Flannery's Chicken

"When I was six I had a chicken that walked backwards and was in the Pathé News. I was in it too with the chicken. I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax."

Flannery O'Connor


Nemo-Portrait/SelfPortrait by artist Mary Britton Clouse from The Animal Gaze Returned. The Pathé film of Flannery O'Connor's chicken walking backwards can be viewed here.

Back to the Future

"Away they glided, slowly, silently, the people in the boat sitting absolutely still. It was part of the river spell, deep down there between the hills. One had to climb quite a long way up to reach modern transport levels. The main road with its angry speed, the waiting railway..."

Adrian Bell Men and the Fields


We're back home after four beautiful quiet days on the canal and my aubergine, pepper and TPS seedlings survived my absence!

Sunny Sixteen Degrees

I peeked in on the bees yesterday. They were very busy foraging and returning with at least three different colours of pollen in their baskets - white, lemon yellow and goldenrod. There is still a fat heavy frame of honey stores and the queen is laying again as I saw both eggs and grubs.
So the colony seems to be in rude health and, hopefully, will expand this spring to full size.

R.I.P. All My Hens

The thing I didn't think possible happened last night. Fort Fox was breached and all the chickens slaughtered. I salvaged the bodies of the three young ones and spent the morning plucking, cleaning and eviscerating. Woglinde's first egg of the season came out intact (see below). The shell of Flosshilde's was too soft and it got scrambled in the poop chute. All that's left is a big pot of Brunhilde soup, a meal of Flosshilde au Vin and Woglinde is in the ice box for a later date. So tragic. We must rethink our defenses before getting more.

To Pull a Chicken for the Sick

"You must take as much cold chicken as you think proper, take off all the skin, and pull the meat into little bits as thick as a quill; then take the bones, boil them with a little salt till they are good, strain it, then take a spoonful of the liquor, a spoonful of milk, a little bit of butter as big as a large nutmeg rolled in flour, a little chopped parsley as much as will lie on a sixpence, and a little salt, if wanted, (this will be enough for half a small chicken,) put it all together into the sauce-pan, then keep shaking it till it is thick, and pour it into a hot plate."
Hannah Glasse 1747


Illustration from AgenceEureka

I am just decamping my sick bed after two weeks of fever and catarrh. I did manage to set the potatoes to chit and last week in a feeble state I drew lines in a dirt tray and sowed peppers, aubergines and 5 new varieties of True Potato Seed from Tom Wagner @ New World Seeds & Tubers.

5 Eggs...

... this year. All laid by dear old Doris. I'm getting a bit impatient with the other freeloaders and thinking this weekend there might be Poule au pot on the menu.

SnowBound Chickens

Doris on the left and her doppelgänger Flosshilde on the right.

*Werner Herzog clearly hasn't met the right chickens. Just look at these clever faces...

The Big Freeze

We finally have a little taste of winter, freezing temperatures at night for several days now and some snow on the way tonight! That adds up to a Level 3 Cold Alert from the Met. I have to chip through 3/4 of an inch of ice on the hen's water bowl each morning and I've put a blanket on top of the hive. I'm thinking maybe this would be a good time to get out the ice skates and head for the fens. I've just listened to a reading of Roger Deakin's 'When Fenland's Finest Raced with Jack Frost' on Caught by the River. And I've learned about champions 'Turkey' Smart and his brother-in-law 'Gutta Percha' See who reigned during the golden age of Fenland Skating in the last half of the nineteenth century. Inspirational stuff.
Or I could put the fire on and make another pot of tea...

R.I.P. Ronald Searle

From The Great Fur Opera (Annals of the Hudson Bay Company 1670 - 1970)

Merry Christmas

Via Ugly Renaissance Babies

Turnip Prize

Last year's winner was the (then) topical 'Chilli'n'Minors' (pictured below) by Doug Pitt.

Group Of Seven

We went today with a few friends to see 'Painting Canada' - a good selection of Tom Thompson and the Group of Seven's output on show at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. It's made me a little homesick which is good as I'm heading back for a visit on Tuesday. However the fall colours are long gone and the predicted weather for Fredericton is 1° and snow flurries. Urghh!

'Wineskins of Brown Morbidity'

I harvested medlars today and set 125 of them, bottoms uppermost, in the greenhouse to blett. And then? Another round of sticky brown glorps?

