Season of Mists

Autumn fruiting raspberries. 'Autumn Bliss' variety here

Well into Autumn in these parts now, with plenty of wet, gusty days, mellowing fruit on trees and bushes and the lighting of ranges in the evening. As I sit typing this in my 'under the stairs' cozy nook, I can feel the warmth of the fire on my back. All the livestock is sorted (except for final lock-up, obviously), supper is in the oven and the day has been very much in the harvesting, safely gathered in, winter stores and gathering winter fu-u-el mode. Even the supper has this tint as we are now doing a close audit on the freezer(s) to use up long-term stores to make room for the imminent arrival of pork.

This morning I was over to Sue and Rob's where Friends of the Blog will be pleased to know the lady has recovered well (physically anyway) from the mauling by that billy-goat. She may take a while before she is comfortable mentally near billies but that'd be quite understandable and also manage-able. The mission was to cut down and cut up a dead old tree that had been worrying them with the possibility of it demolishing the poly-tunnel.

Buff Orpington hen 'Bobtail' ignores that the month is September
and goes broody, due 15th. 

Connoisseurs of all things 'chain saw' might be interested to know that this was a bit of a tricky one. The tree, dead at least 2 years had dried out and seasoned to hard-as-iron where it stood and the trunk had split in half with the grain roughly in the same plane as I needed to cut my wedge-cut. Rob's chain saw was failing to make much impression on this tree so he'd asked me to see would my saw do better.

In box 4, Stumpy goes for a 2nd bite at the motherhood cherry.
She is due to hatch the 5 eggs I slid under her on 29th. She has
already successfully reared 5 babies to independence. 

Long story short, we got on OK. It was hard going but my saw managed the cuts needed - I cut my wedge out of the downhill half of the split trunk and then my back cut into the uphill side hoping that 'my' half would work like the normal "hinge". We were both quite relieved when the tree started to fall in the intended direction with no sign of the split opening up and un-springing dangerously. With the tree down it was normal every-day stuff logging up the smaller stuff and Rob decided we did not need to slice up that hard gnarly trunk today; I just cut it into 5 foot lengths for stacking and use later.

Caught red handed. Well yellow tongued, anyway. Kato
is 'washing up' the egg wash from some Lizzie baking.

Next, well, this is Sue and Rob's, so tea and CAKE. Better even than normal, this logging job had been postponed a day because the pair were busy cooking cakes to enter in Strokestown Show on Sunday. I had been promised tasters of the spare baking - Sue's 'normal' fruit cake, Rob's "boiled" fruit cake and some nice chocolate cake too. How we suffer.

Red wine kit bubbling away.

We have finally got around to making the wine from a kit we were given as a gift months ago, just when we stopped drinking wine regularly and evolved into gin and craft beer drinkers. So long ago, in fact, that the box of the kit featured as a prop in the Village Play at Easter, which required the lead actor to delve in his bag of purchases and pull out "wine making equipment". To make the wine we simply had to get motivated and then re-unite the box with its former contents, including all those little sachets (A through E) and the instruction sheet which were, obviously, "just on the surface somewhere". (Family in-joke)

A disc of soon-to-be-rinded goat's cheese curds

In the cheese making Liz has branched out from the quick and easy recipes in the Strawbridge book (Feta style, 'fresh' or 'soft goat's), to a harder, pressed and rinded type described in the 'Gubbeen' book (maybe I need to start doing a proper bibliography for these posts?) .

Those yellow fungi I posted a pic of recently have now opened
fully and split in the rain to make almost daisy-like shapes

This one we made in the muslin-lined-colander technique but we have now ordered on line some proper plastic cheese moulds (with 'followers' - the slightly smaller cylinders that push down into the moulds under pressure). We are promised another 8 litres of milk from the goat-milkers (Thanks, Sue and Rob again!) when these moulds arrive, to try them out. Meanwhile the first one is being salt-sprinkled and then saline-washed and is developing a very convincing rind. It takes 10 days at least, apparently to develop the acidity and savoury salty tastes to taste like a real cheese. We are all excited.

Poppea (left) and Deefer (nearly 11 now) sound off at the
neighbour's cattle from a handy tree stump. 

Not much else to tell but I will add a few more pics just because I have them. Till next time, then. Good Luck now

Towser. 

Home made suet - clearing the freezer. 

