I always thought the six-week long summer holiday was arranged around the harvest and that traditionally school children would be expected to work in the fields when they weren’t in education. But the timings don’t quite work out as the harvest of many crops doesn’t end until later in the autumn.
In addition, the current school system was developed over the course of the 19th century, when English farms were increasingly mechanised and having children helping with the harvest would only have been necessary for a small percentage of the population such as kids from East London helping with the hop harvest in Kent.
Whatever the origin of six weeks off at the height of summer is, it’s probably not for the sake of farmers. Perhaps it was just to be nice to school students by giving them time off at the sunniest part of the year. As the climate continues to warm it’s probably best to keep the long break as classrooms are getting too warm for teachers and learners. This year in some parts of the world schools closed a month or so early as it was dangerous for children to be in classrooms in 500C without air conditioning.
Smallholding staycation
Folk who don’t live on a smallholding often ask me what I do during the long summer holidays. Other smallholders will know that the summer is a busy time of year and that leaving the veg and fruit unattended for any length of time can be a disaster in terms of harvesting. That doesn’t mean Hubster, and I don’t go away, but if we do it’s usually only for a couple of days at a time.
So far this summer the meadow has been mowed, the onions and garlic are in, the potatoes are up, the carrots are pulled, the peas are getting podded, berries of all colours picked and so on. Once a crop is harvested then the produce needs to be graded, some is kept in long term storage in sacks or blanched and frozen, some is pickled, some turned into cordial or jam and some dried.
There are chores to do every day. The offspring are set to work – they don’t really bother to complain much, although picking worms out of potatoes is no one’s favourite job, they just know it’s how we live.
Eating the rainbow
Health professionals suggest we should eat 30 different plants a week to provide the broad spectrum of nutrients we need to keep our bodies, particularly our digestive system, healthy. Our gut microbiomes apparently need beneficial plants from 6 groups including: wholegrains (brown rice, oats, barley, and quinoa) vegetables (this is where we are on a winner), fruit (lots of those grown here too), legumes (think lentils, chickpeas, and beans), nuts and seeds and herbs and spices. All of these will count towards your weekly quota.
A serving of most plants from the six groups count as one whole point, although some such as herbs and spices, are each a quarter of a point, due to the small amount we eat in a meal.
I find it’s actually easier to just make sure you eat plants across a rainbow of colours as different chemicals are found in different coloured plants which contain compounds called polyphenols. Polyphenols have antioxidant properties which may help keep us healthy and protect against various diseases. The more variety of these superhero compounds we get, the better as they can also have anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial activities to improve our health.
Our cornucopia from the smallholding means we are physically active and healthy but mentally, a day of work in the hot sun is just as exhausting as 8N for a double lesson on a Monday morning (drat, I was hoping not to think about next year’s timetable!).
No rest for the wicked
A few people (okay, the right-wing press) think that the long holidays for teachers are for absolute relaxation, this is simply not the case for a teacher that is focused on education for sustainability there is far too much work to do. The climate emergency and nature crises aren’t stopping this summer so neither am I.
I’m busy through the summer networking, creating new resources and planning events for next term. It doesn’t feel as much like work as standing in front of 30 pupils in a hot classroom trying to get them to focus on the learning objectives for electric circuits especially when the electricity kits really are past their sell-by date (except the buzzers which seem to be somewhat indestructible but set my nerves alight in an instant).
However, Hubster and I do have an interest outside of trying to be as self-sufficient as possible and working on sustainability, we simply love live music. So yes, we do go away to a couple of small festivals each summer to let our hair down – this is metaphorical for Hubster as he has a bit of a buzz-cut. To avoid coming back to marrows in place of courgettes and plants that have died from dehydration we tend to just go away for a night or two.
Festival fun
We were at a fantastic festival last weekend. You meet some incredible people at such events, often like-minded green souls. I had an amazing conversation with Lorna, an eco-hearted mortician, about dead bodies. She told me I was wrong to want to be buried in a cardboard box with a walnut planted on top of me as it would quite possibly die too as there is a nutrient overload from a decomposing body. Apparently composting is far better than burial and creates useful mulch.
So, dear reader, please write to your MP demanding that composting of human remains should be legalised! Lorna was a wise old bird!
Big festivals
Big festivals and named bands are just too expensive and commercial. We love those smaller events which make you feel loved and appreciated rather than extorted. However, not everyone is harmonious.
We were watching a headline act on the first night when a young man, who was dressed up as Puck from Midsummer’s Night Dream with an antler crown, waved a huge stick (maybe he thought it was a magical staff) above our heads as he was dancing. Hubster christened him Puck the F*ck and we giggled whenever we walked past him for the rest of the weekend.
Greener festival the better
Obviously the greener the festival the better. I’m happy enough using the composting toilets which seem to smell far less than the chemical portaloos. We had a great time and the catering options available were incredible, we tried street food from around the world. However, there was still too much stuff for sale. I
’m a great believer that we should buy nothing we don’t really need, and even hippy-style tat is still tat. All I came back with was a head full of ear worms and knees that ache. Hubster and I definitely don’t need two weeks away, just a long weekend of intense fun and frolics, then it’s back to the harvest we go.
Note to self: Remember to defrost the chest freezer and use what we haven’t eaten from last year. It’s always the same old foods that get leftover. More rhubarb cordial, rhubarb crumble, rhubarb compote and rhubarb gin coming up!
