Busy

It;s been a busy few days.

Eldest grandson has been staying for a few days, so we've been baking and stuff.  This time round we've made pizzas,  made home-made fishfingers,  and I showed him how to make meatballs out of good quality (in our case, our own) sausages.

He's also been making sweet things - a large batch of choc chip cookies with Thermy and me, and  a slab of chocolate and pecan brownies with Thermy and DH.    The Thermomix has been in action almost non stop.  

I whipped up a banana and white chocolate milkshake one day,  and hot chocolate for him the next.    I should probably point out that he is lucky to be a lean and lanky lad, so can easily devour this high calorie diet for the few days he's here.  Sadly the same cannot be said of me.

He and DH also made several batches of passata, which I showed him how to pasteurise using Preston, our pressure canner

And of course we've been making bread, we're still on the Millet and Rye loaves.

Outside we had a short dry spell so I mowed the grass,.  It was the first time in weeks that it's been mown.  The first few weeks it was too dry and the poor grass was stressed.  Then it rained, and rained, and rained, and the grass shot up. It's been too wet to mow for over a week.

The mower couldn't cope with it all, so it's not finished - but I had done the important bits: inside the Hen Pen, so they now have sweet grass to nibble,  and the small  area in front of the kitchen that we refer to as "the lawn".

I pruned some of the shrubs so the chicks' Cube could be rolled back in to place.  DH pruned his tomatoes, which had been going beserk in the greenhouse.  

We squeezed in a Duck Tour yesterday.

I'm trying to catch up on laundry today as there is a vague possibility that the weather may stay dry enough to enable some of it to be line dried.

I can't help feeling a beet sheepish that one of my highlights is line drying washing. 

Cocktail Hour, Once Upon a Time

I'm not one to drink alone.  Actually, I very rarely drink....  I go through phases of having a glass of wine with my dinner, and then phases of not.   I always drink a lot of wine when I go out to dinner with my friend Yvonne.  In between - I really don't indulge.

I have no idea why.

I wanted to practise my new cocktails, especially as my pourers and bottle condoms had arrived and been washed. DH isn't around, so in the end I  had no choice but to instigate a cocktail hour.

On Friday, I tested my pouring technique, to compare counting to an actual measure.  I didn't do a bad job, but I started to wonder why I didn't just buy optics instead of pourers.  Maybe optics are too slow in a busy bar.

I digress.

I didn't drink my test measure, I poured it down the sink.   My lovely eldest stepson was doing an endurance race, and I wanted to go and see him that evening.  I'm sure one cocktail would have been OK, but I don't drink and drive. At all.

On Saturday, evening. I decided to make a Singapore Sling.  I lined up the necessary bottles,  unscrewed them and fitted them with pourers.  And I made one.

Not bad!

I couldn't bring myself to make a second one. Something about drinking alone. Slippery slopes.  That sort of thing.  I put condoms on the pourers, and left the bottles lined up. 

Afterwards I lay on the bed watching back to back episodes of Once Upon a Time. My Season 3 US DVDs had arrived a few days ago, and I couldn't wait any longer.  [Once Upon a Time is a fantastic show,  fantastic twists on traditional fairy tales,  a really gripping story. Two seasons were shown on Channel 5, but they declined the latest season.   At the end of season 2, I desperately wanted to see season 3.   The US DVDs were released on August 19th, and I ordered a set. They arrived a few days later.

I savoured them. I waited. On Saturday, I was ready to start watching.   They wouldn't play in the living room player, so I had to watch them upstairs. Amazing story telling.  Such rounded characters - no one was totally good or totally bad,  the backstories made it easy to see how each villain became a villain.  

I couldn't cocktal whilst watching.....it felt decadent enough lying on the bed watching DVDs, I couldn't lie there drinking alcohol as well.

I had a break to make cook my Arancini (deep fried risotto balls) made earlier in the day, and went back to the DVDs

On Sunday, I considered making another one.  I didn't. My Once Upon a Time marathon resumed late afternoon.

Today, I lined up the bottles for my next cocktail of choice.  More Once Upon a Time in the afternoon.  At 6pm, cocktail hour,  I made my cocktail:   Long Island Iced Tea.   Rather alcoholic, rather tasty.     I was busy eating new potatoes, steamed in my Thermy, dipped in Tzatziki dip at the same time.  Not sure that's a good thing.

