The National Poultry Show 2013 (1)

Posted on January 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

I’m a bit behind with this blog post, since the National was held on 16th and 17th November 2013. We’d thoroughly enjoyed the show in previous years, and so it’s a fixture on our calendar. We went on the Saturday. Unlike 2012, though, when it was crowded almost from the moment the doors opened, this show was nothing like as well-attended. But (to our untutored eyes at least) the standard of the birds was absolutely superb.

So this blog entry is going to be a picture-fest of chickens. Be warned!

These colourful "gate guardians" were on sale at one of the trade stands.

These colourful “gate guardians” were on sale at one of the trade stands.


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Seeing in the New Year with Ärtsoppa

Posted on January 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

Happy New Year everyone!

Colourful 2014 in fiery sparklers

Around this time of year, as part of our family visits, we’ve frequently been to see my sister and her husband. Rolf is Swedish, and is an excellent cook. His yuletide lunch traditionally includes julskinka, the Swedish Christmas ham, and ärtsoppa, the celebrated Swedish yellow pea soup.

They’ve moved to the west country, so are too far away for a casual visit, but they kindly gave us a beautiful julskinka, which was the centrepiece of a post-Christmas lunch party. We still have some left, so for New Year’s Eve we thought it would be in the spirit of things to re-create something of the flavour of Rolf’s Swedish cooking.

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Coffee

Posted on December 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

In the run up to Christmas, I finally got around to sorting out my much-loved Gaggia Classic espresso machine.

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Chickens and eggs

Posted on December 22, 2013 | Leave a comment

We’ve made a start on culling the Year 1 cockerels. Last year we were fortunate in getting 9 hens and 5 cockerels. This year, out of our dozen, we had only 4 girls and 8 boys.

Although we left the hatch until fairly late, because of the unseasonably cold wet spring, they’ve matured quite early. The cockerels are fighting, crowing, and pressing their attentions on the hens. And much to our surprise, this morning we found a small brown egg, nicely formed and with a firm shell. We haven’t even put them on layers’ rations yet!

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Ankarsrum Assistent

Posted on November 17, 2013 | 3 comments

It’s a gross indulgence, I know, but I’ve got a fabulous new mixer as an early birthday present!

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It’s an Ankarsrum Assistent, aka in different times and places a Verona, Magic Mill, Electrolux Assistent, or a DLX.
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St Albans Farmers’ Market

Posted on November 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

We went to St Albans Farmers’ Market on 10th November, Remembrance Sunday. We joined the crowd for the Remembrance Day parade. These are always moving occasions, with everyone behaving properly. No-one broke the silence.

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Sourdough before and after

Posted on November 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

Before and after the Phoenix Baking School, that is.

To accentuate the positive, I’ll start with the “after”. The second attempt after Aidan Chapman’s course was pretty successful:

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My Little Porkie

Posted on November 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

We’ve had the first pictures of our adopted piglet:

© Karen Nethercott @Samphireshop 2013

© Karen Nethercott @Samphireshop 2013

We’ve subscribed to the My Little Porkie scheme run by the Karen Nethercott at the very wonderful Samphire.

So in around 6 or 7 months’ time, we’ll be taking delivery of quite a lot of meat, and making bacon, sausages, and paté. And maybe the odd pork pie, although I doubt they’ll reach the standard of Samphire’s delicious offerings.

I’ve toyed with the idea of converting our rarely-used barbeque into a smoker. This might just be the incentive to do it.

Via Twitter, I’ve just seen Kev Marriott’s blog, which has given us a degree of confidence in the project! If our experience is as good as Kev’s obviously was, we’ll be very happy.

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Ixworth chicken update

Posted on November 6, 2013 | 1 comment

There’s no real trigger for this post, other than I haven’t shown any chicken pix for a while.

Here are this year’s hatch (known as the Year Ones):

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Bigfoot and Floë

Posted on November 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

We’ve had a play with our new toy, and enjoyed it very much, but one thing that we quickly realised that we needed was some sort of motorised assistance with getting it in and out of its parking slot.

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