Having a riot

Mike got the new electric poultry netting connected up at the weekend and the remaining hens are enjoying being back out in their green space again.

We did notice quite a difference in their eggs while they were confined to the coop because of the chance of a fox attack. A study by Mother Earth News suggests that compared with eggs from caged birds, eggs from hens free to roam on grass contain:

⅓ less cholesterol
¼ less saturated fat
⅔ more vitamin A
2 times more omega-3 fatty acids
3 times more vitamin E
7 times more beta carotene

Impressive, huh? I'm looking forward to getting back to those kind of eggs again, now that the hens are back on the orchard grass.

The news from England has been depressing over the last few days, with reports of rioting, arson and looting in London and other cities. In the middle of all that, we got letters yesterday informing us that our Canadian citizenship test will be taking place in two weeks' time. I don't think I've ever felt more enthusiastic about becoming Canadian and less proud about being English.

An irresistible Old Flame

Well of course it's a tomato. What were you thinking I meant?

It's very aptly named, I think, with yellow colouring at the top and tongues of red licking up from the base. When you cut into it, the flesh is a pleasing mixture of the two colours.

This one is going into a bed of garden-grown vegetables and herbs which will form a summery sauce for a leg of County-reared lamb. I dug our first potatoes yesterday and will serve them alongside this dish, making this an almost 100% County meal. (We haven't managed the production of salt and pepper here yet, as far as I know...)

Surrounded

The two fields immediately to the west of us have never been planted before, so we've got used to having a fairly open vista from our dog-walking route up the boundary. This year, the fields' drainage was improved and they were both planted with corn. It's been interesting to watch it growing. Although we grow corn in our garden, there's something much more impressive about it when there's a whole field full.

This was the view on June 29th:

By July 18th the corn was looking a lot sturdier, thanks to some rain and warm weather:

And now our view from the same spot is... Well, it's just of corn, really.

There's something claustrophobic about it and the spikes on the top of the plants make me think of soldiers carrying pikestaffs. I feel as though we are being besieged by an army (shades of Macbeth from the other night, perhaps). I wonder if John Wyndham had Zea mays in mind when he wrote The Day of the Triffids?

Old enough for Shakespeare

I remember the first time we took the children to a live theatre event. They were about three and four years old when we went to see 'The Tweenies' at the Manchester Evening News Arena. They were completely enthralled by the performance. So much so that when it was over Child#2 had a massive tantrum, distraught that the show had finished. He refused to walk and had to be dragged, bawling all the way, to the tram stop in Victoria Station. He wasn't much given to tantrums (if my memory is being reliable) and the fact that it was caused by an occasion we thought would be a great treat was particularly galling.

But that was nearly ten years ago and he's grown up a bit now. When I saw that there was going to be an outdoor performance of Macbeth in the County yesterday (performed by the Driftwood Theatre Group), I wondered if the children might like to go and see it. I wasn't sure if they were old enough to appreciate Shakespeare, but thought it worth a try. I'd seen open-air productions of Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream in Oxford in the 1990s and they'd been excellent. I wasn't expecting to get the chance to relive those experiences out here in rural Ontario.

When I suggested it to the children they were both quite enthusiastic, although their cultural contexts for Macbeth might have given me pause. I asked Child#2 first and he was keen to see it because he'd recently seen an episode of The Simpsons which had featured Homer and Marge as Macbeth and his Lady. When I sounded out Child#1 she immediately thought of an old episode of Blackadder which had featured frequent mentions of 'The Scottish Play' and wanted to see it because of that.

So they both had a context for the play, although I wasn't sure that there were going to be quite as many laughs a minute in the real thing as there had been in the TV shows they'd seen. And sitting through a half-hour comedy is rather different from sitting through a two-hour tragedy. But I thought it was worth a try.

Having learnt from our firework-watching experience on Canada Day, we packed up garden chairs, sweaters and a picnic and made our way to Bloomfield, where we formed part of the very front row on the southeast side of the stage. As the sun went down behind the trees, the performance began and as the play became darker, so did the night.