Mathematicians need to decide whether the Fibonacci series
is followed by the birds REMOVING seeds from a sunflower.
There's a project!

Blue Skies, Butterflies and Bog Hoppers

Our long wet July and August were beginning to feel like the slide into Autumn had started without us ever getting any Summer but, no, out of nowhere we are suddenly blessed with 2 good, honest, blue sky, sunny days. In proper, genuine Irish fashion, poor Liz even manages to pick up a minor sun-burn. She dozed off while listening to a historical pod-cast on the i-phone while wearing a spaghetti-straps top and sitting out on our terrace so she has gone an interesting red colour about the shoulders. Nothing too alarming, mind. We do not anticipate her skin falling off .

Small tortoiseshell on purple verbena

The sunshine has brought out an explosion in butterflies such as I have not seen in the time we have been over here. I had come to accept that butterflies in Ireland were a few orange-tips in May and perhaps one or two large whites to lay their eggs in your brassicas. I'd not seen a single butterfly on our buddleia. I am not that good on butterfly ID; I know the 'usual suspects' (peacocks, commas, red admirals etc) but I get very lost around browns, gatekeepers, fritillaries and the like.

Red admiral

Over these two days of heat, then, I have had to try to get a few pics and sort out some IDs. Please correct me if I must be wrong, but the lane out here is alive with what I think are speckled woods (No picture - they do not stop long enough and get very nervous if you loom over them). The flower garden is a-flutter with red admirals, small tortoiseshells, peacocks and a tiny white one which I do not know - each wing is not much bigger than a thumbnail. That one might even be a moth. It is all rather lovely and summer-ish after a dreary month.

Your chicks arrive at a day old in these neat,
4-chambered boxes.

Regular readers will know that our first batch of Hubbard (meat) chickens are now getting "harvested" (there's a euphemism for you!). They will give us 12 good sized birds for the freezer but would expect to see us only about as far as Christmas so when our friends and ace chicken procurers, Anne and Simon offered to get us a second batch in August, we jumped at the chance. Our friends Sue and Rob, who took 6 of our last lot (of 18) also asked to come in on this order, so A+S headed off to the huge hatchery near Monaghan with quite an order.

24 balls of fluff. How cute can you get?

Hubbards are excellent birds and are known among we free range (and in some cases organic) keepers for the big, tender and tasty carcasses so Anne was joking with us that as soon as the word goes round that she has birds, all the gang descend on her placing their orders and she is (her own admission!) a bit too soft with them and lets all her birds go leaving she and Simon with only a few for their own freezer. Last time A+S did all the work, as usual and only got to eat half a dozen of the birds so this time they went prepared and came home with enough for everyone. Thanks, as ever, Anne and Simon - we will make sure to do the birds proud. They are day olds now (well, 2 days as I write this) so we hope to be seeing them 'finished' in mid November. That will re-stock the freezer for the spring time.

Out free ranging. Marans birds at 5 weeks.

While I'm on chickens, the Marans poults are now 5 weeks old and, in this hot sunshine, are getting to explore the patch each day. I make sure they get a good breakfast into them, then throw open the rabbit run in which they sleep. In practise they do not go far yet - day 3 and they stay in the yard being visited by all the other chooks and Guinea Fowl who patrol around the place in big circuits, passing through the yard frequently. As they get bigger and braver they will start to range further but probably stay in their little tight-knit group of half a dozen.

The gosling's left leg (red circle) is held up at this odd angle
as he/she hops along on the right foot.

Meanwhile our nearly full-grown gosling has suddenly gone lame with symptoms echoing, worryingly, the problem of the old mother/aunt bird a couple of weeks back who never really recovered from being broody. He/she (I'll go with 'she' for ease) holds her left leg up against her body and hops along on her right helped sometimes by wing flaps and the (damaged?) heel of her flexed leg.

One of the local bogs (Cloonargid = Silver
Field) is bright with heather.

We would normally cull such a bird out as they struggle and get very distressed when lame as they are so front-heavy but this one seems to be coping OK. She hops out of the coop in the morning and moves around with the healthy four adults, gets to water and to food and then makes it home in the evening. I carried her in just the once when she was newly lame and had not mastered the one-legged gait, but she has not needed help since. We will observe her and, for the moment, give her the benefit of the doubt. The speed of the problem would indicate injury rather than a developmental thing but we are not sure as we know that 2 of the mums are almost certainly recessive for 'wry-tail' which can cause pelvis (and hence leg) problems.

