Luxury Lemon Curd
This makes a creamy lemon curd perfect on toast or for filling sponge cakes. I use this when we have lots of eggs in the spring. Try ringing the changes and try orange curd by substituting the lemon for a large orange.

1 Organic Duck Egg 1 Large organic lemon
75g (3oz) Castor sugar 50g (2oz) Butter (salted or unsalted)

1. Cut butter into small pieces, place in large glass bowl with lemon rind, lemon juice, egg and sugar.
2. Put bowl over saucepan of simmering water.
3. Stir until the mixture thickens and if you lift a spoon out you can see a trail across the surface.this should take around 20 minutes.
4. Pot into clean glass jar or dish.
5. keep refrigerated and use within 5 days.

Order your eggs online from Higher Fingle shop

Farmers tend to be naturally careful, which means the green mantra ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ is not new on the farm. In fact farmers have an extra phrase ‘collect and keep any junk just in case.’
The other year saw the amazing Agricultural waste registration documents (printed on recycled paper of course) arrive. I make no apologies to including the following extract, which explains what each farmer needs to understand to apply for their waste exemptions
Usually any waste treatment, recovery or disposal activity needs to have a waste
management licence. In some cases, lower risk, small scale and less polluting activities may
be exempt from licensing. These activities are known as exemptions. Under the new rules
agricultural waste now has to be dealt with in the same way as waste from other businesses.
Most farmers will need to register one or more exempt activities. If there is no relevant
exemption to cover your waste activity you may have to apply for a Waste Management
Licence or change the way you operate.
There are more than 50 different exemptions. Some of these relate to specific
industries/businesses, and others can apply to all industries/businesses. Some apply to
farming and agriculture, those listed below are the most common, however you may need
others.
Exemption 40 - Storing non-liquid waste not at the place of production.
Exemption 41 - Storing waste at the place of production.
Exemption 15 - Beneficial use of waste.
Exemption 21 - Chipping, shredding, cutting or pulverising waste plant matter.
Exemption 54 - Spreading of agricultural ditch dredgings.
Exemption 27 - Baling, compacting, shredding, pulverising waste at the place of production.
Exemption 30 - Burning waste plant tissue in the open.
Exemption 47 - Spreading diluted milk on land for agricultural benefit.
Exemption 48 - Deposit of plant tissue at the place of production.
These exemptions are further complicated in the explanations to what they mean, for example the simple question, what can I do with my hedge trimmings? Gives the following answer:
‘Hedge trimmings are not a waste if they are left where they fall becoming mulch around the
base of the hedge they originated from and they do not cause pollution. The trimmings can
be disposed of or recovered elsewhere, either on your farm or off-site, but you may need to
register an exemption. They can be spread as plant material onto your own land (Exemption
7A), they can be composted (Exemption 12), burned (Exemptions 5, 29, or 30), chipped or
shredded prior to recovery or reuse (Exemption 21) or sent for disposal or recovery at a
licensed or exempt site elsewhere. Similar rules apply to grass cuttings.’
It is hard to believe that some one has spent time and money creating these rules, let alone expecting anyone to apply them. As you’ve guessed it’s not just filling forms but the agricultural industry has had to bear significant extra costs. The need to recycle all waste plastic and cardboard will be a good thing in the long term, but the financial burden is an extra cost the industry has had to take on board with a small farm using around 200 bales of silage having a black plastic recycling cost of around £150. The practical problems of sorting plastic, keeping it dry and getting it collected by a registered waste collector are a real headache. Currently most of the plastic seems to be going to china, in empty ships going to collect cheap toys and goods, where it is processed and sent back as bin bags. Maybe with predicted oil shortage plastic will become a valuable commodity for the farm to collect?
25 years ago many farmers viewed farmyard manure as a waste product, now the N, P and K values (the fertility) are carefully analyzed when applying to reduce the cost of bagged fertilizer. On organic farms careful manure management is critical in the planning of production. At risk of the wrath of Crockernwell, the use of manure and sewage sludge may not be pleasant but we all produce waste and is not better that it is used productively and reduce the need for artificially produced fertilizers.