There were perhaps 200 people in the audience, none of us very far from the stage, and the actors were coming and going all around us, making everyone feel very much part of the performance (if slightly distracted by some persistent mosquitoes and enormous moths). I really enjoyed it and, to my slight surprise, the children said that they did, too. I think it was the immediacy of it that pulled them in: it's very different from watching a play on a distant stage or on a movie screen. There were quite a few children in the audience and (I'm pleased to report) there were no tantrums or even complaints from any of them on this occasion.

Misty morning

Today was the second time I've cycled around Lake Consecon, a ride which turns out to be a rather irritating length of 19.9 kilometers. There was a lot of moisture in the air, which made for some attractive light-effects through the trees on the first leg of the journey:

The eastern end of the lake had tendrils of mist rising off the water, which ended up just looking like a vague fuzziness in this next photo, but were quite eerily beautiful.

Let's see, perhaps this one is better:

Hm, not really. You'll just have to take my word for it!

Basketful

Hanging baskets make useful veg-carriers. I have quite a few (donated by a neighbour) and I use them to ferry vegetables from the greenhouse and garden back to the house. I'm not very good at creating hanging baskets full of long-lasting summer flowers (this is being polite: I'm rubbish at it), so this is the nearest they get to holding something beautiful!

Little and large

The one on the right is a Riesentraube tomato, weighing in at a little under one ounce, or 20 grammes. The other is an unidentified variety I was given by a friend, known in our house as 'Cyril's Jumbo'. It weighed two pounds (900g). There's something a little intimidating about such a large tomato: Child#2 said "I'm not eating that one." But they're dense, meaty fruit, ideal for sauce-making, which is what's happening to this one right now.

Once or twice a week in the summer I cut a big batch of tomatoes into chunks, whizz them in the food processor until they're liquidised and then simmer them for two hours or so, until the sauce is about half the volume it was originally. You can add herbs and garlic, too, but generally I keep it simple and add other flavours at the point of using the sauce. Once it's at a good, thick consistency I let the sauce cool down, pour it into zip-lock bags and store them in the freezer for use outside of fresh-tomato-season in pasta sauces or on pizza. It would seem very strange these days to actually buy tomatoes, fresh or canned. This is one household staple where we seem to have achieved self-sufficiency!

New views

On my ride on Wednesday morning I passed the end of the old railway line on Salem Road. It's now called the Millennium Trail and I think is mainly used by ATVs and occasional hikers. It cuts back in a long curve to Lakeside Drive, avoiding the (relatively) busy Loyalist Parkway in Consecon, but I wasn't sure how suitable it is for bikes, so I didn't take it. Internet research didn't answer my question, so I decided the only way to find out was to try it: I went down it this morning. Most of it looks like this:

There were a few overhanging branches to avoid, but the trail was easy enough to ride along. I saw a doe leaping through the trees to the right of me just after I stopped to take this picture. At the junction with Lakeside Drive I continued on to the part where the old railway line meets Lake Consecon. The trail crosses the lake on a little causeway and bridge. Just before the bridge a short stretch of the trail is formed of largish chunks of rock which aren't terribly easy to cycle on, but are traversable with care. There are a few missing planks on the bridge itself, but generally it's in good shape.

It was lovely down there: just me and a couple of swans:

This is only a ten minute ride from home, yet I'd never been here before. Will definitely be going back!

Definitely summer

Today is the hottest we've ever had here, with a high temperature this afternoon of 32.7°C/90.9°F. The relative humidity was at 72%, so it felt more like the mid-forties (or 115°F). You didn't want to spend very long outside...

We had a fair bit of rain on Monday, as I reported that day. The great thing about the high humidity is that the soil has not dried out, despite the high temperatures. When I parked the car in Deseronto yesterday, there were still quite deep puddles in evidence, two days after the rain. This lack of evaporation might give some of my poor parched vegetables a chance of survival.

The greenhouse-grown tomatoes are beginning to take over the kitchen counter:

And the first of the 'Rosa Bianca' eggplants/aubergines is nearly ready to pick. This was how it looked a day or two ago. I love the shape of these fruit - don't you think it looks a bit like an elf's head? With the green part its hat? Or is the heat finally getting to me...?

