Oh blessed and joyous days!

If you've been following this blog for the last year or so (and thank you so much if you have!), you know how much I love the BBC series (serieses? seriesi?), Tales From the Green Valley, Victorian Farm, Victorian Pharmacy and Edwardian Farm. I've spent many glorious hours in period reenactment ecstasy.  While I busied myself with crochet, mending, working with dried herbs or whatever other handwork needed to get done, I watched Alex, Peter and Ruth live out the lives of peasant farmers throughout history. (Thanks technology for making that happen bee tee double u!)

And now, my fav trio is back again with Wartime Farm. Coping with the challenges of farm life during the second world war, the group takes us through the war years dealing with the pressure of needing to increase food production for the government, rationing and shortages, refugees from the city and dangerous resistance activities.

I've watched quite a few episodes already while working through the second half (16 lbs) of my black Spanish radish harvest, processing it for dehydrating and fermenting.

Some highlights for me so far (and by highlights I mean clapping my hands and shouting out with glee) have been harvesting rosehips, foraging and haybox cooking.


The rosehip harvest starts at 34:12.


Foraging starts at 23:25 and haybox cooking at 26:43.

Obviously, this isn't about trivialising the tragedy of war or romanticising the hardships people had to endure.  Rather, it's a fascinating look into the coping strategies and skills people quickly developed to ease some of the discomforts of hard times, reduce waste and make ends meet with precious and reduced resources.  And these are skills and strategies that I would argue are just as valuable today.  So pull up some handwork and enjoy this informative and charming series!