shape then by stretching the dough with my hands and fitting it onto a circular baking tray. I accidentally put olive oil on the tray once, which made the base nice and crispy underneath but it meant that the dough kept slipping and shrinking down, so it depends whether you like a thin or thick base!
5. I like to bake the crust a little first to make sure you don't get a soggy middle... Do this for around 10 minutes, or until you think it looks ready.
6. Then add your sauce and toppings. The one I made today was dictated by what was in my fridge (ie not much) so the remnants of some very mature cheese, cherry tomatoes, basil, pesto and creme fraiche.
7. Then put it in the oven until it looks nice and crispy (sorry, I've not got timings for this. Depends on your oven and just how crisp you like it!) You can take it off the tray to crisp the bottom up part way through when the base is firm enough to be transferred if you like.
8. Take it out and enjoy it, with what's left of your beer if you haven't already drunk it!

Basket Making at Stirley Farm

 Sue showing us how to start off our baskets.

The base of my basket

 The stage of the basket making process where it looks like a giant spider...

 Bending the stakes upwards...

 ... to make something that then looks like a lobster pot!

 Now the weaving begins to make the sides of the basket.

After a tricky bit of plaiting at the top, here's the finished basket!

What's Growing in Newsome?

Poor Gavin Repton got roped into making two videos in two days for me... Didn't he do a nice job though?

Oxfam Birthrights Exhibition, Huddersfield

Oxfam volunteer, Veronika Susedkova, organised a display of the Birthrights exhibition in Huddersfield which looks at maternal care for mothers in Ghana, and put on a fantastic opening night!

Weak at the Knees

The beautiful weather we've been having has motivated me to finally sort my rusty bike chain out and I managed to get it to a functioning state in time to cycle home from work this evening. When setting off, I wasn't altogether convinced that my chain wouldn't snap when under strain especially due to the disconcerting clunks it made up the drive from the farm... But pretty soon I stopped noticing so many clunks, although this could have been because I was concentrating more on the Yorkshire hills that I've not tackled in several months... The ride home was actually quite gentle in comparison to other routes I used to take regularly. I had to resist constant urges to stop at every pub I passed and get a drink and sit out in the sun! I've missed cycling more than I realised - you see so many different things on a bike than you do in a car. My route home to Shepley seemed practically brand new. That said, I'm not expecting to see much of the London to Brighton ride in June unless I get myself some pretty powerful lights!

So now the training has properly started! The cycle home was 7 miles, which left me feeling slightly weak at the knees, I've got quite a bit of work to do before I'm ready for my 62 mile challenge (sorry, I work in miles not kilometres...).

We've also got a long way to go with the fundraising effort. I've got a few ideas up my sleeve but any donations would be gratefully received! You can sponsor us on our Team Toots page.

The Best of Volunteering

I'm on the Do-it.org homepage under the "best of volunteering"... Hurray!

On yer bike!

As well as neglecting my blog a little, since Christmas I've also been neglecting my bicycle... Since moving to West Yorkshire in July, my trusty bike has been my main way of getting around. But since moving slightly further away from the farm where I work and getting a lift instead of cycling in, my trusty bike has become my rusty bike... But it's time to clean up my chain and get back on my bike - because I've just signed up to take part in Moonriders, a charity cycle ride from London to Brighton through the night to raise money for Oxfam!

On Sunday, in spite of having the flu and a rusty chain, I borrowed a bike and went for a ride up on the High Peak Trail. Getting to the trail nearly killed me (apparently it was necessary to take shortcuts through fields, lifting the bikes over stiles and walls...) but it felt great to get back on a bike again!

I'll keep you updated on my training and fundraising progress and if you'd like to sponsor me, I've set up a fundraising page!

Recent Updates

After promising not to neglect you, I've not updated this blog in a while... I've been busy blogging for Do-it however! You can read my posts about recent community events in Newsome including our  Potato Day and the Growing Communities workshops, where we looked at why food growing works in Newsome and how and why such projects began. I also wrote about Oxfam after I went to speak to a group of teenagers in Barnsley about the work they do.

Getting a Buzz from Training

This post also appears on my Do-it.org blogspot:

Working as a volunteer is a good way of getting on the job experience, but if you're lucky enough then you might get to do some training and qualifications as well. Through volunteering I've gained First Aid and Brushcutter qualifications and learnt about many interesting things from Forest Gardening to how to make yurt wheel. This week I went on a course about Bee Keeping specifically designed for community volunteers. The course was at Trafford Hall, which is the home of the National Communities Resource Centre. Having won some funding from the Tudor Trust, they are offering bargain courses for community volunteers, which include food and accommodation, and have a linked small grants scheme where volunteers can apply for up to £500 towards their project. The whole programme seems like an excellent way to give volunteers more skills and greater ownership over the projects they are involved in. It was also a great way to get well fed for a couple of days! I've got another course in March and I can't wait to have another volunteer's "mini-break"!