I've got one episode of  Once Upon a Time left.

I'm going to watch it shortly, and then I'm going to wonder how I can survive a year until Season 4 becomes available.

Millet and Rye Bread

I spotted this recipe a few weeks ago when flicking through Jennie Shapter's fantastic Bread Machines & Beyond.  It caught my eye because we had millet in the cupboard, leftover from my trying to tempt Tilda to eat. 

It took me a couple o fweeks to get round to making it for the first time, and I was really pleased that I could use Thermy to grind some of the millet seeds into flour for part of the recipe.

The bread was lovely.  A good crust, full of flavour, and the keeping quality was excellent.  It toasted superbly, which is always a bonus.

I've been making this almost constantly since.  My poor sourdough starters are, temporarily, sitting unused in the fridge. 

• 50g rye flour
• 450g unbleached white bread flour
• 50g millet flakes
• 1 tablespoon molasses sugar in one corner (I've subsequently made it with ordinary dark soft brown sugar and it's been equally delicious)
• 1 teaspoon salt in another corner
• 25g butter in a third corner
• 1 teaspoon easy blend yeast (make sure the yeast doesn't come into contact with the water. Either put it in before the flour,  or make a small dent in one corner and put the yeast in, then cover it with flour.)
• 300ml water
•  50g millet seeds (added at the "raisin beep' stage)
• millet flour for dusting

My breadmaker, a Panasonic, requires the dry ingredients in first.

It also has a yeast dispenser and a raisin dispenser, so that's where mine goes.  Follow the order for your own breadmaker.

Put the breadmaker on to the (raisin) dough setting. Mine takes 2h 20 minutes. Add the millet seeds at the raisin beep stage

At the end, tip out onto a lightly floured surface and punch down gently.  While doing so, shape into a rectangle.  Roll it up lengthways (like a swiss roll), and make it into a thick batton with squaish ends.

Put the rolled up dough, seam side down, onto a baking sheet.  Cover with  oiled clear clingfilm - I don't do this. I put the tray in an enormous polythene bag and tie it.  Put it in a warm place to rise for 30-45 minutes. Don't forget it, overproving is not good.

At the end of the proving time, remove the bag/film, and dust the loaf withth emillet flour.  Using a sharp knife cut several pairs of chevrons down the length of the loaf to give it room to rise.  Let it stand for 10 minutes or so.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees/Gas 7.

Bake the loaf for 25-30 minutes, until it's a golden brown colour and sounds hollow when tapped on the base. Pop on a cooling rack.

Poor Izzy

12 days ago we took Izzy to the Vet so she could have a blood test to check the phenobarb levels in her system.  She'd had a few fits in between Vet visits, and we were wondering whether we ch/could increase her doseage. 

She'd lost a bit more weight.  The vet wanted to check various things, so he needed blood to get the phenobarb levels tested and to check for hyperthyroidism,  and urine to check kidney function and for possible diabetes.

They process the urine sample on site, but the blood has to be sent off.

The good news was that she isn't diabetic.

The less good news was that she had a rampant urinary infection.

The possible good news is that the urinary infection might be impacting on her fits, both making her more prone to fitting and preventing the phenobarb from working properly.  

She had an antiobiotic injection for the infection, with a follow up due today.   We had to wait a couple of days for the blood test results.

Good news - the phenobarb levels are OK, so we have a bit of  hearoom if we need to increase the dose.

Sort of good news - she has a hyperactive thyroid,  and Tim prescribed some tablets to help.  It's good news because it shows the reason for the weight loss, and it should be manageable with medication.

So, she was back to the Vet today, even though it was a bnk holiday.   Another urine test.  Some infections are resistant to some antibiotics (as I have found myself!).     Infection much reduced!  Second injection will be enough.

Still losing weight, which is not suprising as she hasn't been on the tablets for very long.  More tablets prescribed, and an appointment booked for September to do another blood test.  Finally, a quick trim of all her claws,  and we were done for the day.

Home in time for her her first dose of tablets for the day.   She's not been eating cheese lately,  luckily we discovered she has a taste for german sausage.  She's been having extrawurst or bierwurst twice a day for the past week or so. 