Back in the saddle

It's been a while since I've done much cycling. We used to do a fair bit when we first got married and there was a brief period when I was close enough to my workplace to cycle to it. After having a couple of babies it got more difficult to do - and even harder when we moved to Manchester and were surrounded by busy city streets. Even once the children could ride their bikes, you don't want to be out on those roads with them. Going for a ride meant loading up the car and driving somewhere in the country: a lot of hassle.

Where we are now is a little bit of cycling heaven (hardly any traffic, picturesque country roads), but it's taken four years of living here before I've got around to getting back on a bike again. I'd forgotten how much fun it was. I'm taking it fairly slowly, as I know I'm not at all fit (and it's going to be a while before my body gets used to a saddle again!). Last week I did short rides in the early morning in each of the three different directions it's possible to go from our house. This morning I managed my first self-imposed target: a circular route of 14km/8.7 miles. I notice that Google Maps now has cycling directions. They reckon it should take 41 minutes to do this route. I think I did it in 50, so I'm certainly not as fit as the Google average...

My next target will be to do a ride around the perimeter of Lake Consecon, which will be about 20km/12 miles.

One of the great things about cycling is that you notice things that you miss in a car. It's also easier to stop and take a photo (you feel a lot less noticeable stopping a bike than you do stopping a car). That's why I'm slower than Google thinks I should be...

Harvest lines

Curious cows

Flooded corn

Relief

It's been dry over the past few weeks and the garden has been suffering. The corn and squash plants are stunted and look unlikely to produce much of a crop. I don't think we'll get a lot of potatoes or outdoor tomatoes, either. Luckily the greenhouse tomatoes are doing fine and we've been picking those for about a week now.

We went into 'water conservation' mode a week or so ago. This basically means that the reject water from the osmosis water treatment system in the house is diverted back into the cistern in the basement, instead of going to the big water tank in the greenhouse. So although there is still water in the tank, it's now only half full and the greenhouse plants were going to be the next casualties of the dry spell, if we hadn't had any rain.

It was quite a relief, therefore, when we woke up to a storm this morning. Only 3mm or so of rain, but better than nothing. I was even more delighted this evening when it went very dark again and we had another storm with an extended spell of rain. I doubt whether it's going to be enough to resurrect the corn, but you never know. You can't be a gardener without being a foolish optimist, after all...

Stormcloud over cornfield

Birds

Here are two of the three chicks at two-and-a-half weeks old, with the one I think might be male on the left. You can see that its tail is a lot more stubby than that of the chick next to it. On its head the beginnings of a comb are more pronounced than on the other chick.

We went to the beach yesterday evening, where there were more seagulls than people.

First blush

That welcome first hint of a colour other than green on the greenhouse tomato plants. A bit later than in 2010 (I blame the cool Spring for that, particularly as the tomatoes were sown earlier this year!), but earlier than in 2009. These are the reliably early Black Cherry variety: last year's earliest tomatoes were Marmande and Poma Amoris Minora Lutea, both of which I'm growing again this year, but neither of which are yet changing colour. Strange...

The culprit

The fox was on the prowl again this morning, but we're keeping the remaining hens in their inner run, so this time he went away empty-bellied. He attacked again on Wednesday and this time we lost our rooster and four more hens. Now we're looking into getting some electric fencing for the orchard so that the chickens can continue to free-range more widely than they can at the moment. We're down to eleven hens and the three chicks now. I'm hoping one of the chicks is male, but it's still a bit too soon to tell.

And if that wasn't enough death for one week, we discovered a dead young rabbit at the back door this morning (this was before we saw the fox). I'm not sure if it was the dog or the cat or a combination of the two that were responsible. I hadn't been able to bring myself to turn our dead chickens into meat, but I didn't have any sort of emotional attachment to the rabbit, so thought I should have a go at gutting and skinning it. With the help of Ina's Highland Life blog and John Seymour's The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency I felt able to tackle the job.

The last time I did anything like this was in Biology, about a hundred years ago, when we dissected laboratory rats. The process actually wasn't too bad - the only problem is that the rabbit was so small that it won't even make a meal for one. I've put it in the freezer for now - maybe if we get a few more it might be worth turning them into a game pie!

