Boo has begun stealing ripe dry maize out of the field. They call it field corn here.
Oh yes! He eats it! He is one BAD Boy. Bad Boo.
Sheila is on a diet and deeply unimpressed. Did I tell you that I have decided to breed her myself in January. I don’t want to risk another psychologically damaged sow. I shall begin the research. (sigh) I am so new to all of this. We were talking about it in the comments lounge yesterday. I am only six years into developing our own little farm out of an industrially cropped field. Previous to this I worked in the film industry. I grew up on the beach. The only things I ever really concentrated on as a kid was when a surfie tied a towel around his middle so he could get changed. Will the towel drop? I was not born or bred to farming. Boat building maybe. Art and writing maybe. The stage and film definitely. But not farming. And now I have decided I am going to go breed my own pig. My father (who is one of the original member of the fellowship but is too shy to comment) will be shaking his head. The girl had such promise he tells his friends. She could come up with an argument for anything. Would argue black was white that girl. Now she is deep in research so she can breed her own pig because she does not trust the swine herd to keep her Sheila safe and calm and gentle.
No Daisy has not grown a hump! Though we woud still love her if she did. That is the high point of the boot of the cows dining car, but it was slim pickin’s yesterday when I looked at what Camera House had collected.
I will tell you why I was distracted and did not take enough pictures. My Son Sam has been telling me for years that I should listen to talking books when I am doing mundane stuff. Like dishes and cooking and CLEANING! So a month or so ago I brought myself some breathtakingly beautiful red head phones. I could plug them into the kindle and listen I thought. They are splendid headphones but they are still in their box, sitting in a pristine state upon their soundless cardboard ears. I move about too much.
Yesterday when I was in a certain big box store with the Matriarch buying printer ink for the local library, I spied some tiny kindle speakers. So when I got home I down loaded Cats Eyes by Margaret Atwood, plugged in the little red speakers and read a book without my eyes. Fantastic. While I loaded the pots with vegetables, restacked the dehydrator, thought about cleaning the ‘fridge (then thought against it) and made the custard for the ice cream and cleaned and cleaned I was transported. Days of preserving makes a mess of the kitchen! So you see. Thank you Son Sam. Mama is a slow learner but you were right. Listening to books while I work is great. But I was inside cleaning way too long and lost the light for yesterdays photos. Distracted you see!
And now Daisy has a hump.
And big ear piggie (no they are not named ) was shot straight into the light and turned lavender. But who can resist those ears! Poor luvey!
Do you see that little table in the picture above, that is the bee table, it was swarming with hungry bees yesterday.
and there are thistles in my fields… back to work everyone!
You all have a lovely day.
your friend on the farm, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
91 responses to “The Corn Thief”
Not Only a Hump but a pierced utter !!!!
Love the lavender pig !
Always a delight to read your posts Celi !
The “pierced udder” comment is very funny! Love it. The garden is beautiful, Celi. Looks like something Alice in Wonderland could entertain herself in for a good while. Funny how we turn into things our father’s didn’t expect…good laugh on that one.
Pierced udders are all the rage evidently! c
You know, I studied journalism & filmmaking, now I garden and cook! And you know what else? I was clicking away a few weeks ago at my food, plants, sights around the city, etc., without a memory card! This distracted mind is not all that unlike yours! 🙂 Love your blog!
Luckily my camera tells me when I forget the card! It is in and out of the camera three or four times a day so I can never keep up! Our distracted minds!! have a lovely day.. and welcome to the comments lounge..c
The expression on Boo’s face is priceless. He is clearly unapologetic for his antics.
Boo the Brat! But he is very good when he is sleeping in his mat at the back door.. c
Oh! Since you’re on a home grown challenge and since thistles are popping up in your yard…have you ever eaten “cardoons”? I guess that’s English for “cardi” which is Italian for a certain edible thistle (you eat the stalks). I ate them for the first time last fall and they were DELICIOUS. Do you think maybe yours are edible? You can fry them, braise them, or prepare them like a gratin. Yummy.
Um.. no I can’t say i have ever eaten a thistle, but i have dug up a good many!! c
I found this Googling milk thistle recipes – http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/braised_thistle_stem_60864 – but there were quite a few results, and you mentioned rennet the other day. Scotch Thistles can be used to make it – http://monicawilde.com/wild-vegetable-rennet-with-thistle-nettle-and-more/ 🙂
C, the Italian cardoons are just gorgeous; taste a bit like celery to me. Would love your summer temperatures……..almost indestructible.
i love listening to audio books. for years i had a long drive to college and i listened to books all the time. it made the long trip much less boring.