Still trying to catch up

DH has been away, doing th ebuild up for a festival,  so the garden has been neglected.  The strange weathr has caused it to grow dramatically,  and it's like something out of a fairy tale in places.

I started hacking back the pampas grass.  I went round the base once,; despite earing a shirt and gloves I still managed to get pampas-lash,  including a particularly nasty one across my bottom lip.  The green waste bin was full to bursting, so I stopped.

Some days later,  I did round two.  I now have a green waste bin that has been filled again, and a one-tonne white bag full of pampas.... plus a couple of other things.  The bay tree I cut down had started to sprout, and had suddently grown up again.  I cut it righr back.  I also had to take out some holly and parts from the adjacent shrubs at the same time.


I cut the pampas back a little more, and a little higher, so that I could move the fencing.  I can't believe how much lighter it is,  whilst still providing dappled shade for the Girls.  I can see that it needs to go back even further - I've unearthed a log I put under there ages ago, which used to be right on the outside of it...now, it's still partially covered.      There are bits of pampass all over the grass, but I'd had enough and had planned to rake the remainder up today.

I also got the shrub book out to see about pruning back the hypericum (St John's Wort) and the lacecap hydrangea which have been running rampant on the driveway.  Both need to be pruned in March, not now, so I guess that saved me a job.

I was set to finally clear up the pampas bits today, before DH returns tomorrow.

Except of course that today it's pouring with rain.

Could be worse.  At least I did the allotment chickens' weekly  mucking out yesterday.  That's not much fun in the rain.

It's not much fun in the dry of course.

But little things...

Trying to catch up

It's been a funny week.

A few days ago, I was seeing to the chooks at the allotment.  Three of the Littlees had managed to escape from their run. I found them sitting, unperturbed, against the netting, with some of their brothers and sisters on the other side.

Henry and his Harem either hadn't noticed them,  or had decided to ignore them.   Henry was cock a doodling a bit more than usual, so I suspect the latter.

I couldn't see how they had got out.

Meanwhile, I opened the gate and shepherded the lost sheep back into their own pens, where they ran off to tell everyone of their adventures on the Outside.

I did the usual chores, which this particular day took a while as I had to clean and scrub the drinkers.   They get a bit algae-fied, and need a bit of a scrub once a week.   All feeders were topped up,  everyone had corn,  and I did a headcount of bothe pens.

I was missing a itte Harem hen. Siouxsie Sioux,  sister to Norman and NotNorman,  was nowhere to be seen.  I checked around and under things.   She had definitely  been there earlier,  as I had seen the three of them together.

I went out of the allotment. shutting the door.  I walked the perimeter fence, in case she had wandered out and around.   Nothing.  I walked again, checking the outward side.  I checked the next door field.  I came back to the allotment, closing the door behind me.  Ichecked Henry's shed.  I checked the storage shed. 

And then there she was.

Bemsed, I locked up. 

On my walk back tot he car, I texted OC (other chap) to let him know that we'd had some escapees and that I hadn't found the escape place,  and to let him know about Siousxie disappearing.  I suggested maybe she'd hidden under one of the sheds.... and I wondered if she was laying under there.

Henry has 12 girls in his harem at the moment.  At any one time.  one, tow, three of them are broody - the record has been six broody at once.   3 hirls (Norman, NotNorman and Siouxsie) are 5 years old and so their irregular laying is to be expected.  At any one time, one of them us likely to be broody though.

I mention this because we've had a drop in egg numbers.   Thinking about Siouxsie made me wonder if some of them are laying under the shed... although that doesn't make much sense because we have 11 nest boxes spread over 3 different houses.   Even when 6 hens were broody, that still left more than enough nestboxes for everyone else.

We are wondering whether the eggs are getting stolen, with Magpies or rats being the most likely suspects.

The next time I went down to the allotment I put extra fencing up along the Littlee line, and I took the memory card from the camera so I could bring it home and empty it, ready to set it up again.

Coxtail Cocktails

We looked at our cocktail menu, and decided we'd better start with something fairly easy to get us into the swing, and then do the more complicated ones - on the basis that as the time (well, our consumption) progressed, there was a chance that we'd be less able to concentrate.

In the 2 hours we made 7 cocktails,  one of them we made twice,  and I had to have a short break in the middle.

