Where have the berries gone? (From Craven Herald)

Where have the berries gone?

2:03pm Thursday 15th December 2011 in From The Farm By Farmer's wife Elizabeth Hird

When I was picking sloes in October, the old holly tree up in the wood at the back of the house was covered in berries. I was planning to go and pick some this week, but Stuart has just informed me the berries have all gone!

There are several quite reliable trees around, but this year it looks as though we will have nothing to cut, which is unusual. I love having greenery in the house and there haven’t been many years when there hasn’t been holly on the staircase windowsill, so I’m sure I will find some from somewhere.

Having said that, I don’t think finding me a source of holly is the most important thing on Stuart’s mind at the moment, as he and Eddy are busy sorting sheep out and recording which have been mated with which tup, so that when lambs are born in the spring we know who the daddy is!

When this has been done the old girls will be heading back up onto the moortop for the winter months, up where they belong. Depending on the weather, they will stay there until just before lambing time. Keeping hundreds of feet and mouths off the fields in the valley bottom means that when this land is needed in the spring there is a chance there will be plenty of grass in the ‘nursery fields’.

David is usually at Skipton with me at the beginning of the week, but has had to be at home today because Eddy is away at college and Stuart has gone with neighbours Chris and Nigel to see if they can sort out why our broadband isn’t working – a pretty cold job on a day like today as the mast is on the top above Greenfield. I’m getting ready to set off to Harrogate to pick up some olive oil and honey. I thought I had ordered enough, but the number of shops doing last- minute stocking up for Christmas has been quite surprising and I only have enough of these ingredients for about another half day’s cooking, which is nowhere near enough.

Honey is very expensive, frighteningly so. The last bucket I bought, which lasts us about a day, was about £173. We are currently using honey from a supplier from Snape, near Bedale, and it is harvested from hives from the North Yorkshire moors. We use Yorkshire honey as a first choice and then English if the local supply runs out. In the past when there was a shortage, we have had to resort to foreign honey and the best alternative I have found is Hungarian accacia, but this is now also expensive.

Borage honey was always the best, being sweet and fragrant, but not too sweet and without the strong honey flavour. This is now scarce, in fact I have been unable to get any for about two years as borage (an oilseed crop) is not grown to the same extent as it was several years ago.