We had quite a few visits in July. Two groups came from an English

language camp on the 1^st and 6^th of July.

On the 3^rd two families from Elgoibar (Gipuzkoa) visited the farm and

Naroa, Naroa and Gorka enjoyed being on the tractors.

On the 5^th a family from Seville visited with their Granny who was

originally from Karrantza

and on the 9^th a family from Bilbao came to see the farm, a family

that buys our produce and had wanted to visit since just before the

COVID pandemic.

A family from Amorebieta visited on the 19^th and a family from

Getxo on the 23rd. 

The most notable aspect of the weather in July as the long heat wave

that brought daytime temperatures up to 37,6ºC and nights during which

the temperature did not fall below 20, in fact one night the lowest tempe-

rature was 23,1ºC.. There was very little precipitation and we only co-

llected 13 litres in the rain gauge .

The weather conditions were awful for the allotments: tomato flowers

dried up without producing tomatoes and marrows wilted big time,

We think our bean harvest will be about two thirds of the usual one

and the peas only about a third. On the other hand the potato and

onion crops were very satisfactory.

There was also hardly any grazing for the cows, but we did manage

one hay crop, taking advantage of the zero rainfall and  sunny wea-

ther during 9 consecutive days.

Whilst making hay this stork (Ciconia ciconia) followed the tractor

picking off crickets and grass hoppers.

What did the cows eat?  The animals grazed most days

although as it hardly rained there was very little pasturage. We

also gave the milkers dried forage, grass silage and a little feed-

stuff but no freshly mown grass.

Flower of the month. Common yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Other common names for yarrow include nosebleed plant, old man's

pepper, devil's nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier's woundwort, thou-

sand-leaf, and thousand-seal. The reference to nosebleeds is due to

the fact that in past times yarrow was known as herba militaris, for

its use in stanching the flow of blood from woundsand in some areas

the top parts of the plant are still collected for medicinal uses.  Yarrow

was also purported to act as a plant “nurse”: if planted near an ailing

plant its root secretion were said to trigger disease resistance. Its

leaves are a very good compost accelerator.

Yarrow is native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Whilst it has no particular use in forrage in our area it was apparently

introduced as a feed for livestock in New Zealand and Australia where

it has also become a common weed.

We have seen swallowtail butterflies in the limestone crags to the

north of the Valley of Karrantza but for the first time we saw this

one on the farm this July (Papilio machaon).

Recipe of the month      Easy lemon ice cream

2 cups double cream

1 ½ cups single cream

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons grated lemon zest

5 egg yolks

¾ cup fresh lemon juice

Combine double and single cream, sugar, and lemon zest in a

saucepan; bring to a simmer over low heat. Cook and stir until

sugar is dissolved, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Cover

saucepan and allow the mixture to steep for 10 minutes.

Uncover pan and bring back to a simmer over low heat. Beat the

egg yolks in a bowl. Gradually stir one cup of the hot cream mix-

ture into the eggs, several tablespoons at a time. This will help to

bring the eggs up to temperature without scrambling them. Stir

the egg mixture back into the cream mixture in the saucepan.

Cook and stir over low heat until the mixture just coats the back

of a spoon, 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl; cover. Re-

frigerate overnight.

Stir the lemon juice into the cold ice cream mixture. Transfer ice

cream to lidded freezer containers, and freeze for 4 hours to ripen

flavours before serving.