I managed to do something creative for the first time in a couple of months. I made a birthday card for my niece, who is self isolating with 2 small daughters. It's really tough for her on her own.
I cleaned out 3 chicken coops yesterday. I also set up 2 additional nestboxes and rearranged two of the existing ones in an attempt to get the Girls to try laying somewhere other than the one single nestbox that the 10 Garden Girls insist on using.
This morning I found an egg on the floor of the run, so that obviously hasn't worked.
Yesterday we had roast chicken (a chicken quarter cooked in the Ipot following Cathy Phipps' recipe.). We had roasties (which were the roasties Id partially cooked and frozen previously), parsnips (DH's own, blanched and frozen the other week), yorkshire puds, and frozen veg. It worked really well. The home grown parsnips were just so very...parsnippy.
I also attempted to make 2 small cheescakes in the Ipot. . I used the previous Custard Cream recipe, but reduced the quantities to about 2/3rds. I didn't have custard creams, so I used bourbon, which I'd bought to make a chocolate range cheesecake. I filled the little springform moulds and got ready to put them in the Ipot. I had a bit of mixture left over, so I tried it... and realised I'd forgotten to put the sugar in!
Emptying cheesecake mix back in to the bowl, wthout the base also falling in, was a challenge. I added the sugar, whipped it briefly, and then tried again.
Just as they finished cooking, and I was waiting for 10 minutes for natural pressure release, DH phoned me from the garden.
Yes, he phoned me from the garden.
"Um, can you come out here please and get the cats. There's a snake out here".
And there was. It obviously wasn't a native snake, ours are dull colours. This one was a sort of pinky orange colour. I googled "pink snake" and then "orange snake", and saw a similar looking one. The one in the picture had a much larger head than the one in our garden, so I wasn't 100% sure.
We kept an eye on the poor thing, and then it started to try and escape the garden into the ground behind. I was very concerned that the poor thing would get injured or killed, so DH gently eased it away from the fence with a stick. It slithered along the fence and, luckily, went into our hedgehog home.
While we kept watch, I asked on our local facebook page if anyone in the village owned snakes. Through that, and through the local Beavers master who is the village fount of all knowledge, I got the name of someone who was experienced with snakes and she very kindly came and rescued the poor thing.
She confirmed that it was, indeed, a corn snake.
It turns out that it's quite common for people to "free" their snakes when they get too big. What a disgusting thing to do!! This one was already a little chilled, so probably would have died before long.
The lovely lady will keep the snake for a few weeks to see if the owner comes forward and, if not, will then rehome.
When we eventually came back in the house, the cheesecakes had been sitting on "keep warm" for 50 minutes. They are in the fridge now, so we'll try one later today.