An early duck egg. 

At least one of our ducks has come into lay. They have rather sneaked this one up on us, though we should have known to expect this at around week 26. I had seen sexual behaviours out in the orchard. Then 4 days ago I picked up an egg from the yard broken into by a magpie. It looked pale but I thought no more of it. 3 days ago there was another pale egg just inside the chicken house (where the ducks sleep) on the floor. Liz had that one as a poached egg but still didn't click. Another got used in cakes.

Bog Trotters - our 3 westies at Cloonargid bog.

We are slow learners here (!) and only when Liz cracked #4 into the frying pan and noted the pale colour of shell, the thicker 'egg white' and the stronger membranes did the shout go up. "This is a duck egg!". Of course we are onto it now and I know to find the daily egg at ground level once I've hooshed the ducks out to grass. Ducks, of course, don't do above ground chicken nest-boxes. I presume if we get to breeding these birds and need a 'nest' to go broody on I do something at ground level; I need to ask someone who KNOWS about ducks.

Bacon boiled in Coca Cola. I kid you not. Finally there is a
valid use for the stuff other than as hang-over cure of choice
for the late, lamented 'Diamond'. 

So, there you have it for this one. Other than the above we have just weeded, knitted, crocheted, cooked, taken pics for '365' and fended off visits from stray dog 'Bobby' and drunk oceans of tea through the days. Loving the sunshine, though.

Getting all Autumnal

It's all getting very Autumnal round here now with a definite nip in the air and, this morning, a genuine frost with crisp grass and a bit of ice on the rabbits' water bowl. The nights are clear which means that here, in this unpolluted air with no street lighting to interfere you can see a gazillion stars - too many sometimes to pick out the constellations you "know" from Kent. The Milky Way is clearly visible and the moon has been full (although now waning) and it is all very beautiful. Mornings can be quite beautiful too with the mist visible over the turf bog below us in the valley. This morning was extra special as a bright red "Shepherd's Warning" sunrise came up behind a bank of mist, filling the whole 'farm' with a bizarre soft pink mistiness. Luvverly!

Autumn, then, so no-one should be thinking of Springtime and producing babies? You'd think not. However, we have a chicken gone broody on the 30th Sept and ever since then sitting on her clutch of now TEN eggs in the centre nest box. Sussex Ponte chickens are a 'mass produced' Utility hybrid rather than a fine tuned Pure-bred variety; they are 'designed' to lay 300+ eggs a year and be healthy and to not go broody, so we have had a couple of aborted attempts through the Summer but they usually last only a couple of days before madam gets bored and wanders off, abandoning the eggs to go cold. Not this time, so far. She has gone 7 days so far. Incubation period is 21 days, so we might, just might, have some newly hatched chick babies to show Niece Madeleine when she comes over on the 22nd. Don't count your chickens, though....

Also, the rabbits, whom we were sure had not 'taken' to the attentions of our friends Anne and Simon's buck rabbit Peter and had given up on needing the Maternity Unit this year have produced a surprise. Mum spotted the black and white lop-eared girl, Padfoot hauling dry hay into a burrow they've made in the old compost heap which is currently part of their run so we took a look today, thinking that if we find any signs of nesting we'll move them all indoors. Too late! We found a nest alright, but this one the text book ball of fluff pulsating with new life! That is all you get to see first according to the books and any attempt to rummage among the ball of Mum's belly-fur will result in Mum deserting the nest, so we retreated in a hurry, returning only to bring a sheet of curved corrugated to put above the compost heap as a rain-shelter. We will have to just wait and see. No end of disasters can befall rabbit kittens, not least being eaten by adult rabbits or predated by rats (or cat kittens!) but if we can get to 4 weeks they stand a chance of having been weaned so we can rescue them to the Maternity Unit then. No such excitement for Padders's sister Ginny, by the look of it.

 In other Autumn related news the fields we own and those surrounding (over which we have permission from Vendor Anna L to walk) have many many blackberry bushes in their hedges and these have yielded up 2.5 kg of lovely blackberries which Dad has supplemented with a couple of Bramley apples to make 12 and a half jars of delicious (says Dad) jam.

