Thursday 24 February 2011

Jerusalem fartichokes

I have had a very busy day for me today. The best part was after lunch when, having seen the first proper warm sunshine of the year out the window, I went round to my neighbour's house to dig up his Jerusalem artichokes. Some people nickname these fartichokes, for obvious reasons!

But this has all stimulated me into thinking about the veg plot for the year. I now have 4 bags of the fartichokes, some to eat this year and some to plant, so I need to find the appropriate spot for them.

My first job today, bizarrely enough, was to put tea on. Just browning chicken and sweating leeks (from the garden [smug]!) and then I put it (with a bottle of wine, mushrooms and potatoes added) in the Chasseur in the oven on gas mark half. It will come out when my lovely hubby comes home from work, in about an hour from now - but a good 8 hours from when it went in the oven. Its been brill knowing all day that tea will be ready whenever we're ready for it. And not a 'convenience' food in sight! I guess this dish would be a Coq-a-Leekie-au-Riesling.

Tomorrow's job will be to get the kitchen back up to scratch as its been allowed to slide for a couple of days and I've put too much effort into cleaning it to let that happen. And after that I really need to plan this veg plot for the year, get sowing the first lettuce and chit my seed potatoes.

Oh yes, nature is just starting to stretch its legs for the year.

Monday 21 February 2011

Happy

Well it looks like I'm overdue for my approximately annual blog update!

However, things have improved from this time last year - not that they could have gotten much worse - and I'm starting to feel more comfortable with myself. Feeling okay just to be me.

I did set out in the beginning to write a blog about non-commercialism and how I can withdraw from consumer society and have a more sustainable life. Well, to an extent, I've not done too badly there.

Last year I grew quite a lot of vegetables and fruits in the garden. I learned a lot and its coming up to time to do it all again this year. Just need to wait for some sunshine and I'll be back in that garden.

We also keep some hens. We did have a good flock of Light Sussex and Warrens, but the fox got them all the other week. A highly distressing time. But they were overcrowded a bit in the space we had and we were going to let the numbers naturally dwindle to about four, but Mr Fox put paid to that. So instead we got another four anyway, after a thorough scrubbing out of the henclosure. We have a Rhode Island Red and three Buff Sussex, although only one's proper buff, the other two are darker, one a kind of caramel and one a proper dark brown, like the Rhody but it has the Sussex black feather tips. I'll post up a pic when I can be fussed to.

And of course I have my bees! Love them to bits and right now just hoping they've made it through the winter. A friend phoned today to say all her bees are dead. They just didn't survive the cold winter. Mine appear to still be alive, but that's on evidence gathered a few weeks ago. I just need a nice sunny day now and I'll go out and give them a Spring feed. If they're still there! Fingers crossed.

So that's me. You never know, if anything actually interesting happens to me I may let you know.

I realise that by saying 'you' that nobody is actually reading this though! Maybe might see one or two other kindly bloggers who's blogs I've posted on, but nobody really cares what little ol' me thinks at this point in time anyway.