Singing Chicken

Somebody said to me that he thought the jackdaws weren't living in the village any more. It's winter so of ocurse they aren't nesting in the chimneys. Anyway I said I always see lots of them in small flocks on the fields when I am out and about with the ponies. I assume that when they are not nesting, they are just flocking by day and roosting by night, like the starlings and the fieldfares and lots of other birds. In built up areas, you see them all over the grass on roundabouts.

I read up a bit and found that they often flock with starlings and that other jackdaws from Scandinavia and Russia come and join them for the winter. Again, just like starlings. They eat worms and snails and things, but what do they eat when it's frosty and the ground is hard? I once saw a load of them on a field where lumps of turnip or something had been scattered for the sheep. They go to the woods too, where it is more sheltered.

Jackdaws pair for life. Divorce is rare, and when it happens the divorced (males?) get relegated to the bottom of the pecking order. I suppose the females are left, busy raising the young

However, now that it's spring they have been appearing in the village again, checking out the chimney pots, so soon we won't be able to have our open fire any more, for fear of smoking them out. We will have the joy of their 'KeOOOw! KeOOOw!' call for the next few months, and Ludo will have to start dodging the divebombs again. He gets too near to their nests and they fly at him. He even gets 'V' shaped chunks missing from his fur from their attacks.




I said the word 'fauna' to a friend recently and continued to talk of animals. Without mentioning the blog. My friends don't know about the blog. I was asked what animals had to do with fauna because surely fauna was about leaves? So just in case anybody else wonders the same, fauna is about animals. Animate things. Animals, birds, fish, even insects... 'Flora' is the plants bit. I suppose even we humans are fauna.

It's a while since I did a proper food post. Would you like some duck broth? I used the last of the stock I made out of the Christmas duck carcass and made this rather worthy looking but very tasty and nutritious broth with lots of veg and barley. I usually put in dried peas but I had run out of those.



Maybe Spanish style fish pie is more to your taste? Unusual pastry made with flour, olive oil, melted butter and water. It was a bit tough but probably healthier than short crust and much easier to roll. It didn't keep breaking up, as I find shortcrust does.




Or some sweet and sour turkey? That was the best of the three, and very easy. For Bernard's info it's the Tower Slo Cooker recipe for sweet and sour pork chops on page 54 if you have the hardback. I found the recipe all sweet and no sour though, so I shoved in a load of malt vinegar and kept tasting it until it was right. There's another recipe for just a sauce on page 35 so you could say I used a combination of the two, with the pineapple chunks added.

STILL not ridden cos STILL clearing that shed all weekends! Nearly done though.

I love oranges but at this time of year I find them cold on the teeth when they have been stored in a cool place. They can be hard to peel at any time of year and the difficulty and mess can be a deterrent. Do you know what I've started to do? Leave them on a radiator. They get lovely and soft to peel and they are much juicier. If you do that with the small ones - clementines, mandarins etc - the heat goes right through them and they are warm and delicious. Mmmmmmmm....And they make a subtle scent in the room.

There. I haven't done a food post for a while. Hope that goes some way.

Every so often, I prepare a post and go to 'Post Options' so I can set a later date. I put in that date and time and press 'Publish', and it schedules it for later publication.
Lately, when I have set a future time and date and pressed 'Publish', it has gone and published it! Even if I keep changing the future dates and times, it STILL keeps publishing it immediately. GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!! The one about food on the 23rd was an example. It went on without the photo of the sweet n sour turkey because I was going to load the photo the next day. Sorry. The dish is there now, though out of focus.

Don't suppose anybody knows what to do about this. It'll be one of those annoying little Blogspot glitches I suppose.

We've got snowdro-o-o-o-o-ps!!!!!
For years and years I've been trying to grow snowdrops. I tried digging them up 'in the green' from other people's gardens (with permission!) and planting them immediately, tried potting other peoples' then planting them, tried buying bulbs in packets, tried buying little pots of growing snowdrops from garden shops and planting them immediately and then more when they had died back. I was told they were very difficult to get going. The last time I tried, I thought 'right, just this once more'. I can't remember when it was or where I bought them but again they were in little pots from a garden shop or market stall, and now they have popped up! I am so delighted. Hooray! And now they are here, they will spread. It's so super dooper!



And elsewhere winter jasmine. Oh, that should be a winter sign then. Oh, well...



And daffodil spikes.

I saw two pied wagtails on a wire this morning, sidling up to each other, obviously mating. At this time of year it's too early for the birdies to start building nests but they start to sing again, to look for mates and for nest sites. They go 'house hunting, investigating all the little holes, old used nests, nestboxes etc.



