A couple of Chaps in the News

The problem with running a farm and having a full-time job appears to be that at some points of the year certain things have to slip, and over the past five weeks it has clearly been the Blog that has suffered! Many Blog worthy things have happened, but there just hasn't been time to transform them into an entry - although Sarah may come along later and add some more in-between ones.

A brief summary of the noteworthy things are:

• Ledbury's Saturday market continues to go from strength to strength and we will be there every Saturday from now on and also at a number of the Tuesday Charter Markets, but, unfortunately due to building work Bishop's Cleeve Tithe Barn Market will not be restarting until September - but we will be there when it does!
• We have bought in a couple of Lop Sows from a few people who were going out of pigs in nearby Shropshire. One of the reason was to help protect the breed, because these two are from different female bloodlines. Up until now all of our Sows have been from the Lulu line, but we now also have a Harmony and a Sunshine - obviously if you are not a pig breeder this won't sound as exciting... certainly if Sarah's attitude is anything to go by!
• We will be at Countrytastic at the Malvern Showground on Thursday the 12th of April. As last year we will be bringing a couple of pigs for people to meet, but this year we will also be bringing some of our sausages for sale.
• We will also be at the Blossomtime festival, part of the Big Apple, on Monday the 7th of May and we will once again be putting locally produced Cider (and a few other secret tipples) into our Sausages - at the Main Big Apple event last October this led to a huge variety in the final flavourings... so come and sample this batch of contenders to choose your favourite!
• We will again be open for Open Farm Sunday on Sunday the 17th of June. We will have more details of the activities we will be offering nearer the time, but there will be plenty of pork/pig to buy! 
• On Monday the 18th of June we will be part of one of the walks of "The Herefordshire Walking Festival 2012 - "Several trails through farm fields are followed by chance to feast on the Herefordshire produce grown and reared there. These walks includeWonder of Pigs and Apples, an eight-mile route from Putley which leads to Noggin Farm for a pig and apple lunch" from www.livefortheoutdoors.com, for more on the festival, we are walk 13, see visitherefordshire.co.uk for more information & to book; tickets will be £14 for adults and £10 for children including a pig & apple lunch, a post walk tea and tastings of Cider & Perry at Once Upon a Tree.
• As can be seen from the previous points the weekend of the 16th/17th of June will be a busy one, unfortunately it also clashes with the Three Counties show - so we have decided to let the Show Team put their trotters up for this year, but they will return afresh to the show-ring in 2013!

Anyway, back to the actual topic for the Blog post...

Yesterday was a momentous day - it was the first time either of us had eaten chaps. The chaps are the pig cheeks and this was the first time that we had had a pair that hadn't been snapped up, however I was not expecting it to be a culinary highlight, so I didn't bother to get the camera out or to make notes of what we, well actually Sarah, did - apparently a slow cooked Chaptastic Stew. Surprisingly they were actually beautiful and the taste was probably most similar to belly pork - I won't be upset if the next set don't sell on Tuesday!