I finally had to take them out. The fruit was actually dying on the plant. Still, I got the last five, and here we are not far off June. The seasons change, and right now dawn (above) is just spectacular. The book is finally moving -4K words yesterday, but that is meaning I see little but my desk.
I've planted out a garlic clove under a plastic cup - partly to follow Quilly's advice, and partly to keep the $#@#ing mice digging it up and eating it. Roll on kitty-cats! (yes, not good for birds, and I am sorry about that, but the mice are just so darned destructive.) I've also planted - in an enclosed bed Jerusalem artichoke -also mouse sheilded. Oh and we have had an outbreak of snails again. Yep, small farming, dead easy, innit? Anyway, in the electricity conservation stakes (I think this heat-leaking piece of rubbish oven is a major culprit) I did my best to cook on lounge heater/stove thing tonight. Hmm. Well the big 'camp oven'cast iron pots were supposed to produce pitas. It was more like frizbees. Anyway very tasty frizbees, and so what if they don't open up for filling. The filling went fine on top :-)
That's a lovely picture.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, your frizbees reminded me of the time when my roommate and I stumbled on whole stewed chickens in a can. I think they were a dollar a piece? Anyway, we decided this would make the basis for stew. Reasonable, right?
ReplyDeleteBut after we pulled the bones out and shredded the meat into the liquid in the can, it was still more water than sauce. We were pretty sure that we should add flour, but we didn't have any flour. We did have cornmeal, though, and we decided cornmeal was close enough. So we added some, and stirred. Not the cream sauce we imagined. So we added more cornmeal. And more.
Eventually we poured our batter into a pan and baked it. Chicken-flavored cornbread... we ate that for several days, as I remember. Not too bad, but kind of strange.
Mike, you bring back memories. A group of 5 of us shared a large flat in London in the early 60s, we were just starting out on life’s journey and were as poor as church mice. We had 2 large pots on the stove permanently running. One was a curry and the other a stew, it was not easy to tell the difference. As we all worked different hours the deal was simple. When you got back from college or wherever and had a meal from one of the pots it was your job to peel potatoes, carrots for the pot and lob in some meat and herbs (whatever happened to be in the cupboard) to top up the pot so that the quantity remained roughly the same. And there they sat on a very low gas burbling away ready for the next person. Of course the topper upper had to stir the pot to make sure that the new stuff wasn’t at the top and had a chance to cook.
ReplyDeleteWe employed a Swedish au pair who did the cleaning and laundry, abject luxury. In the interests of harmony she was off limits.
A pal of mine, who lived alone in a bed sit, had a scheme that worked for him. He had one drip dry shirt which he washed every evening and then hung on a hanger which in turn hung from the handle of his brolly over the sink to drip dry. His breakfast routine was gross. He boiled an egg in a small saucepan, removed the egg and then halved the hot water, one half for shaving and the other half for his cup of coffee.
But we lived the life of Riley, the Mersey sound was starting to shape our lives and we could afford lukewarm flat beer.
Thank you Katrina. It's the place, rather than the photographer. Having seen your bird pics, I imagine you would take the wonderful pictures here.
ReplyDeleteMike... words fail me! chicken cornbread!
ReplyDeleteTantalus -curried stew or stewed curry? (and warm flat beer... shudder)
ReplyDeleteWe couldn't waste it! That was...I've forgotten our budget, but it was at least a chunk of that week's food money, and we weren't going to let it go to waste. But it was odd.
ReplyDeleteDave, I think it is both the place and the photographer. Tasmania in general seems very photogenic, but the photographer still has to have some idea of when and where to point the camera.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to have the opportunity to see what kind of pictures I could take on Flinders, but sadly, I doubt that the opportunity will ever come my way unless I manage to win the lottery that I don't buy tickets for.
For the snails, I was remembering what I did while in Oz. We had a cat, so I was worried about putting out snail bait. One of my friends recommended that I put it in juice jugs. Sure enough, the snails crawl in, eat the bait and die, and are easily disposed of.
ReplyDeleteHere ya go, Dave:
ReplyDeletehttp://ipmnet.org/cicp/pests/slug_snail.htm
Articles from several areas, including western Aus.
Another good one for the snails (And another use of that warm flat beer). Put a bowl of beer in the garden. The snails are attracted to the yeast, and drown in the beer. That is the theory anyway. I have heard it works, but never tried it myself.
ReplyDeleteBut don't listen to them singing! Drunken snail tunes, late at night, clustered around the bowl of beer... makes a sad song... we who are about to drown, salute ye?
ReplyDelete