Somewhere at a lower altitude than Foodyland is a farmer who always starts lambing extremely early, earlier than is natural, but the first sight of those very early little lamds always makes it feel as if spring is just around the corner - but it's a long corner and in my book February is still a winter month.
I only see them fleetingly as I whizz past on my to and from work. They love to race round the field in big gangs, running and jumping for the sheer fun of it.

I know, I know, I'm a day late. When I was little, Valentine's Day was a secret card and maybe flowers. I think. I wasn't an adult then so I don't really know. However it seems to me it has got too commercialised, like everything else. They do TV adverts for chocs in the weeks leading up to Mothers' Day and Easter and they never used to 'in my day'. Same with Valentines. When did you ever see restaurants monopolised by Valentine's menus in them days?

Hubby and I went out on Satruday night with his brother. The only menu available was the Valentines one, which was hardly appropriate. (Take it from me, ladies, you wouldn't want to have a romantic meal out with my b-i-l and you don't need to meet him to find out!)

Having a December birthday can make it a bit annoying going for a birthday meal out, because they tend to have only a reduced choice Christmas menu on offer. You feel like telling them 'There are other occasions in December, you know!'



Anyway, because it was a set price, we had the three courses. I would normally have had just the two. I had pate, then lamb steak in a red wine, mushroom and thyme 'jus', then the ubiquitous chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. Enjoyed some red wine too. So that's enough calories to last me a week.
The menu included coffee and chocs, but because I wasn't having coffee (don't like it) I didn't get a choc! GRRRR!!!!!!!



BUT every lady got given a red rose and a mini box of Roses chocs so that made up. Although I think I should have had two of each. Well, I had two men with me, didn't I? But perhaps in view of what I said above, I'll settle for the one rose and the one choccie box.

Here's what we have to spend all our spare weekend time doing and why I haven't returned to riding even though my thumb can now stand it.

This old dilapidated rusty tin shed is going to fall down in the next wind if we don't replace it. It leaks and creaks and is past repair and we have had lots of near misses with bits falling onto the road. I don't know how old it is but I've seen it in old photos of the village with cars with crank handles in the front and frock-coated youthful men with thick hair who are now about 80 and bald.

Every time you pull chunks off a bale of hay, some loose bits fall onto the floor. Multiply that by 70 or 80 per year, multiply that by lots of years (ha ha! I might trip up one day and you'll know my age!) and then by the number of times my feet have trampled all that loose hay down. It becomes an 18 inch thick compacted carpet. It gets damp, it can't be used for fodder, it lies there until the day comes when the shed must be totally cleared, before removal and replacement.



What do you do with all that hay? Burn it. I can't think of any other way. Take it to the waste disposal place, but how? In the car? Far too messy and it would need scores of trips. We got hold of this brazier but it's too slow to burn it in such small quantities, so we made a bigger fire as well.



So we stink, the house stinks because of the smoky clothes hanging up. Ah well, it's only for a limited time. Another two weekends should do it, as long as the weather stays dry. It's quite fun, really.

I was completely uninspired. 'Come on... think of something animally. It isn't hard' I said to myslef. 'OK. "All in a wood a Piggy wig stood". Now find a picture. BNow what to say about the piggy wig?

Well, in a wood? Actually it's not that daft. Pigs are commonly seen beside their little pig arcs in open fields, but originally they were woodland animals, just like their ancestors the wild boars. In some countries such as southern France they do still traditionally use pigs to root out prized truffles from woods. I have just read that poultry were originally woodland birds too.

Here is the whole poem featuring the Piggy Wig: Edward Lear's 'The Owl and the Pussycat'.

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'



II
Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a ring?'
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
III
'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.

The runcible spoon will be the subject of another post.

Just so you don't think I have died or got offended by anything, I haven't. I thought I would just say that I haven't posted for a while purely because of lack of time. I have plenty to say but not the opportunity to spare the minutes writing it down. Still, it's nice popping in to see and comment on what the other bloggers in Blogland have been doing and saying.

I am off now for the rest of the day, on a course about elderly clients - it'll be the usuall stuff about gifts of property, Powers of Attorney, avoiding care fees and tax. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.... but I'll enjoy the scenic drive and the buffet lunch.