We have also had a couple of still windless days and 'windless' round here means "it's OK to use the chainsaw as you can tell which way the tree will fall". Dad has had a chance to top up the big log store, which now contains about 2.5 cubic metres of logs. That should keep us going for a few cold nights! It is made up of 2 big ugly, diseased Leylandii, some hay-barn beams (the rectangular bits), some big elder and plenty of the dead black spruce 'weedings' from the woods.

In Autumn food Mum and Dad have been exploring some Indian cookery (don't worry - nothing you'd call 'hot' or too spicy) from the new Madhur Jaffrey cookbook but also plenty of winter-warmer recipes. Today, for example, lunch was homemade leek and potato soup with some smokey bacon in it and tonight "pork bones". We'd never heard of this in the UK but here it comes from proper butchers as short lengths of pig-spine split longways. One 'chunk' is about 6-8 inches long so contains about 5 vertebrae but band-sawed into two halves lengthways, with the spinal column 'canal' exposed. You slow-cooker these as you would ox-tail, shin-of-pork or lamb-shank, till the meat falls away and all the cartilage goes gelatinous. In Mum and Dad's case they did it in a Chinese sauce (star anise, soy, ginger, garlic etc) and served it with noodles and steamed chard. The left over bones have plenty of interest for dogs, pups and kittens.

The only other thing exercising us at present is the 2CV finally getting prepared for her NCT (= MOT). Dad finally got hold of a windscreen so now the car is in the garage for its idling to be sorted and for a pre-NCT check up, prior to booking the test. We hope there are no problems with this but we have heard, rather worryingly that the NCT demands all tyres be no more than 6 years old even if they have new tread. This could be an issue.

Deefs.

Autumnal

We all head for Diamond's on Sunday afternoon for a Ruby Murray which Diamond has cooked thinking we'd all be exhausted after Saturday's loooooong day. This will be followed by some of Diamond's famed lemon ice cream and naked strawberries. En route we happen upon the steam train waiting under the bridge at Faversham Station at the end of Faversham's Hop Festival. We pause on the bridge waiting for it to pull out of the station. Because of the sponsorship involvement of local brewery Shepherd Neame, the train is re-plated as "Spitfire" for the weekend, Spitfire being one of Sheps's beers (very nice, too, says Dad). Unfortunately as we are part-packed at home Dad can't find the box the mobile phone came in (and therefore the cable), so we can't download the pictures he took of the train (Sorry M Silverwood!). I am happy to stay on the bridge till the train, starting to move emits a loud, deep, bassy 'HHWWooomph!' Best a dog hides behind Dad's legs. I wasn't expecting that!

Today we get a nice walk all out the back of the allotments, where the rape fields have now all been harvested, the trash cut away and the soil disc-harrowed. The crumbly tilth is a lot easier to walk across than the 4 foot tall rape plants were to battle through, when you are only a small dog.

Dad must catch a train to Rainham to go pick up the car which has now had the dent put in by silver-haired-posh-bloke-at-Morrisons taken out again. Dad takes his hat off to Hidsons of Rainham for the brilliant job, well and professionally handled for no charge to him and including a thorough clean of the car outside and valet inside. Also to Citroen's own insurance company who did us proud and waived the excess when posh-bloke (at Dad's persuasion) fessed up to the dastardly deed.

A gale of wind blows up from the SW bringing a very autumnal feel to the weather, especially morning and evening. The leaves on many trees are turning colour and some are drifting down. God bless the French Windows - one gust of wind and your Dining Room is turned into a compost heap. I suppose the breeze is, though, getting the washing dry, so Dad'll be please by that. We help Dad and Angel B to pick nearly 5 lbs of damsons off our tree.

Meanwhile we're all still waiting abit frustratedly for some progress on the legal bits of selling the house. How can it take so long in these days of modern IT systems and easy access to information?

Deefs

Autumn in the Garden

While we've all been rushing about dealing with Daimond's "release" and Meggie's vet visits, Autumn has quietly come to the garden. We have some lovely clumps of white cyclamen, planted more in hope than in certainty, from small dig-ups taken from the pud-lady last year. Mum and Dad had thought they'd faded and died with the up-rooting, but here they are flourishing in the wild-stawberry-y bit at the base of the birch.

