Bethan Lewis

https://youtube.com/channel/UCLshpaECVZwFqF-QzP1XyWw

Here is the link-l think. I'm new to smartphones, and  couldn't work out how to copy and paste.

Threshing by hand is quite hard work, but it doesn't take that long - just an hour or two one afternoon, or two in the case of this year's rye crop. Our flails are very big-you could make them smaller, and it would be easier, but probably take a bit longer. I've put other videos online on my YouTube channel, which is called hoe farming, how to create a self sufficient farm.

I have recently been making little videos of myself and members of my family doing different jobs on our smallholding in Brittany, France. Traditional agriculture is  not completely dead in these parts, and we have learnt lots of things from the old people round about. Clever ways of storing vegetables for the Winter, working the ground using a hoe, or mattock, cutting lots of grass and spreading it as a mulch,  and also threshing by hand with flails. Here is a link to a video l made of threshing this year's wheat crop (which was actually very poor, but the rye was better).

Thanks for these recipes - I'll have to try some of them out.
Bethan

Hi,
I wondered if anyone has a good cracker recipe. Rye grows really well here, in Western France (Brittany), and I have lots and lots of rye which I mill into flour.
I would like to make rye crackers, but I have not had much success. If I use leaven, or yeast, the crackers take ages to cook and go bendy. If I use no yeast the crackers go very hard, and nearly break people's teeth.
I buy some great german crackers (Knackerbrot), which are 100percent rye, and have no yeast in, which are crisp, but not hard.
This is what I want to make, but I don't know how.
Can anybody help?
Thanks a lot
Bethan Lewis
Brittany, France

Hello-I'm glad the photos came out well. I live near Guingamp, in central Brittany - in reply to your question.
At the moment everything is processed by hand. The grain is cut with sickles then threshed using flails (in French, fleaux). We winnow it using an old winnowing machine, and sieves, and mill it with an electric flour mill. All quite a lot of work, but very rewarding.
Bethan,

Hi, I've just joined this forum/website, and I thought you might be interested to hear about a little homestead (smallholding) in Brittany, France.
My family and I moved to France from the UK when I was 13, and bought about an acre of land. That was in 1994, so quite a long time ago now. At first we did lots of silly things with the land, but gradually it became clear that some  things work and some things don't. We also learnt a lot from the old people who lived locally (many of them are now dead). When they were young they all grew all their own food, without tracters, and often had only one or two animals, such as a pig, and maybe a cow. They also lived in little stone houses, that were completely eccological, and had a lifestyle that was of no harm to the planet.
Obviously, modern farming has changed all that, and now this area is full of chicken and pig sheds, tracters, and modern farming techniques.
However, on our little plot, we are trying to put the old ways into practice - and having pretty good resultts. My Dad and brother have planted lots of native trees, divided big fields into little (very little) fields, and we also do most of it by hand. The main innovation has been using a sturdy tool called a hoe to break up the ground, rather than a tracter or plough (plow). It's slow work, but it's nice and quiet, doesn't break, and only breaks up the top few inches of soil - which seems to be a good thing.
Here is a picture of the veggie garden and the wheat and rye patch.
Cheerio
Bethan