We made:

Long Island Iced Tea
(yum!  I'm really surprised as I don't like gin, I don't like tequila, and I don't like coca cola.)

Singapore Sling

(yum! Another surprise as  don't like gin)

Pina Colada

(Yuk. Not on my make-again list)

Raspberry Mojioto

(OK but prefer the standard Mojito. Athough I might try other variants)

Porn Star Martini

(Yum. Passoa here I come.)

Strawberry Martini

(Very OK, I would try with it other flavours especially as we grow fruit in the garden.)

and lastly, Yvonne's favouritre

Screaming Orgasm

Very good. I don't usually like creamy drinks, but this was most acceptable.

I am a lightweight when it comes to drinking,  and I know my limits.  So, I didn't finish any of the drinks we made, I just tasted them.   My "yums" (and the Screaming Orgasm) I probably drank half.  They really were delicious, and I could very easily have drunk them all, but then I wouldn't have been able to make notes on the drinks etc.

I've placed an order for delivery today, and it comprises alcohol and toilet rolls.

Goodness knows what the delivery driver is going to think of that!

Coxtails

Of course on Friday morning we were moving the LIttlees to the allotment.  We had to get up early to get everything fone, so I could be back in time to get cleaned and changed ready for Yvonne and brunch at 11.30.

Yvonne arrived promptly, with her car as I was taking Thermie with us in case we needed to blend any of the cocktails.  There was a minor change of plan.

Although the training was going to be from 1 til 3, Sam the Mixologist was going to arrive at 12.30 so he had 30 minutes to set up.

That didn't give us time to eat brunch at our local cafe.  It's all made to order, we'd planned a leisurely sit down, but we realised that the Sam, might be early.

We drove to the cafe. A cat ran in front of the car. Had we hit it?  We stopped. The cat ran off. I followed it - My own cat had once been hit by a car, was badly injuredm but had still run from the scene.   Lucjily for me a pedestrian who had witnessed the incident reassured me that the cat hadn't been hit.

We arrived at the cafe.  We went in to order our food "to go", and went back to the car to pick up the bag which had been thrown from the back seat ontot the floor, jettisoning its contents.

I had packed a box of 1000 straws.  I now picked up 500 of those straws from the car floor, trying to get them back into the box.  Everything else was undamaged.

We collected our food and coffee.  We were now hemmed in waiting for a supermarket lorry to make its delivery   Fortunately, the lorry realised that there was a long queue and it drove around the block.  We made our escape.  The coffee cups were full, and I was grateful that they were in a cardboard holder. If theyhadn't been, they would be all over the car by now.

We got home to Yvonne's,  ate our lunch, and Sam arrived.

Cocktails

A couple of years ago (really? was it that long?!), my friend Yvonne and I sepent a day at Shaker Bar School on a cocktail masterclass.  We learned to make (Properly) a variety of cocktails, and variations on those cocktails.
Since then we've practised a bitm separately,  and we've practised together.  

Together (1)  was having a day where we re-made all the ones we liked, trying some variations.  We found a fatal flaw in this approach, which was we were physically limited to the number of variations we could try... or rather how well we were able to continue after we'd tried a few variations.  So, we tried a different approach for our second day together.

Together (2) had 2 guests, my Auntie Joy and Yvonne's sister Diane.  This worked well,  we stil made the same number of cocktails, but there were twice as many people to drink them.

We had been trying, unsuccessfully, to get Shaker to run another course - same format as before, but with different cocktails.   Eventually we gave up, and looked for alternatives.  Yvonne suggested Coxtails, which is an outfit who normally provide bar services for parties, weddings, and does corportate stuff..but they were willing to send us a Mixologist for a couple of hours to make whatever cocktails we wanted.  We decided we'd choose our cocktails in advance, and then get our own alcohol etc in - after all, if we liked the cocktail, we'd be making it again.

We booked the date.

Eventually, we went through some cocktail sites and chose the cocktails we wanted to add to our repertoire.

The shoppin glist was sent. Alcochol ordered (I suspect that the supermarket has an exclamation mark against Yvonne's delivery address now).

A 2 hour training session last Friday.  1-3.   That would give us time to have brunch to at 11.30.

All was arranged.

Settling In

So the babies are settling in at the allotment.