We also have many roses doing a late flush after the drought and a serious amount of dead heading, and a good crop of apples (goldens and coxes) and half a dozen good sized quinces turning yellow. Also coming out is a nice clump of Sedum spectabile, actually the two surviving separate halves of one plant which Haggis liked to sit in the middle of, in his youth,

Dad has been away in Stoke for a night picking up some kind of works award (zzzzzz) but is now back, and tonight it's Mum's turn - off on a "leaving do" for a colleague. What rock and roll lifestyles we lead, to be sure.

Dad nips Meggie back to the vet's for a check up and Meg takes the opportunity to bleed onto the vet's table from her pad-scar - not before or since, just for the couple of minutes she's on the vet's table. Other than that we are declared good to go.

Have a great weekend y'all. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of some video footage taken on the narrow boating holiday, and now saved by Mr Silverwood, to CDs. Happy memories.

Deefski

Megan

Quite a nice pic, we thought, of Meggie bimbling through the same Autumn leaves you had me in last night. No such luck tonight though - Mum and Dad arrive home from work both late and both frazzled so that, so far anyway, we've not had a walk tonight.

It's shaping up to be a mad weekend, too, with the humans here having a "Sex and the City" party Saturday night (so I suspect Megan will want her toenails painted tarty-red again, like she did on the last episode night. Plus Dad has promised to take a few more people out into Challock forest to see the deer in rut again (eh heh - three women in the forest and none of them are Mum - how racey is that?).

And then there's a lunch do for Diamond's friend Mary. I suspect we'll be fitted in around all that lot somewhere, and a camera and some more autumn leaves may be involved if the sun shines.

It's the weekend!

Deefer

Autumn Leaves

Back to the Rec for some more chasing about in the autumn leaves, and we meet back up with Louis (...and I think to myself....what a wonderful world....etc) the Cav from yesterday. He is playing with a ball, and naturally I have to try to nick it

This turns into quite a good game, and we have the camera to record this. With Dad standing to one side while Louis's owners chuck the ball, Dad can get some good shots of us at speed.

Young and fit, or what?

Deefer (and Louis)

A Delicious Roll

Some nice pics for you today. I am hoping that following deep research which established that they will appear in the blog in the reverse order to that in which they were uploaded, I can describe them in a sensible order.

The day starts with a lovely walk through Challock Forest - all dried, crunchy, rustly autumn leaves and opportunities to scurry about. Also a chance for a gorgeous delicious roll in the leaves to pick up all the scents a dog could possibly need. Pic 1 is of Meggie (left) and the H walking towards the camera. Pic 2 has Haggis (bottom of shot) and my good self rolling in the leaves.

I am back in the doo-doo having chewed the sole liners out of one of Mum's favourite comfy shoes , so Dad (if he wants to live, apparently) has to get in touch with a guy called the "Shoe Doctor". It's a dog thing. I cannot tell a lie. I did chew up the shoe.

Exhausted from our Challock walk we are delighted that Dad has decided that winter is here and has bought in coal and logs for some real fires. Here is a pic of myself (left) and the H stretched out in front of it

Fianlly, after 3 years of yowling and hissing at each other as soon as one got near the other, the two cats seem to have settled their differences and are now able to sleep together, curled up on the carver chair, much to the amazement of the humans. So here is photographic evidence of Felix (black and white) and Mississippi (brindled) in case we all wake up in the morning and think we've dreamed it!

Have a great weekend

Wound up by the continuing fireworks

Deefer

Autumn

There's no denying it now. A chilly NW breeze is whipping in at us across the Thames estuary bringing with it dark, rain-heavy clouds. Walks are taken as a dodge between showers, and humans are wearing coats and keeping an eye on the sky.

None the less, we are re-acquainting with all the old walks after our camping and narrow-boat breaks - the Rec, the Cemetery, the Iron Wharf and the boat yard. Yesterday we saw that our old chum S.B. Greta has come "home" to her usual winter residence, after her summer running trips from Whitstable fishing harbour. Soon she will be de-rigged ready for her winter maintenance. We will be able to see ship's dog "Alfie" regularly

Tonight though, Felix is off to the vets. He is sneezing regularly and has been, off and on, for what seems like about a month. More on than off. He may just have a cold, but Mum and Dad are worried that this may be related to a fight we think he's had, when one day he came back with a bit of blood in his eye, or to being grabbed on the nose one time by Asbo. Perhaps it has damaged the inside of his nose, and this is irritating him. But he's a tall, rangey, tough-talking dude, and he never complains. I'll keep you posted

Deefer