This month Jandra started work in the dairy to substitute Miren

during her maternity leave.

Elena has also started part time, at least until we sort ourselves out

after Miren’s rather sudden departure.

The cheese master Jose Luis Martín spent two days with us again,

the 15^th and 16th , mainly to give Jandra some additional training,

but we all benefitted from his expertise and could improve our own

cheese-making knowledge.

Flower of the month: (Rosmarinus officinalis /

Salvia rosmarinus) Rosemary.

The name rosemary comes from Latin, “ros marinus” meaning

“dew of the sea”. Rosemary is native to the Mediterranean

but survives in other colder climes. The first known written

mention of rosemary is on a 500BC cuneiform stone tablet.

The plant had reached China by 220AD and in the 17^th

century reached America with the settlers. It is obviously

not part of natural biodiversity on the farm, but rather is

grown as part of farm biodiversity for its culinary properties.

The plant has, in fact, been used in cooking in many different

parts of the world but, contrary to popular belief, has little

medicinal value. The plant usually flowers in spring and

summer in temperate climates but also has a tendency to

flower outside its normal flowering season, here usually in

January. Flowers can be white, pink, purple or deep blue

and we find the plant in general has less scent here than

wild rosemary found in Mediterranean areas.

A group of friends from Lea Artibai visited the farm

and dairy on the 5^th

Recipe of the month: Iberian style meringue

1 litre full cream milk

200g sugar

5 eggs

1 spoon cornflour

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Separate the egg yolks and whites.

Whisk the whites until stiff with 50g of sugar

Heat the milk with the rest of the sugar and the vanilla essence

and bring to the boil. Turn the heat to low and introduce “balls”

of whisked egg white using a soup spoon. Boil for two minutes

and then take the meringue balls out of the milk.

In a different bowl, mix the egg yolks with the corn flour and a

little cold milk until all thoroughly diluted and mixed. Add, little by

little to the pan of milk and egg whites, stirring rapidly all the time

to avoid the egg yolk congealing. Stir over a low heat for two

minutes, take off the heat and continue to stir for another two

minutes until the mixture thickens and cools.

Pour the milk mixture into dessert bowls and put one or two

meringue balls on top. Optionally sprinkle with cinnamon. Cool in

fridge to serve cold.

The weather has been very changeable again. We had relatively

cold days in which the temperature only reaching 7ºC, but even

though we have had one or two frosts, we haven’t had the really

cold weather usually associated with winter.

Other days the temperature reached 17ºC and even 18ºC one day,

usually when we had quite high south winds, which gave us some

unusual cloud formations.

Even though everywhere seemed to be damp all the time, we only

collected 47 litres in the rain gauge.

Once again, the cows ate forage (alfalfa, etc) and a little concentrate

but were also able to graze outside.

This month two bull calves and twin bull and heifer calves were born.

Normally heifer calves when twinned with bull calves do not make good

milkers. However, given the dirth of heifer calves we are experiencing

we may keep this particular one.

This month we slaughtered a heifer to make salami and chorizo sausages .

We went to the farmers market in Bilbao every week and this market is

still proving to be really important for sales to regular customers but

also to tourists visiting Bilbao.