Who Left the Gate Open?

Now,  what is wrong with this picture?

Exactly. Hairy MaClairy in with Mama.  Pretending he is not really there! Way too early for that carry on Hairy!

The onions have statted lifting themselves so they are being hung out to dry.  Onions have done very well this year.

So have my Easter Chickens. They still hang together in a gaggling flock. 

In the evening they all come out and do a wonderful job of cleaning up the pigs eating area.

Mama is back where she belongs and look at that lamb. There is always one who will stand IN the feeder. 

Daisy looking restful.

Good morning. The weather is back up in the three digits again. But we are managing.  The fields with good shade do not have much grass left, so I am feeding hay to the animals in where it is cool.  I have a few Heat Wave smoothie popsicles  in the freezer that i eat with my nuts and raisins before I go out to work at three in the afternoon.  I am usually only out for about three hours at a stretch.

I made the most beautiful Tomato and Saffron tart yesterday. Home made Pastry, then a layer of freshly made tomato sauce, then a layer of savory custard  kissed by saffron. Itwas divine.  There was a lovely shot of it cooling, all gloriously golden yellow from the eggs, with the fresh bread on the rack way behind it. Perfect light.  The crunchiness of the pastry sharp in contrast. All very pretty on my black kitchen counter. Mouthwatering. But I deleted the originals before checking to make sure I had saved the edited one, which of course I hadn’t and poof it is gone.  It is a recipe Elaine found for me, using produce from the garden, everything except the flour was from the Kitchens Garden.  And the saffron that Tanya sent from Spain.

Good morning.  Thank goodness I am not a food blog! Isn’t it so wonderfully satisfying to cook from the garden.

Thank you for your wonderful comments and information yesterday. You are awesome teachers. And I have so much to learn. We all need to keep being vigilant about what is being sprayed, what is happening in our fields and what we are putting in our bodies.   Be careful.  There are very few restrictions anymore.

And either we choose to be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Albeit a tiny tiny part. I think that often people say to themselves “That is not my problem, I can’t do anything abut that”.   And This is why they call it Global Warming instead of  Pollution.  The term Global Warming is nefarious and  is presented to us so that it appears to be on an inexorable course and we cannot make it better. We are powerless they say. But it is a political football.  Actually I believe that there are two issues here. One is the changing weather patterns.   But the greater part of the problem is Pollution.  Pollution is a word we don’t hear anymore. Because it is a personal word. Personal Pollution. A farmer and his spray. Me and my rubbish bin. What we put in the shopping trolley at the supermarket. We CAN do something about our own personal contribution to polluting our air, water and soil.  We can. We can choose not to buy anything that has a Genetically Modified ingredient or has been sprayed. WE can cut down on plastic packaging. We can choose to buy from a company that tries its best to mitigate its impact on the air, soil or water.  There are tons of things we can do.

And like one of you said yesterday, we need to make sure we are informed.  We are powerful, we can take back control of our own food. Little chook steps. OK stepping down from my soap box.

And thank you Sara for your help when I went into a panic about Minty having a lesion in the corner of her mouth which turned out to be a scratch from eating hard dry grass, that has developed a wee infection. We thought it may be a virus called Sore Mouth. Such an old condition with that old fashioned name.  Sore Mouth is contagious though and I have a closed flock. Plus no-one else is presenting with it. So we will see. If you want to see a shot of the area on her mouth for your information, let me know. I will email it to you.

The sheep are getting a bit run down from the endless heat and drying up pasture so it is not surprising that the bottle fed baby, who has the least defenses, would be the one to catch something.   So they are having the special feed with garlic, cider vinegar and flax seed oil every day, for a few weeks, instead of once a week.

Have a lovely day.  You are such a great bunch to have visiting. I do love our letters in the morning! OK Off to work for me!

celi