Welcome!
Home slaughter can be an emotive subject – but it can be hard to understand why. Tim Tyne launches a new feature series on the subject this month, and he says that for animals destined for home consumption it makes perfect sense to slaughter them yourself in familiar surroundings, where they were bred and reared. In this way you also know exactly what you are eating, how the animal lived and how it died. Sure, there are rules and regulations to follow, but you can finally tuck into a delicious Sunday roast with a clean conscience. The feature is on pages 8-10.
Two other CS writers, Adam Willcox and Andy Richards, also extol the virtues of consuming meat from your own animals. On pages 60-61, they say they eat less and less meat that is not their own. “For one thing, the taste just isn’t the same,” they say. “Eating a bog-standard supermarket sandwich just began to feel wrong. There was no sense of occasion, no reward for the hard work.”
FEELING FESTIVE
The big day may still seem a long way off, but let’s not forget this is the Christmas issue! We have plenty of ideas for gifts for the smallholder on pages 40-42, and for the henkeeper on pages 16-18 in our Poultry section. Mrs Simkins also has some fabulous festive recipe ideas on pages 44-45.
On pages 29-30, John Sones offers 10 tips for saving money – ideas that Scrooge would have been proud of! There some clever self-sufficiency ideas here in the classic tradtion of ‘make-do-and-mend’. On page 5, we even hear from a reader who applies these smallholding principles in far away Malawi. On page 6, TV presenter and smallholder Kate Humble reveals how she likes to spend Christmas – on a beach, hunkered down with sausage sandwiches, then back home for a supper of smoked salmon and an unChristmassy film! Whatever your tastes, enjoy the festive season and all the best for 2016.