I think if I listened and drove i would become a menace on the roads!! c
I think you have done admirably for being a film and stage person. I laughed out loud at the towel dropping scene. 🙂 What a woman you are to try to breed Sheila by yourself. Can’t say that I blame you given the last go round. Maybe this time will be a bit less traumatic.
Any situation that does not include a Roaring Boar must be less traumatic! I will give it a try anyway.. c
Funny we had just one dog on the farm that loved to steal the maize off the stalks… he never wanted them drying out .. he wanted his fresh and still sap full… the only problem was he was such a big dog he knocked the whole plant over and then only took one head… so we ended eating a lot of corn on the cob as you would say over there…
Big Dog does that too, so now i have two dogs leaping up in the fields stealing the cobs..I do feed them you know! c
I am yet to succumb to audio books. The problem is once I start reading (or listening) I get so engrossed I forget everything else that is going on around me! Could have a few burnt pots that way LOL. Although my Mum always tells people that I always had my nose stuck in a book, and used to walk 2 miles to school everyday and not once look at from my book! So as long as my body is doing things it can do on auto-pilot I suppose it would be ok.
Your pictures are always wonderful not matter the light. I have the kittens outside with me now during the day, and yesterday tried to take pictures of them, but they don’t stay still two minutes and I ended up with quite a few ‘tails’ disappearing out of the frame!
Have a great weekend!!
I so agree about getting lost in a book. I always used to walk backwards while reading, and the neighbours would tut tut to Mum that I would get myself killed. That was seventy years ago and I’m still here!
I used to walk the dog and read too, never ran into a lamp-post not once, but had a few close calls!! I was listening to my book last night and then walked without thinking into the dark garden to cut some thyme, wondering why the reader had stopped! c
How does a nice NZ girl breed a pig herself?
Yes, your garden looks gorgeous. I am green with envy.
Love,
ViVx
well viv, i am not entirely sure, but i think there is a gadget, we will learn more as i progress with the research. c
Yes, I too was wondering. Lewd speculation aside, given gender and species science must be involved.
Morning C,
Love Boo’s photo…bless…I mean Bad Boo…lol. Once the vet told me it would be a good idea to include some veggies in my malamute’s diet and so I started teasing him and playing with him with carrots or broccoli when he was just a puppy and he grew up to love his veggie treats. He would grab the carrot between his paws, Boo style, bite off the tenderest tip and secret it under himself, savour the carrot bite by bite and finally polish of the tip which he always saved for lasts. But then, I didn’t plant corn in the garden for him to dig up. 🙂
You can do just about anything you put your mind to Celi. I’ve known you these past two years or so and feel absolutely confident that you are very much like me. Anyway, I always approach these things with the “how hard can this be anyway” attitude and I have a feeling you do too. Breeding a sow…easy… 🙂
I can learn it, though it does sound like a slightly unsavoury procedure! But we cannot risk Sheila losing her marbles as well. Big breath!! c
That is NOT something I would expect a dog to yearn for!
Hmm. ‘You remember Cecilia? Well, she has become a real pig …………..breeder!’ 🙂
NOOOOO!!! Well we will see i guess, i mean as veronica says.. how hard can it be!?c
Love Margarat Atwood. You should read Alias Grace. It was her novel that got me into her books when I was a teenager.
I read the handmaids tale while back too, wonderful book, Thank you.. i shall Put alias grace on my list too!
I beg to differ – I’d say you were born to farm 😉
Poor Sheila, a diet must be very disappointing. I think you are doing the right thing breeding her yourself though, she’ll be much happier staying on the farm.
She will be happier, they don’t take to change very well.. morning mad! c
Oh dear, she’ll never make it to Camden then 😉
May I ask why Sheila must go on a diet? I thought pigs were supposed to get fat?
Fat is bad for any animals health, especially an animal one expects to breed. We do fatten the ones destined for the freezer but once again we don’t want them too fat. I think it would be unkind to let her get obese. She has been a bit spoilt lately because she is in the corridor paddock that I walk through often in a day, and she takes a tax of whatever is in my bucket! c
Just in case you didn’t have enough to do, you added breeding your own piggy; well you know what they say C, if you want some done and done properly, give it to somebody who is busy, so there you have it.
Have a beautiful weekend. Oh and I love audio books.
🙂 Mandy xo