We took part in a two more video conferences with secondary

school students, this time with students from Balmaseda on April

13^th

and Elorrio on April 29^th as part of the Basque Government Education

scheme Egin eta Ekin. As with the video conference in March with

students from Sopuerta, they asked some very good questions.

Regards COVID none of the Vista Alegre team has received the

vaccine, one of our team had to be in preventive quarantine for

a week although was not found to be positive and one of the shops

we deliver to also had to close for preventive quarantine, although

the shopkeeper herself was not diagnosed positive.

We made our first load of silage in April, with the usual sequence of

mowing, partial drying, baling, storing and slurry spreading.

Successfully carrying out this sequence of chores and, additionally,

obtaining maximum quality silage, depends a lot on weather condi-

tions. Dry weather is needed for mowing, baling and slurry spreading,

but then rain is needed to get the grass to grow again. This might

help explain the popular idea that farmers are never happy with the

weather (!) but also why farmers are generally worried about clear

signs of climate change which here suggest we are losing our varied

weather patterns. Having spent a lot of time and energy making

and baling silage, it is very discouraging to see the bales broken by

escapee livestock. The bales have to be resealed to prevent silage

rotting, the escapee animals’ owner located and diplomatic sugges-

tions made to prevent the livestock escaping again.

We also carried on clearing unwanted plants such as ferns and

brambles on slopes.

Periodical checks are vital for all farm machinery.

The weather in April alternated between a dry spell at the start of

the month, a few wet days with just under 60 litres of rain, another

worryingly long two week dry spell with no rain at all and then a

last rainy spell at the end of the month. We collected a total of

94 litres in the rain gauge. The dry, sunny days often started

with light frosts and dawn temperatures of only 1-3ºC, whilst mid-

day temperatures were unseasonably warm, reaching 26.4ºC.

Recipe of the month. Custard cream

There are many sorts of custard cream, a substance used in

many different recipes. It can also be eaten on its own, prefe-

rably after cooling in the fridge.

For half a litre of custard cream:

500 ml full cream milk

1 stick of cinnamon

Half a lemon

3 egg yolks

85g sugar

50g corn flour

15g butter (optional)

Heat the milk with the cinnamon stick and lemon peel. Remove from

heat before reaching boiling point. Mix the egg yolks, sugar and corn

flour in a bowl. Remove the cinnamon stick and lemon peel from the

milk and add half of this to the bowl and mix well. Put this mixture

into the saucepan with the rest of the milk over a low heat and stirring

continuously but slowly, trying to avoid incorporating much air. As the

mixture heats within five to ten minutes it will gradually thicken. When

it reaches boiling point add the butter (optional) and stir until tho-

roughly mixed in. Take off heat and when sufficiently cool, put in fridge.

Both the narrow leaved ash (Fraxinus angustifolia) and the common

ash (Fraxinus excelsior) are found in the northern, Atlantic part of

the Iberian Peninsula. Ash was frequently used in traditional medi-

cine and the leaves were purportedly shunned by vipers as being

toxic for them. In fact the ash was believed to provide protection

against snakes in Britain, for example, rockers on a child´s cradle

were made of ash to protect against snakes.  Ash was the second

most important wood used at the start of aeroplane construction.

From a livestock point of view, apart from providing shade, many

animals browse ash leaves.

Three cows calved in April giving us two bull calves and, at last,

a heifer calf.

The cows grazed whenever the weather and the ground were

sufficiently dry. We also gave them freshly mown grass, forage

and a little feedstuff. The rain at the end of the month means

we will definitely get at least one more silage crop which itself

helps guarantee winter feeding.

Other farm animals such as the pigs and hens foraged outside.

Our new glass milk bottle washers were finally installed in April up-

dating the technology that guarantees hygiene of the bottles re-

used.