really old style living?

RAS

Gigervamp wrote: »

I'd love one of those sheila maid thingies because I have very little room for a floor standing clothes horse and although I also have an airer that sits over the bath, it doesn't hold much. Unfortunately the ceilings in our house are too low.

Do you have enough space to fit Sheila over the bath?

OR if you have two storeys, it there space over the highest part of the stairwell? Me and ex used to stand on the landing to load Sheila and then hike her up the ceiling.

ginnyknit

I have one of those Sheila maid things over the kitchen sink, it was here when I moved in. The struts were a bit shabby so I covered it with fablon and have used it ever since, and I love it. Even towels dry overnight. We have a fold up thingy too for baby's stuff and that goes in front of the heater in the winter. Mind you its a bit cool here tonight, hope it doesn't mean we are going to have colder July's now?

Have harvested and frozen a bit of veg today just to keep up with winter stocks. My freezer looks a bit odd now with bags of pea pods and orange peel.

I just love being poor - we had smoked salmon and freshlaid scrambled eggs today - salmon was 50p! then for tea we had grouse or some such bird that Sil found in Ashton Mr T for 2 quid :rotfl:Hard to beleive it was all so cheap.

HoneyBee83

Hello all,
I try my best to be old style.
* I cook from scratch and freeze up portions.
* I grow veggies through spring/summer.Looking into growing winter veg too.
* Im hoping to buy some chickens soon,will have to organise the garden first!
* I bulk buy alot of shopping to save money in the long run-is this actually old style?? Not sure!!
* I bake cakes and biscuits.
* Im having ago at making my own jams etc gonna need some practice tho.
* Im also trying to make my own pastry...this is not going well,not at all!!

Cant think of anything else but i'll edit if i do. If anyone has any other ideas etc they would be much appreciated,i quite enjoy this 'life-style'

brownhandbag

I got our Sheila maid in a junk shop for a fiver! It is in our lean too/conservatory and dries things so well all year round. Copes easily with washing for two and is one of the best things we have bought.

mardatha

Old fashioned houses all had them, we called it a pulley. We couldnt wait to get rid of them because the washing was dangling on your head as you sat at the table eating your dinner -- and all the washing smelled of whatever your mum was cooking LOL !

hex2

I went bilberry picking yesterday, not the biggest crop but I am freezing them as I find them so should eventually have enough to do something with. Trying to convince DH that we should go walking on the moors tomorrow where I know there are lots.

I am trying to run down the freezer a little so that I have room for whatever I do with all the fruit. I also need to get more plastic tubs from somewhere.

I got the number of someone locally who sells fertilised hen eggs - one of my girls is broody! I think from what I have read she would need her own mini pen and I am not sure DH would be overly happy to interupt bathroom installation proceedings to build me one, although we do have a spare roll of chicken wire. Not sure what we do with the chicks anyway, seven is plenty. I just like the idea, and think it would be very good for small boys to watch - or would they refuse to eat eggs in future?

We have had enough veg out of the garden (new pots, carrots, onions and courgettes) to cancel the veg box this week, and I am hoping that this will be the case alternate weeks going forward. I need to check what we can be planting now to fill things up later this year. I think I have some autumn king carrot seeds that could be going in for example.

Still fairly new to veg growing and the hens do a lot of damage which is frustrating. They have had their wings clipped and DH built a picket fence round the veg plot which they struggle to get over but they come over the dry stone wall that runs down the middle of the garden. On the positive side I dont have a lot of slugs!

Sourcing wood cheaply for the wood burner is hard work. We go to the Leicestershire woodfair and there are usually lots of people there selling delivered double loads but the stuff we got last year was very green and at £110 really rather expensive.

I am very lucky that my DH is practical - an engineer who dabbles in wood and blacksmithing, and very outdoorsy. He at least agrees with what I am trying to do rather than not understanding why we don't just buy 38p value jam. My own lack of skill at practical stuff frustrates me, but at least I have mastered jam making. The plum is superb, I just wish there was more.

Gigervamp

hex2 wrote: »

I got the number of someone locally who sells fertilised hen eggs - one of my girls is broody! I think from what I have read she would need her own mini pen and I am not sure DH would be overly happy to interupt bathroom installation proceedings to build me one, although we do have a spare roll of chicken wire. Not sure what we do with the chicks anyway, seven is plenty. I just like the idea, and think it would be very good for small boys to watch - or would they refuse to eat eggs in future?

The only problem with hatching eggs is that you're just as likely to get cockerals as well as hens, so you have to think about what you're going to do with the males. If you grow them for the pot, you'll then have to deal with dispatching them humanely. If you try to re-home them, I've heard that a lot of the time they end up being used for c0ck fighting.

ginnyknit

It is very hard to rehome cockerels lots of sites have posts where people are trying to get rid.

zarazara

But they do make good Coq-Au-Vin

Broomstick

Years ago, I lived in a very rural community where it was well known that some of the people who lived locally could sort eggs before they hatched by dowsing over them. The male eggs were all destroyed soon after they had been laid. All the farmers used to dowse their land if they were looking for underground springs or water courses. All this was so commonplace that nobody thought it unusual and it was where I learnt to dowse for water as well.

I only did water dowsing so I can't describe egg dowsing in detail but there must be more accurate info on the internet. I think it was done by suspending a pendulum, or ring, on a string over each of the eggs and watching the pattern of its swing (eg to and fro, or circular, clockwise or anti-clockwise). One pattern was female, another male.

I suppose the way to work out if you can do it would be to dowse a clutch of eggs, mark the shells and separate the two groups and wait for them to grow up into cockerels or hens. You'll know if you've done it right - and the meanings of your own pendulum readings - when you see the end result. Then the next time you have a go you just destroy the eggs you have identified as being cockerels.

I know that dowsing sounds wierd to lots of people but, despite my initial scepticism, I know that my underground water dowsing is reliable and, in the place I used to live, dowsing clutches of eggs worked and was seen as perfectly normal too.

B x