Another Ho Hum Harvest

For pottage and puddings and custard and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies,
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it were not for pumpkins we should be undoon.

Pilgrim verse circa 1630

TPS No.16 & 25

No.16 French Fingerling x Magic Molly and No.25 Thumbertime x wild species

TPS No.11

Bolivian landraces Pirampo x Khuchi Akita

TPS No.6

F2 Pam Wagner

Women With Cows

I've just been to see a great film - Women With Cows. Don't miss it!

Teapots of Note - No.1

"The first cup moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my loneliness, the third cup searches my barren entrail but to find therein some five thousand volumes of odd ideographs. The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration, - all the wrong of life passes away through my pores. At the fifth cup I am purified; the sixth cup calls me to the realms of immortals. The seventh cup - ah, but I could take no more! I only feel the breath of cool wind that rises in my sleeves. Where is Horaisan? Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away thither."
Lotung Tang poet


The ingenious patented SYP (Simple Yet Perfect) teapot - with a little perforated shelf for the leaves and two little teats that allow for steeping in a supine position. Once the required strength is reached, the pot is righted and the leaves are held on the shelf out of the brew.

A Green Sort of Complete White

'I saw colours often on eggs,' I observed, 'colours which have no names. Some birds lay eggs that are shaded in a way too delicate to be noticeable to any instrument but the eye, the tongue could not be troubled to find a noise for anything so nearly not-there. What I would call a green sort of complete white. Now would that be the colour?'
The Third Policeman Flann O'Brien


Alice laid her first egg today (middle), Brunhilde (right) started last week!

Phew!

Henry II R.I.P.

Yesterday's alarm clock... tomorrow's Coq Au Vin.

The Treachery of Vegetables

Red, White and Blue

Last year I saved all of the tubers that I grew from true seed. This year I get to taste them. I dug a couple that were just starting to die back - No.16 French Fingerling x Magic Molly - and cut and cooked the ones that got damaged with the fork. The white fleshed ones are much more floury and prone to fall apart than the ones with coloured flesh, but all taste superb. Most of the plants are huge, still very green, some still flowering and I will leave them in as long as I can stand the suspense.
Carol Deppe has posted about living on a steady diet of potatoes here.

Adventures with Potato Seed Continued

I've selected some fruits from the potato plants growing from last year's TPS harvest from which to save seed to grow on next year. Coloured yarn kept with the seed corresponds to bits that are tied around each of the plants so that once dug, I can record the colour and qualities of the mother potatoes. As the bee hive is right next to the experimental potato plot, the results will be anyone's guess. Maybe as quirky as those pictured on Home of the Potato (via ABW)

"Autumn is Near..."

"... Autumn is here. Sing shed sing."
Listen here to this seasonal song. (You might have to put up with an ad first)

Saint Fiacre's Day

... Patron saint of gardeners. And taxi drivers. And sufferers of fistula and venereal disease.

More Peppers

A Mammal's Notebook

"My only nourishment consists of food that is white: eggs, sugar, shredded bones, the fat of dead animals, veal, salt, coco-nuts, chicken cooked in white water, mouldy fruit, rice, turnips, sausages in camphor, pastry, cheese (white varieties), cotton salad, and certain kinds of fish (without their skin).
I breathe carefully (a little at a time) and dance very rarely. When walking I hold my ribs and look steadily behind me.
I sleep with only one eye closed, very profoundly."

Erik Satie 'A Mammal's Notebook'

Slim Pickings

It's a disappointing year for tomatoes in my back yard. They started looking sorry for themselves quite early on and that caused me to get cross with them. So I punished them by cutting short their water rations... Anyway, very few fruited in the greenhouse (yellowhouse) before I removed them completely but some of the outdoor ones are beginning to produce now so all is not lost. It's a mystery because under the same conditions in the same soil the peppers have flourished (and continue to) and yielded bumper harvests. Possibly the pot size?

I Heard an Owl...

Walking back from the pub last night through the remains of the Great North Wood we saw two short-eared owls - about 30 feet above us, mesmerized by M.'s bright torch. The calls that we initially heard were the squawking sounds that follow the hooting on this RSPB webpage. I notice that the Wildlife Trust runs a night time 'nature prowl' there on August 26th. But for great owl watching go HERE.