The dust is settling now everyone is back to school. This includes the twins that have happily gone of withe the big ones without a backwards glance! Being left at home alone means i have ample time to tidy up and get all those accounts down and bills paid. But somehow it is just not that interesting, so i have been spending time picking blackberries, trying out my never used bike and drinking cups of coffee with the farmer. After going to a 'get Devon modernized' computer course I am trying again to make our website more interactive and exciting, so back to blog writing! I am also trying to get my head around twitter, or i have been threatened that technology will leave me way behind. But will we ever sell a duck through twitter, stranger things have happened....
Not sure how I do a link but go to Twitter.com and then our user name is Organicduck

Free-range organic meat and poultry

It surprises me sometimes that it is not really clear that organic poultry must always be free range. As part of the organic certification we have to let the ducks out unless the weather would be so bad that their welfare would suffer. The Soil Association (our inspection body) are very strict on this rule and we have to provide food, water and shelter from predators on the range to make sure the birds really do go out. After reading a free range duck egg producer's marketing material that reassures it's customers that in the winter the ducks don't go out as they don't like wet weather, i was intrigued to find what if any rules actually made sure that these ducks were really free range. There are EU rules about range size and access but the area is quite small and there doesn't seem to much regulation of them. When i see how far our ducks range in the day and how they enjoy dabbling in the mud it seems a shame not to let them have loads of space. Mind you all that walking probably means that they are not efficient egg laying machines and with the price of organic feed being over £400 per tonne we could really do with an egg a day. I'm sure that like the slow grown meat birds, a completely stress free duck must lay a better tasting egg and they do taste fantastic, but it may be a while before Elsa makes her fortune!
www.elsaseggs.co.uk

Maybe spring has arrived today, or at least we have seen the sun at last (still a cold wind off the moor). Even managed to dry some washing. The ducks love the fact the day is getting longer and are really starting to lay well. This means that i need to get out and sell as many as possible! Now we have finally got the eggs in Waitrose i am off round Farm shops and deli's to find more stockists. Still selling quite a number by post and we seem to have perfected the delivery without having scrambled. Riverford farmshop are now stocking them which is a great start!
Second sign of spring must be the Venus company (fantastic ethical beach cafes in South Devon) are starting ordering lots of organic chicken again. It is encouraging that they still have the ethics and confidence to buy organic.
We are also getting a goose egg a day from Lucy (8 year old's pet goose)that he loves fried to prove how much he can eat. I have heard goose egg, chips and champagne is the best meal ever, but yet to find the champagne!
World book day this week, which means mum has got to think up some costumes that will survive a day at school, at least it's not going to school in their night clothes day or some of the other great days we have endured!

Take a deck at Higher Fingle Website

Or look at the new site with lots of egg recipes

Here is the new labels

And a little late a picture of the ducks first sight of snow! Just worked out how to get photos on the site.

Hurrah, at last the new egg site is online. Not completely finished with loads more recipes to go up, but it gives an idea of what it will be. Of course it has a gorgeous picture of the inspiration behind Elsa's eggs. Launch in Waitrose is now definitely 23rd Feb, just in time for Pancake day!
Check it out www.elsaseggs.co.uk

My poor ducks are releived that the frost have finally gone and they have lots of water and mud to paddle in again. It has been real struggle to keep all the stock with water and with enough feed to keep them warm. Now we are back to the normal mud everywhere.
Although Jan is normally quiet we are in the middle of a massive Abel and Cole promotion (funded by them luckily) and the poultry orders have gone up four fold. So far things are going well, but there's a lot to get out everyday.
I have finally finished the accounts (just in time) and now I'm trying to get all the paperwork organized for our annual Soil Association inspection . These are always very thorough and tend to last a very long day. The inspector likes to look at all the animals to check on the welfare and housing. then inspects all our inputs and outputs as well as our accounts to make sure we are not doing anything we shouldn't. We some times get a few grumbles mainly about the lack of odd bits of paperwork that tend to go missing, but hopefully this year we will be ready!
http://www.higherfingle.co.uk
We are also on the countdown to the great Waitrose egg launch, hopefully labels boxes and eggs will all come together next week, then it will be all systems go, as long as the ducks don't get frozen up again!

This is nativity play week, we have the playgroup Innkeepers Breakfast and the school Star Nativity. Both have been lovely, but thank goodness i didn't have a star costume just shepherds and Angels. The school play and concert was the best yet with some lovely singing. I'm hoping their dad may leave the plucking for 1/2 hour to see some of it this evening. But as usual we are struggling with staff (having one leave yesterday as he needed a social life) but lots more coming to help tomorrow so the kids and I hopefully won't be required!
Still time to order the perfect organic goose at http://www.higherfingle.co.uk