Canada Day fireworks (finally!)

I've had a camera with a fireworks setting on it for a while now, but I've never had a chance to try it out, because we've not been to see any displays since we moved to Canada. As this was our fifth Canada Day, this is possibly a shocking confession. Fireworks are as integral to Canada Day as they are to Independence Day in the US or Bonfire/Guy Fawkes Night in the UK.

Part of the problem is the time of year: it doesn't get properly dark until 10pm, which makes it a late event when you've got kids. Not something that was ever a problem with Bonfire Night in November, when it is dark in Manchester by 5.30pm. This is the first year that we've thought the children might actually stay awake to see the show. We went to Picton, where the hill at Delhi Park makes a natural amphitheatre: a perfect viewing spot. It was an impressive event.

The pictures I took aren't what I'd call classic firework shots, but I was pleased with the results, anyway.

This one is of two sparklers that some children near us were waving around:

The rest are the fireworks. The last one looks like those weird deep-sea creatures that never see daylight, I think.

Next year, I'll take something to sit on: it's surprising how cold and damp the grass can get after a hot day!

P.S. Realised after posting that this day marks the fifth anniversary of blogging in 'Someone Else's Kitchen'. So all the more reason to celebrate!

Growth

The tomato peppers are plumping up:

And so are the tomatoes, though none have ripened yet. I love the flattened shape of the Marmande variety:

Managed to get a photo of all three chicks at last. They don't sit still for very long, so it's hard to get a picture that isn't just a blur of fluffy movement.

When they're not under the hen, their second favourite place seems to be on her.

Early-onset nostalgia

Child #1 is moving on to high school in September and it looks as though Child #2 will be going to a different one in the following year. Consequently, this week will be the last for them to be travelling home together on the same school bus. It's making me sad, this end of a stage in their lives.

Of course, if we'd stayed in England, this stage would have finished two years ago. Here, the elementary schools run to grade eight, rather than the more usual year six in English primary schools. So both children would have been in secondary education by now. I'm happier with the way it works here, although I didn't know about this particular difference until after we moved. By delaying high school to the age of 13 it feels like they get to be children for longer.

The transition from one school to another is celebrated in a graduation ceremony. This seemed odd to me, when I first heard about it. Graduation from high school seemed strange enough, but from elementary school? For all I know, this is something that is happening in the UK now, too, but neither of these transitions were marked by a school event when I went through them. I do remember being very excited about leaving both my primary and secondary schools, though. No nostalgia at all for me in those days. Must be something that comes on with age...

Last night was my daughter's graduation and although the school's gym was hot and crowded, the ceremony was enjoyable: it was great to see the young people being recognised for their achievements. I don't often blather on about my kids, so bear with me while I share the moment of happiness I felt as I watched my fledgling young woman dance with her dad.

After a long time of being the parents of two children, we're suddenly finding that we are sharing our lives with two young adults. I can't quite believe how quickly that has happened. It's wonderful to watch them growing up, but nostalgia for their almost-over childhood years can be hard to shake off at times of like this.

Now I'm going to listen to ABBA singing 'Slipping through my fingers' while I shed some tears onto my keyboard. With any luck I'll be back to normal by the time that yellow bus draws up outside again...

Rare glimpse

The good thing about letting a broody hen do the job of caring for a new batch of chicks is that you don't need to worry about using heat lamps to keep the chicks warm - they just snuggle up underneath the hen's wings when they're cold. All that obsessive checking on them that happens when you have an artificial set-up (are they too hot, too cold?) just isn't necessary. The downside is that in the early days (when, let's face it, they're at their most cute) you don't actually get to see the chicks very often!

Death and life

Yesterday we lost eight of the hens to (we think) a fox. We've lost one or two hens before, but this was the first time we've had a mass killing. The fox only ate one and a half of them - the rest were just killed for sport. We found them all around the orchard. Upsetting.

Mike had spent the afternoon building some more nest boxes for them. Seems like a waste, now. Were we tempting fate?

