My boys

DSC_1451
Originally uploaded by brataccas

The Good Old Days

Looking back through some photos before commiting them to disc, I found these. The first is me at our first house 'Arndale' - a 3 acre smallholding in Grange, nr Keith circa 1978/9 with our 'pet' (see 'edible') lambs Ragout and Freezer (sick, twisted parental humour).

We had pet lambs pretty much every year and these joined the menagerie of goats, chickens, ducks and geese.

The second is probably a year or two later judging by the hairdo (thats me on the far right, my cousins in the centre and my brother doing Swan Lake impression on the left) and is shortly before I nearly killed all the ducklings by teaching them to swim in a margarine box in sub zero temps. How was I to know?!?!?

They lived.

Mum heated them up in the Aga.

Holidays!!!

Ah the sun drenched beaches of Goa, the crisp mountain air of Zell, the glistening peaks of the Andes, the foul stench of chicken shit.....

Thats right, not for me the luxury of a week somewhere hot/cold* (delete as preferred), nope, day 1 of my week long break has been spent mucking out the chicken shed. I had help from 3ft of incessant questioning three year old who is, by way of a warning, lethal with a muck fork.

All the girls were present and correct this morning - which is surprising considering I'd accidentally left three out last night - apparently when Nick had gone to shut up the other sheds, they came running to him flapping and screaming about ghosts and foxes and things and how the hell could he let this happen on their first night here and did he know that they had friends at sanctuaries and they never got left out and how disgusted, quite frankly, they were at the level of care.

I'm not sure how Nick responded but the next I saw of him was him coming through the door in a hurry and reaching for cake. Never a good sign :)

So yes, anyway.... having a kind of 'rest afternoon' now as I feel like death and look like Death on his death bed. Nick is the same but struggled to work this morning to infect the rest of the office with whatever it is we have. I admire his dedication to putting stuff on the seabed but as I pointed out, perhaps his colleagues may be not so admiring when they feel like thay have a 1600 spin cycle going on in their stomachs.

So I may now go and hang some washing out and then pot on some more basil before re-connecting with my duvet and series III of Thomas the Tank Engine.

March aboot done

Well, I guess the main news is the arrival of the Army. Not the khaki, shoot em up kind but my very own Chicken Army. Plans to take over the world are top secret obviously however you can see our rescue (from commercial free range chicken farm) girls are settling in quite well. We've 'rescued' about 100 now, some gone to friends and family as we're limited to the number we can keep without registering the flock and all that entails. They're just re-feathering and some are still a little shell-shocked (excuse the pun) and scrawny but all seem to be a damn sight brighter than they were.

Our existing mob of Light Sussex tried in vain to remain kings and queens of the castle but when you're faced with a battalion of identical LBJ's (Little Brown Jobs), its sensible to just give in.

Hector my latino Light Sussex cock is delighted with the new arrivals (all female obviously)....he's not actually Latino by the way.

Madge is one of the new arrivals. Despite looking pretty worse for wear, she's got a shit load of attitude and I've great hopes for her.

Some of them have started laying already, which is nice but not wanted!!! You're supposed to be in shock chooks, can you lot, like, feign it or something?

Other things going on here - well raised beds are doing well. James and I planted some onion sets (red and white) in Bed 1 this afternoon. They sit alongside the cauliflower seedlings we raised indoors. The pheasants got a couple of them but most have survived. Here is James just putting finishing touches to well, something he really needed to hammer in to Bed 1.

Today we also took out the basil and flat leaf parsley to its summer home out in the greenhouse. Its a balmy 16 deg C in there today despite snow on the surrounding hills. Out in bed 2 went the rhubarb plants and horseradish too. We sowed some french beans into BIG pots today - the thinking is that instead of as in previous years having them in the actual veg patch, we might try them in pots this year which can be moved about. We'll see what happens. Leeks were also sown in the greenhouse today so accompany the sprouts.

Inside the aubergine seedlings are doing fantastically well (despite my initial reservations) and will be followed this week by butternut squash sowing. These will remain indoors/greenhouse for duration. No sign of peppers sprouting yet but they were only sown 4 days ago.

Nick is still gorgeous and lovely and very fond of tractors. Plans are to buy a John Deere next year (a 6600 I believe).

I'M ON HOLIDAY THIS WEEK! Hopefully be spending most of it in the garden installing beds 4 and 5.

Right, I've a truck load of brownies to make, so excuse me..

If you never do anything else in your life....

Make this...

Caramel cheesecake

50g/20z unsalted butter
140g/5oz plain digestives crushed
4 gelatine leaves
400g/14oz creme fraiche
100g/4oz light muscovado
50g/2oz dark muscovado
1tsp vanilla extract
400g/14oz ricotta

To serve:
50g/2oz fudge finely sliced (veg peeler works fine)
icing sugar for dusting or
Whipped cream and pecan nuts

Melt butter in small pan, add digestives and mix. Pour into 9"/20cm spring form cake tin and flatten out with back of metal spoon until base is covered right to the edges. Cover in clingfilm and put in fridge to cool.

Soak gelatin leaves in water for 5 minutes.

Put creme fraiche, both sugars and a pinch of sea salt into a small pan and heat through until sugar has dissolved and you have a creamy beige liquid in front of you.

Drain the gelatin leaves and add 3 tbsp boiling water, mix to dissolve the leaves and add to the beige liquid. Whisk thoroughly to ensure all is dissolved.

Whisk ricotta till smooth and creamy, adding the beige liquid and vanilla essence as you go. Once all combined, pour over your biscuit base and chill overnight (or cheat and put into freezer for 2 hours then back into fridge. After about 4 hours in total it should be set - well mine was anyway.

Remove from cake tin once set (press lightly with fingertip on surface and shuggle the filling, it should feel a bit like jelly) by running a knife round the edge.

To decorate - Add your curls of fudge to the centre and dust lightly with icing sugar. Or serve with cream and pecans.

It is quite possibly the closest thing to heaven since Antonio Banderas.

Grand-daughter

Grand-daughter
Originally uploaded by Joanna Horne

My gorgeous first grandchild!

Spring seems to have arrived

OK, I've been expanding the fruit garden for a start. We've now 12 raspberry canes (6 summer fruiting, 6 autumn), 3 gooseberry bushes (two summer, one autumn), one backcurrant bush and a blaeberry bush. This goes nicely with the damson trees and existing bog standard plum, apple and geen trees and plethora of redcurrant bushes. OH finally moved the boat off the Strawberry patch so they can see daylight again hurrah and got a good dung'ing. I'm forcing some rhubarb in upstairs cupboard for the first time so we'll see how that goes. I hope its a success as the three plants we have in the garden just aren't enough :(

The veg garden expansion is going very very slowly (mainly due to me being left to do it ) however getting there and looking forward to some new things going in this year as well as FINALLY heating the green house. My project this year is aubergines! I need to grow them!!!

The flower beds got a much needed sort out by my 3 year old and I last weekend, Raemoir was selling off a load of plants at a £1 each so we filled the boot and now we have Spring everywhere it wasn't already coming up. My friend Bunty gifted me some Iris as well and I have a new witchhazel too!

Seed wise I have sweet basil, two thymes, cauliflower, flat leaf parsley and aforementioned aubergines all peeking through in propogators in the living room window. In fact the thymes, parsley and basil wil be potted on this weekend I hope.

I love this time of year! Its just so promising!