The course itself was very interesting and informative, and extremely thorough! We had two days of learning the theory behind bee keeping, from the biology to the practicalities, and in May we will return to have a practical session, although I'm hoping that I'll have a chance to put some of the things I've learned into practice before then. We are due to have some hives on Stirley Farm, and following the course I feel much better equipped to get involved and hopefully if we get the grant we will literally be much better equipped too! Doing the course actually made me feel very nostalgic about university. I studied biology and on my year abroad I did a research project on ants, which have a very similar social structure to bees. It felt great to get back to the classroom! I'd love to do a Masters degree but I know that it would be mostly for my own enjoyment, and that volunteering is the best thing that I can do for my career at the moment. Whilst my training allowance won't get me through a MSc, I'm very happy to be learning about bees and meeting lots of other people working on community projects!

Hungry for More?

If you're reading this, then you've somehow found yourself on my volunteering blog... If you like it and you'd like to read more of the same, I have now started blogging for Do-it.org, the volunteering organisation. My posts will be in the Environment and Heritage section. Don't worry, I'll still be posting here - possibly even more frequently than before!

You don't have to be crazy to volunteer here...

Somehow, without trying  or even asking, I seem to have got myself an amazing work experience opportunity, so this week my blog comes direct from Westminster. After visiting my MP some time ago, I was invited by him to work with him for a week in his london office. If I had to choose one word to describe my first day, it would be: surreal. 

It was surreal first of all, just to be doing it! I got a bit of a kick out of being (relatively) smartly dressed and walking around London thinking "look at me, all smart, walking around London like I know where I'm going, like I've got a job or something..." My boyfriend text me saying "how does it feel to be living the dream?" as I was coming up from the underground at Westminster. Pretty strange, I thought, as it's someone else's dream I'm living! 

I was hit by a second wave of surreality during my tour of parliament.Soon after arriving, I was rushed down to Westminster Hall to get a place on the tour to find out some more of the history and just how things happen in my temporary place of work. As I was being shown around the different rooms, told about the various ceremonies, taking in all the pomp and rituality, a thought hit me. "This is how the most important decisions, things that effect all of our every day lives, are made." It seems to work, so leave them to it I guess.

The rest of the day continued in the same vein. There was a moment where I was literally RUNNING through the corridors of parliament. I felt like I was in a film. A comedy, I think. The conclusion I came to is that it's the kind of workplace that could stand to have one of those sign's that reads "you don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps".  

2011 - Year of the Volunteer

The UN designated 2011 “International Year of the Volunteer”, and so did I, although I didn't realise it at the time. I had dabbled in volunteer work days and helping out at events, but as of January 2011, I became a full-time volunteer.

My volunteering journey started when I was offered a placement on the Sharpham Estate in Devon. Along with three other volunteers, I lived on a low impact yurt camp on the estate and worked on conservation and environmental tasks as well as community outreach and education. I learnt a lot in the 15 weeks I spent as a volunteer at Sharpham, perhaps most importantly, what my main interests and motivating factors are. I think for a lot of people, the main barrier they face is knowing what it actually is they want to do when it comes down to the specifics, especially in a sector like conservation. The best way to find out is just to get out there and do it! Volunteering such a good way of exploring this due to the amount of variety these positions normally enjoy. On my placement at Sharpham, as well as general conservation tasks which for us included battling against lots of invasive species such as rhododendron, laurel, willow herb and bull rushes we also helped out in the walled vegetable garden and going to see other projects as part of our outreach, which was perhaps my favourite thing about the placement. We went to help out at a wide range of projects including a recently created wetland area, a “glamping”site in a small private woodland and the very early stages of a community growing project where a small group of people had teamed up to buy a field which would then be used to produce food for the local area. For getting a first hand experience in such a wide range of projects, I realised that community projects about food and farming were what interested me the most. Having realised this, imagine how excited I was when I saw an advert for a traineeship with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust on a community farm project near Huddersfield! I got the placement, thanks to the skills and experience I'd gained through previous voluntary roles, and started at Stirley Community Farm in July. In six months working on the farm, I've learned and achieved a lot and got a new confidence that I didn't have before I started my volunteering odyssey. One of the best things about being involved in the Stirley farm project is that it is powered by volunteers, meaning that I get to work with a lot of like-minded, interesting people who understand what I'm doing, because they're doing it to!

I should give you one warning about volunteering – it is highly addictive! As well as being a full-time volunteer for the YWT, I also volunteer for Oxfam, the Eco-Schools programme, and regularly journey to Manchester to help out with events at the Manchester Museum. When people ask me why I do what I do, one of the easiest things for them to grasp is that it is to get a good CV and help me get a job but that's really just a small part of it. Of course that's one of the very welcome side-effects, but the main reason is because of the enjoyment I get out of it. You couldn't be a volunteer if you didn't enjoy it! I remember a discussion I had at an Oxfam training weekend, where one girl I was talking to was quite shocked when I said that volunteering is never a completely selfless act. The volunteer always gets something good out of it too, even if we're just talking about a warm fuzzy feeling, otherwise no-one would do it!

A quick bit of research tells me that 2012 is the UN International Year of Cooperatives but for me it continues to be the year of volunteering... For the next six months at least!