This morning we had a more pleasant surprise - we've had a broody hen sitting on five eggs for the last three weeks and today two of them hatched out.

Next time we let a broody incubate some eggs (next year), I'll put more eggs underneath her: apparently they can cope with up to 14 at a time.

Naming names

I went up to the hayfield today, to see whether any Monarch caterpillars had hatched out on the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) plants which grow around the edges of the field.

The milkweeds are popular with many creatures and the first one I saw today was very strange: a sort of wasp/praying mantis hybrid.

It took a bit of digging around, but eventually I ID'd it as a Wasp Mantidfly, Climaciella brunnea (yes, it's obvious, once you know...).

There weren't any caterpillars to be seen. I noticed some attractive white flowers on my walk. These ones are (I think) field chickweed (Cerastium arvense):

And this small shrub is gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa). Later in the year, the flowers are replaced by pale green berries, popular with the birds. I'd noticed the berries before, but not the flowers.

There are two small swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) plants near the pond. As I passed them, on my walk back home, I noticed that there was a Monarch caterpillar on one of them. Actually, there were two - the camera picked up a second one (on the top right of this shot) which I didn't notice at the time.

I don't know why it's so important to me to know the names of all these things. They're just as attractive or interesting without a label, but there's something very satisfying in tracking down their identities...

On freshness of eggs

I've never had to worry about how fresh our eggs are, since the chickens started keeping us supplied. There's a system of sorts in operation, where the most recent dozen are at one end of a shelf and the oldest are at the other. But as there are rarely more than six dozen eggs on the shelf at a time, even the most elderly are never more than a week old.

Until this week, that is, when we discovered a stash of two dozen secretly-laid eggs in the orchard. Off to the internet to work out how to determine their freshness.

Putting the suspect egg in a bowl of water is the tried-and-tested method. If they sit flat on the bottom, they're fresh, if they don't, they're not. So I diligently baptised each egg. And they all sat firmly on the base of the bowl.

I found it hard to believe that they were all scrupulously fresh. I'm guessing, from the colour of the eggs, that there are only one or two hens involved. So that's at least three weeks' worth of eggs. They can't all be fresh!

The only way to find out was to actually use the eggs (don't worry, egg customers, if you're reading this - I won't be selling these ones to you!). The difference between a fresh egg and one that's past its best is mainly to do with the structure of the white and yolk. The white loses its plumpness and, if it's very old, the yolk's membrane dissolves and you end up with an unappetising mixture of yolk and white. The trick is to break each egg into a cup first, then decide, from its appearance, whether you want to use it or not. I threw away four of the eight eggs I used at lunchtime today. They didn't smell bad - just looked unappealing, as the yolk had disintegrated into the white. I suppose I could have used them to make scrambled egg, but once you're used to very fresh eggs, you're spoilt. The ones I tested today were the muddier ones of the batch, which probably means they'd been outside longer than the others. I hope the freshness ratio will improve with the remainder.

Now I've got to add 'patrolling the orchard' to my list of evening chores...

Hooray, pesto!

I picked the first basil leaves this afternoon and turned them into pesto this evening. By some oversight, I didn't have any pine nuts in the house, so I replaced those with some slivered almonds. The basil, a couple of parsley sprigs, some Parmesan and almonds were blended with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. After putting the blended mixture in the jar I put a thin layer of olive oil on top, to stop it discolouring.

And that's it - very simple, and it tastes just as good with almonds as it does with pine nuts. It will keep in the fridge for about a week, although I don't think it's going to last that long!

Daisies

At this time of year there are stands of Ox-eye daisies in various places around the farm, particularly on the edges of the hayfield. This clump were in a shady corner of the ash woods.

They're not a native plant, but they always cheer me up when I see them. I even picked a few and normally I'm not into cut flowers. I would probably tell you that I prefer to see them growing in the ground if you were to ask me why. Which is partially true, although I suspect that lack of time to think about growing a cutting garden is probably more to do with it. I have a deep admiration for gardeners like Sarah Raven or fellow blogger Karen Hall who do amazing things with beautiful flowers grown for cutting. It's something I aspire to, but somehow know that I'm never going to achieve...