August

"Sow the principal spring crops this month. Cabbages and endive are best sown early in the month, and cauliflower and lettuce towards the end. Sow giant rocca and tripoli onions (to stand the winter), hardy green-top stone and orange jelly turnip, and a final sowing of winter spinach."
The Horticultural Notebook J.C.Newsham 1914


Outside I've just sown Purple Top Milan, Japanese Hinona Kabu and Golden Ball turnips and Green Meat Daikon radish.

Name That Nutrient Deficiency

Certain of my dwarf beans are looking a bit peak-ed and yellow round the gills. Please lend your help by participating in the poll below so that I can nurse them back to tip-top condition.

Identify the Nutrient Deficiency
	Nitrogen
	Potassium
	Magnesium
	Manganese
pollcode.com free polls

Three Months On

Portraits of the five that have reached adolescence - two elegantly bouffanted Cream Legbars, one Rhode Island Red Soup Rooster, one Barnevelder and one Buff Orpington. They have outgrown their cradle and their three big ugly stepsisters still won't let them roost in the loft so they are sleeping in the nest boxes for now. Click to enlarge.

Sunday Peppers

A - Pasillo Bajio, B - Chinese Five Colour (just like it says on the pack), C - Paradicson Alaky Sarga Szentes, D - Serrano Tampequino, E - Hungarian Hot Wax, F - Anaheim

Bee-clothed

More pictures of China's BeeMan contest here.
Our bees have settled in and are very active foraging right now, but it's a small colony and we will probably have to feed them to get their stores sufficiently built up for the winter.

Stop the Rot

"The decay usually makes it's appearance in the form of a spot on the surface of the fruit. This should be scooped out and the hole filled with plaster of Paris formed into a paste to the consistency of thick cream by the addition of water.This will set quite firm and arrest further decay. The contents of the fruit-room should be examined at least once a week."
The Horticultural Notebook J.C.Newsham 1914

Advice on Pruning

"Ye should prune and train wall-trees like the ribs of a skreen fan or ye fingers of a hand displayed." Anon. c.1700

*A very thorough book on the history and art of Verdant Sculpture can be accessed on-line by following the links at Hooting Yard.

Potato Blossom

Variety of colour in the flowers of potato No.21 - John Tom Kaighin x Negro y Azul.

Image Recognition

In order to track down Jeremy's forgotten cucumber (see comments below) I have employed Google's new image search tool. I just drag and drop my cucumber photo into the search window and - hey presto! Click on image to enlarge.

Cool as a . . .

"In the time of our English George the First , a want of courage was popularly imputed to tailors, insomuch that nine of these pusillanimous worthies were needed to make one man; and, as report went, 'Tis the opinion of our curious virtuosos that their lack of bravery ariseth from the immoderate eating of Cucumbers, which too much refrigirate their blood.' "
Meals Medicinal W.T.Fernie

Mud Poultices

After a full season of beelessness, this evening we housed a nucleus in our chicken-loud glade. And I got stung thrice on the head for my trouble. I remember my first ever sting when I was about five and by way of a remedy my mother pressed a spoonful of mud on it - a sort of poultice to draw the poison out. Unfortunately I didn't remember until a long while after I was set upon - too late to find out whether it's effectiveness wasn't largely dependent upon the presence of mother.

"Restore the Honour of the Cucumber!"

"We need to restore the honour of the cucumber."
Spanish delegate Fransisco Sosa Wagner to the the EU Parliament

Blue Pod Capucijners

Q departed Thursday, and just now the peas that I had hoped we would be eating during her stay are beginning to form. It rained today!

Tonight @ The Horse Hospital

We rescued one (stag beetle) from the water butt Tuesday.

The Drought of 2011

Less than 10% of the average rainfall for April following March with only 20% of the average and now a very dry May has meant that I've spent many an hour watering in my crops. The ground is bone dry everywhere else and much of the landscape around the South East is brown at the edges. Today they promise a shower. On the up side, slugs have not been a problem so far this year.

Six Chicks

They are two weeks old now (this picture was taken 8 days ago) and have their wing feathers. I'm certain that one Rhode Island Red is a male and possibly one Cream Legbar is of that persuasion. I don't like to count my chickens even after they've hatched but it looks like we have at least four future egg layers. Many an hour can be lost watching these little fluffballs. Official portraits soon.