Last week our three little piggies went to the abattoir. We sent one away to be ‘cured’ for bacon, while at home we are now enjoying tasty pork nearly every night. This is all new to us and the sight of two complete pigs heads fresh for the butchers had us reaching for the River Cottage Meat Book.

I bought a copy of this weight tomb for Cathy’s birthday last year, and I can honestly say it has been worth every penny of its £25 price tag – a veritable Mrs Beetons for a new generation. I shall therefore take the liberty of quoting Hugh’s recipe here word for word. I warn you thought - it’s not for the fainthearted.

Cut the ears away from the head and scrub them thoroughly under a warm tap (pigs have ear wax too). Remove any bristles with a razor or tweezers. Then place with the quartered head in brine for 24 hours. Place the quartered head, ears, trotters, onions, bundle of herbs and bag of spices in a large stockpot.

Season to taste with a little salt and pepper. Remove the herbs, onions and spices from the cooking liquor and strain it through a fine sieve or, better still, muslin. Stir a few tablespoons of this gelatine rich liquid into the chopped meat to help the brawn set as it cools. Pile the mixture into terrine dishes or a pudding basin. Place a weighted plate or board on top and put in the refrigerator to set.

This, Cathy followed to the letter and what resulted was a very pleasant terrine indeed – a bit like up-market corned beef. If you take my advice though, you won’t tell the kids what’s in it until after lunch!

The River Cottage Meat Book

“Let me get this straight”, said Alice (aged 11¾), “It’s tipping with rain, there is a freezing wind, we are trying to climb our way out of a steep quarry and you want me to carry a dead otter???”

Welcome to our Saturday afternoon family walk.

February, having already delivered both a false spring and then a bout of snow and ice, returned to business as usual with wind and driving rain. Unwilling to let the kids spend the whole day glued to the box Cathy and I rounded them up, issued boots and waterproofs and off we went to research a new walk for the campers this summer.

For years now we have had a set of A4 laminated guides that lead campers and visitors around the farm. This has always been enormously popular and I thought that another walk to take in some of the local footpaths and places of interest would be a good idea.

Not far from the farm, (but unfortunately on the open moors with no obvious path), is a huge smooth granite boulder known as Jubilee Rock. In 1810, a local veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, Lieutenant John Rogers, carved into this an image of Britannia and various Cornish coats of arms and it remains a very striking landmark with exceptional views from on top.

From this perch, which like the farm is on the very edge of Bodmin Moor, you can descend 300’ very rapidly to the parish boundary – the De Lank River. It was here that we found the dead otter. Now for the last couple of years I have been collecting otter spraints (poo) for the local wildlife trust as part of their DNA identification project, (see entry for 12th March). Despite this, and like many other members of the trust, I had never actually seen one of these elusive beasts, and so to find a recently deceased one was very exciting. I also reasoned that it would be of use to the project – and so it joined us for the rest of the walk.

A footpath then took us into the De Lank quarry. As it was deserted for the weekend we were able to have a sneak peek at a very exciting project that is being created there. The world famous Eden Project have commissioned an artist to carve a giant granite seed sculpture which will be the centrepiece of their new education building. This 167 tonne lump is “the largest single block to be moved in Britain since the building of Stonehenge, which when finished will be the biggest sculpture in history made out of a single rock.”

www.edenproject.com/about/1264.html

As we started the 300’ climb back onto the farm the heavens opened and the rain began in earnest and we were all please to get back to a warm fire and a cup of hot chocolate – except the otter who has now taken up residence in our freezer.

Having made a bit of a joke about the positioning of our new greenhouse (see entry for the 7th January), I now have to report that we have been forced to move it completely to a new temporary home - in a redundant barn.

Amazingly it survived the intense northerly gales over the New Year period. During one sleepless night these extraordinary winds seem to shake the very foundations of our granite farmhouse, and we lay awake waiting for the sound of smashing glass through our bedroom window. However, the morning revealed only very minor damage, and I thought that our problems were over. I wasn’t too concerned when a couple of weeks later the news was full of severe weather warnings again, as I have noticed over the years that after one tree-felling storm the weather people tend to get a bit jumpy and hype-up any impending spells of bad weather.

This time it was a good old-fashioned sou’westerly, and we were pretty smug with ourselves around the breakfast table after this second lot of gales had failed to shatter even a single pane of our horticultural dreams.

However, as is quite common with the Met Office, they got the weather right – but the timing wrong. All morning the winds continued to pick up and at about 10.30, while I was dealing with one of those annoying telephone questionnaires, I could hear Cathy outside in the garden screaming for help.

Out I rushed, to find her clinging for dear life to one corner of the buffeted greenhouse like a novice windsurfer in a sea of broken glass. I quickly joined her and with every fresh gust it honestly felt like the whole structure was in danger of flying away, allowing us an insight into the joys of paragliding. After 5 minutes of uselessly shouting at each other I ran off and collected the sledgehammer, some fencing stakes and cargo straps and we managed to peg the windward corner down and retreated to the safely of the farmhouse for a cup of tea.

We were lucky…very lucky indeed that we even have a greenhouse left at all. As it is we were able to salvage most of the glass and with the help of four small children lift the whole structure and walk it to a new home under the barn. Obviously, it will not be as sunny here, but on the positive side it is now completely safe from the extremes of global warming. Greenhouse gases???…not ‘alf!