A family from Getxo visited on the first of November and, on the 10th,

two classes of school children from the local Karrantzan Primary School.

This visit was organized by the school with two aims in mind: firstly, to

 local children an organic dairy farm and dairy, the visit guided in both English

(with Helen inside the dairy) and Basque (with Miren outside in the farm

buildings and fields) and, secondly, underlining the question of women

farmers' rights. For this reason both Helen and Miren led the guided tours

and, also, Helen gave a small talk in the local school on the situation of

women on farms in Karrantza.

Two groups from a Teacher Training Course entitled "Education

for Sustainable Development" run in Bilbao came to visit on the

24th (in Basque) and 29th (in Castillian) of November.

We went to six fairs in November: On the 5th, 19th and 26th we went

to the weekly farmer market in Bilbao. On the 20th the cultural

movement ZAWP organized an organic market in Zorrozaurre and on the

same day we attended a small fair in Errekalde (Bilbao). Lastly, on the

27th we once again went to the annual Responsible Consumer fair in

Basauri organized by the local ecologist group "Sagarrak".

The local Provincial Government inspected our farm in November to

make sure we were ear- tagging our dairy herd properly. Each calf

is eartagged at birth and the number given each animal is its' life-long

identification number. Each farm is periodically given a number of ear

tags which it gradually uses as calves are born. However, not only is

each animal eartagged but also a record card must be filled in and

included in the "Farm Record Book": the eartag number, the animal's

name (if one is given), the mother's tag number, the sex and race 

of the newly born calf and the date the birth is notified in the Local

Farm Extensión Office (OCA). The OCA provides the farmer with an

identification document and a number known as the DAI. The aim of

the inspection was to make sure we use the ear-tags chronologically

and that each animal was properly tagged.

Given the number of sow thistle species in the Sonchus genus we haven’t

attempted to specify exactly which species we have photographed. Sow

thistles exude a milky substance when any part of the plant is cut or

damaged and it is from this fact that the plants obtained their common

name in English, “sow thistle” as they were fed to sows in the belief that

milk production would increase. Sow thistles have also been used as

fodder for rabbits and, in fact, humans….young leaves have a flavour

similar to lettuce. Given sow thistle species are still frequently eaten in

New Zealand as a vegetable, particularly by native Maori. Nowadays

most sow thistles are considered as weeds.

What did the cows eat?

Once again the cows were given alfalfa, vetch, grass silage,

hay and a little feedstuff.

This recipe is highly adaptable. The filling can be made to suite

different tastes, using more or less apple or cheese, more or less

acid apples and different flavoured cheeses.

The recipe uses bun trays, the particular size of which is also up

to each person, depending on whether large or small tarts or tartlets

are wanted.

Pastry:

Make a basic shortcrust pastry, roll out, cut circles of pastry

to fit the size of the cups in the bun trays and add.

Filling:

500g apple puree (made preferably with tart apples)

200g grated cheese

Sultanas

Heat the apple puree and slowly add the grated cheese, stirring

all the time. It is worth tasting the mixture now and again as the

taste will change as more cheese is added. The actual amount

of cheese used thus depends on each person’s taste. Place several

sultanas in each hollow in the bun tray (the number depending on

the size of bun tray, but three in small trays and 8 in big ones

should be enough) and then fill with the cheese and apple mixture.

Place in the oven at 150ºC for about 20 minutes.

Eat either hot or cold.

We attended the morning seminar on "Sustainable Eating: research

proposals for new eating habits", organized by the Basque University

on their Vitoria-Gasteiz campus on November 23rd. Five examples of

farmers working in new ways to produce and market food were

presented, including the Vista Alegre Baserria farm. Each project then

suggested a series of research proposals to mitigate problems,

enhance benefits and facilitate day to day work. We presented a

dozen proposals we hope to include in the R&D section of this website

shortly.

We spotted this tiny toad just outside the dairy door early one

morning.

In October we mentioned the problems we were experiencing with

the Armyworm caterpillar (Pseudeletia unipuncta) that was eating

its way through some of our fields. We normally leave the last grass

of the season to go to seed and thus our fields naturally reseed

themselves, saving us the time and expense necessary to otherwise

buy and sow seed. Unfortunately the caterpillars arrived just as

grass seeds were germinating and we thus had to buy seed and pay

a seeder to come with a machine for direct sowing. This is a good

example of how nature and farming do not always go hand in hand

and complying by organic standards can imply extra production

costs.... we obviously applied no chemicals to eliminate the

caterpillars but had to pay for seed and seeding.

The weather was once again very variable. Minimum temperatures

went from -0.5ºC to +11ºC whilst maximums ranged from 6ºC to

19ºC. There were two rainy spells with, however, dry days in

between characterised by strong, drying, south winds. We collected

a total of 237 litres in the rain gauge. It snowed in the hills the first

week of November and we had a light frost one morning. 

Nowadays most common salt contains anti-agglomerates (E-536), an

additive that cannot be used in organic production. "Organic" salt as

such does not exist and, therefore, we simply have to locate salt

with no anti-agglomerates. This is not quite as simple as it might

seem and in the end we decided to purchase salt from Salinas de

Añana in Araba, a salt "mine" originally worked in Roman times and

recently restored and set to work again. This salt contains no

additives at all, but, curiously, sometimes contains traces of the

algae that inhabitat some of the saltpans.