We popped back down last night to see if they had managed to get themselves to bed.  They hadn't.  Despite being shut in the coop for a while when we moved them there,  despite the coop being identical to the one they had in the garden, they just couldn't quite connect the dots.  Or they just weren't ready to go to bed.

CharlieFarlie came running over to see me. I scooped him up and put him at the top of the ladder.  He went in.  We then spect soe time catching everyone else and putting them in the coop.    We didn't shut the pop hole. We snuck away.

We heard the clunk of  a feeder, and crept round the outside of the allotment to see what was happening.  Someone had come back out.  Then BigBird came down the ladder,  then a couple of others.

We left them to it.
The weather is OK, so it doesn't matter if they do decide to camp out for a bit.


This morning, they all looked very settled.  There was poo in the coop, so several of them had spent the night in there. Not sure they all had.

So far, the Big Girls and Henry are ignoring them.  It's not as if the Littlees have taken over land that use to belong to the Biggees.   The Littlee area is an area the BigGirls haven't had access to (apart from some of them, a couple of years ago when they were babies themselves).   

And we opened up a new area of grass for the Biggees at the same time,   to make sure they had something else to think about.

Babies leaving home

The Littlees are now 10 weeks old, and we really do have to take them to the allotment.  They are so lovely, and get on so well, it seems a shame to move them.  In previous years we've had larger hatches, and have moved them to the allotment at about 8 weeks when the boys start crowing.

This lot have been fantastic, with no competitive crowing (yet),  and no real trouble or squabbling.   However, they need the extra space that the allotment will give them, so it's for their good that we are moving them.

DH now has daily commitments from Saturday, which we knew about but somehow they snuck up on us.   I'm out tomorrow.  So we have to get the Littlees moved pdq.

After much discussion, and looking at the weather forecast,  we decided to wait until tomorrow morning.  We can take them early, so I am back in time to go out.  They can spend the day out, and DH and I can pop down in the evening to check they manage to get themselves to bed.

I'll be doing Allotment duties (alternate days) for the subsequent 10-12 days, so i can see first hand how they are settling in.

I know they are going to love it at the allotment...but I will miss them, very much.

10 has been an excellent number.

More Izzy

We took Izzy back to the Vet on Tuesday, she needed to have a blood test to check that the Phenobarb isn't causing problems.  She's had a few fits recently, so we were also wondering if she needed to up the dose.

She's also been losing weight. Fortunately, she had plenty of spare to lose,but it's still not a good thing.  The Vet took some urine to check for diabetes.  The blood was sent off to est for the Pheno and also for hyper thyroidism.

They tested the urine at the lab at the Vet.  The good news is that she doesn't have diabetes.  The other news is that she has a rampant urinary infection!  Poor girl!   The infection may also be interfering with the Pheno, which might partially explain the increase in the frequency of the fits.

She had an injection for the infection, we'll go back again for a follow up in 2 weeks.

We'll get the results from the blood tests on Friday.

10 in a bed, the little one said...

Caught on camera for the fitst time, all ten of the Littlees got on to the Bench.

I missed the shot where their feathers were all over the place in the wind.

Courgette Bread

I've just posted this on my Will I Use My Thermomix blog, but it also fits here.

We have plenty of courgettes, so I thought i'd make this.It's from one of Lesley Shapter's Bread Machine books.

I didn't have any buttermilk left, so I substituted ordinary milk with a bit of yoghurt mixed in. It didn't make much of a dent in the courgette pile.

Where did Thermy fit in?  I used thermy to grate the courgette.  It took all of five seconds to get super small chopped courgettes . (Obviously I had to rinse out Thermy afterwards, so possibly not much of a time saving - but certainly effort saving)

My breadmaker did a sterling job of making this while we went out for the evening.

Just had some for my breakfast.  If you didn't know it had courgette in it, you wouldn't guess it had courgette in it.  A lovely, light, multigrain loaf.

Except I put the breadmaker on the ordinary setting instead of the "raisin" setting.  So the multigrains are still sitting in the raisin dispenser.

Toccata and Fugue

When I was little and started to learn to play the organ, I taught myself to play the first few bits of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Mainly because my brothers had been watching  Rollerball.

Over the years I've been able to play some of it still - cdrtainly the opening movement.