There's a moose loose aroond this ooffice! A certain person (our boss) is using this office as his home. I've mentioned that before I think. He has not been very careful about keeping his food sealed up and a little visitor has been helping itself.
Boss comes in to my room and say we have a mouse. 'Oh dear, but how sweet' I say. -Hmph. We'll need to get a trap. 'Pleeeeeease get a human one' I say. - And then what do we do? 'I'll release it far away. I'll take it with me ...er....on the bus' Then M says she has been to the shop and got a trap. Oh no, it's one of those snap down killer ones. She says the shop didn't have any other kinds and she doesn't like live mice anyway. I plan to look out our humane trap at home but in the meantime they all grab brooms and start pulling cupboards out, to try to drive it out. I said 'In this weather? That's the reason it came in. If you pull cupboards out, it will justrun further in. It'll know all the little holes. You'll never get rid of it that way'.



But I was wrong. It ran along the corridor and stopped against M's foot, near the front door, and she says she just slid it outside and it ran along the pavement. I am sure it'll return by the back door. Its instincts are to go for food and warmth. It was a freezing, icy day.
Every day, I keep forgetting to bring the humane trap but I go regularly to the kitchen, unset the killer trap and remove its bait but I turn it around to look as if it's set. Ha ha.



OK, I hold my hands up. Maybe I'm irresponsible. They chew cables, maybe there are enough of them in the world, they breed like, well, mice. Well I would prefer it to take its chances elsewhere than die painfully in a trap. Why punish it for trying to come in from the cold? It's hungry! Life is very hard for it. Why not be kind to it? Would you willingly be a refugee?

Wednesday 2nd Feb was my first day of driving since 20th December. I will miss that half journey on the bus mainly because of the little community of regular fellow travellers. This is for them.
C, the farmer, who got on then off for part of the journey, to do some shopping and go to the pub. I used to work with him in a previous 'life' before he was farming and before I decided I wanted to do what I do now. He gets the bus if he fails to get a lift and at times I have picked him up when I've passed him standing at the stop.
The man who used to work for the railways in a rural signal box. He told me how he now has free rail travel since he retired and about the long journeys he used to like to do, but he had more to say about the food in the cafes than about the journeys.
The lady who works in the charity shop every Tuesday, who gets on with 3 massive bags. She handed me a New Year card which said 'To my dear friend who I met on the bus. You seem a lovely girl and always so cheerful (?! try working with me!)' Awww...
The nutty, dishevelled looking woman who got on in the mornings and always said Good Morning to us all. If you didn't look up and repeat it she would say 'Now who have I missed?' On my first day, she wished us all a Happy New Year.
My friend A who is teaching Art History to retired people who want to keep themselves educated - she is always there on a Friday morning. I didn't even know she had that job. It was her cat who gave birth to our Ludo, incidentally.
The man from the bank who always said 'Hello' and the man of Asian extraction who again never said much but always smiled.

This isn't one of them (below). I just thought you would like it.



There were some of them I didn't get to see during the last few days, to say goodbye and explain why I'm not going to be there any more. Maybe they'll think I've had the sack.

I will miss having to leave work early every day to catch the bus but I will not miss the waiting at the stop inthe cold, the wind, the rain, or walking to the stop, facing the fast traffic. I won't miss the hurrying in the mornings to drive the miles to where I get dropped, hoping we'll make it. I won't miss the near-freezing temperatures in the bus. I can have the car as hot as I like, about which C complains and opens the windows. Oh well, if ever I find myself not driving for any reason again, I know I have a little bunch of pals waiting for me in that little bus world.

I've been inspired to wite this post by the TV programme 'Island Parish' from the Isle of Barra, (if you don't know what I mean I am sure it can be watched online). It seems a cleaner, safer, crime-free world there, more like the world I think I remember growing up in, and which I for one wish we had now. I don't mean that I wish I had no delicatessens or had to wait for the boat for newspapers etc, but just that safe feeling that nothing is going to happen to you because there are no baddies. Even the smallest towns now have their binge drnkers, gangs, joy riders and hoodies who hand around the town clock consuming substances and being unruly.



I am always hearing people say the British are so reserved, but then I think of all the binge drinking in the streets, the baring all, the throwing up, the shouting, the abusive behaviour even to cops, the hooliganism, the sobbing on telly when they don't win competitions etc etc. What are we coming to? It's all relative, I suppose. What was bad behaviour and bad language when I was little is quite mild nowadays. But how much worse will it get?, because it only gets worse and not better.

OK, I am a hypocrite. I told you recently that I got drunk at an office party a few years ago so that makes me a lout and a binge drinker myself. Still, it doesn't mean I can't have a 'go' in Blogland about it if I want to.

I don't know what all this is meant to be about. Just Foody's Britain. But the more I see of that programme the more I am convinced that these far-flung islands off the British mainland are the last bastions of decent society. When people return from a spell somewhere remote, you always them talking about 'returning to civilisation'. I ask you.