I found turned on the cathedral organ sound on Orla a few weeks ago, and played it.  The sound was incredible.   I dug out the Kenneth Baker Classical book that I had used 34 years ago, and tried to play it by sight reading.

Most of what I had been playing remembered was sort of OK, but not quite in the right order. I'd also never attempted to learn a horribly complicated bit in the middle.   Unlike Eric Morecambe playing Grieg's Piano Concerto, the notes were in the right order, but the sets of bars were wonky.

So I decided to relearn it, properly. Ish.

I had to learn whole sections from scratch.  I had to unlearn and relearn others. What had takenme about an hour as a kid, took me many, many plays. I am also aware that hearing someone getting it wrong and re-playing is annoying so I usually only play it once, which of course is part of the reason it is all taking so long.

I gradually sorted out the right hand bits,  and the both-hands-on-the-top-keyboard bits.  I now had them in the correct order, and if I didn't bother with the lower keyboard bits, or the huge difficult middle section, it still sounded OK to the untrained ear.

I gradually added in most of the lower keyboard bits.   Then I started to teach myself to play the middle section.

It got better each time, but it's painfully slow.I'm now at the stage where I can more or less play it through,  but I can't play it through without mistakes.

Today I thought I'd listen to a proper rendition of it, in an attempt to pick up some of the nuances of play.

Big Mistake.

I've realised that my playing of it is like playing a 45 record on 33 speed.

I don't think I'll ever get to the proper speed.

And I also now realise that I only have part of the music.

I don't want the rest of it. What I have is quite enough to be going on with.

Life continues

The Littlees are still in the garden.   We haven't had any crowing yet (I bet I've just jinxed that), so they can stay for a bit longer.

The black chooks are developing brown feathers now, either in stylish streaks, or patterning.  Roobarb (middle chook in the pic) was completely black as a baby, and look at her now.

Tilda (L), Roobarb, Custard

Norah (or was it Batty, I can't remember now) is the mother of 3 of the chicks:  

• Big Bird, the enormous yellow chick, is still kinda yellow.  His/Her grandad was Tilda and Custard's father,  so that may be where it has come from.
• Bert and Ernie, the two mottley chicks, are now very dark brown with splodges.  I can't make up my mind if just one of them is a boy or if they both are. 

Of the 7 black chicks, there are 3 pairs of  "twins", or, more accurately, lookeelikeys.  I would guess we have  4 boys and 3 girls. Charlie, one of the two with a comb, is a boy. Charley-lene is also, I think, a boy.  They look very similar except Charlie has game bird eyes and Charley-lene has Australorpy (black) eyes. Charlie-lene acquired a name because I needed to differentiate from Charlie (and didn't want to use NotCharlie,  I've been down that route before).

We have one definite girl, Princess Odette.  She's the one who doesn't have a Lookeylikey.   She acquired her name because she had a minor  leg problems a couple of days ago and sat around looking like a tiny black swan,  with her elegant neck, small head, and little tail.  She sat looking dainty and graceful, eating the grass around her.  She ate her pellets and drank her water, and is now back to her old self.

The other 4 black chooks - I have no idea, and they haven't acquired names.  One of them is always the last to go to bed, patrolling the lawn first to make sure everyone else is in.  I suspect he's a he.

So, that's 60% of the dinner chickens named.  I don't think I have ever named quite so many before.  I do know better, there is no excuse.

Roosting

The young chooks are now over 8 weeks old, and have started roosting on the bench.

They rest there during the day, and there is often a bit of a kerfuffle as they decide who sits along the back, who along the arms, and who gets benched.

Every time I go out to take a pic, they jump down...so I took one through the kitchen window.

2014-Almost 8.5 weeks old

Cheesed Off

Isobel, our epileptic cat, has decided she's gone off cheese.

This is a shame, as we had been giving her a cheeseball snack twice a day, into which we had secreted her pill.

Initially adding a bit of butter helped.  She soon started licking the butter off the cheese and then spitting the cheeseball out. Sometimes, under protest, she would eat the cheese, but then spit out the tablet.

We tried changing the cheese.

We tried all sorts.

Izzy doesn't like prawns, so that wasn't going to work. Then I remembered that she likes semolina.

I made some, and she hoobered it up, pill and all.  That worked for last night and this morning.

WOnder how long it will last!