The view out my kitchen window
Lambs 2014, here at last. We’ve seen them in other parts of the county, but these are the first in our village.
This field — the one visible from my kitchen window — always has rams in it, so it’s a treat to have ewes and lambs to look at.
Not so cool to have ewes and lambs to listen to. They mehhhh at each other all night long.
Good weekend and happy lambing, all!
April 4, 2014 — 10:55 pm
Comments: 19
The Muzeum of Beanz
Jack and I got exiled to the kitchen yesterday for bad behavior, so I organized the canned goods cabinets. Words are inadequate to describe how astonishing it is that I might organize a kitchen cabinet. My housekeeping, it is below average.
Lookit — turns out, in aggregate, we have a whole cabinet’s worth of Heinz beans. Excuse me, “beanz.” They’re likely to last a while, too. I’ve finally plucked up the courage to tell Uncle B that the answer to the question, “would you like a few beans with dinner?” is not merely “no” but “honestly, no.”
Anyways, MacDonald’s is throwing a corporate snit. After forty years of Heinz ketchup, MacDonald’s is dropping them because — get this! — the new CEO of Heinz is the old CEO of Burger King. Word.
Pretty thin gruel of a blog post, I admit, but we were exiled again. If this keeps up, I’m in danger of having a clean kitchen.
October 31, 2013 — 12:04 am
Comments: 41
Return of the Swan fambly
We’ve seen a lone swan in the field several times this year, so we assumed there wasn’t a swan family. But lookee here what I spotted in the back field this afternoon.
Those aren’t six headless swans, they’re six enthusiastically grooming swans. Though the bird at the far left is a little too enthusiastic, judging from the cloud of white feathers on the ground.
Short post, but Monday night is Garbage Night and Bath Night, so we’re pretty excited around here.
August 5, 2013 — 10:23 pm
Comments: 27
Lookit the laaambs…!
We call these guys the Light Brigade. Our property is bounded on one end by a stream (it’s actually a drainage ditch, but that sounds uglier than it is. Swans breed in it, dammit). When the sun falls on the far bank in the afternoon, ten or twenty lambs go tear-assing down the bank bomb-be-de-bomb-be-de-bomb-be-de. Then, about ten seconds later, they come tear-assing back up again. Hours at a time.
Lambovision. I took this picture from the comfort of my lawn chair, no fooling. Only, not today. Today sucked.
I just couldn’t leave everyone staring at a political Photoshop all weekend. The dawning realization that the government is run — literally, as Biden would say — by a bunch of union thugs is just too much to bear.
Lambs instead. Good weekend, everyone.
May 17, 2013 — 10:02 pm
Comments: 37
Where the jam sammiches at?
Well, well…lookee what turned up in my front yard last night.
We’ve caught glimpses — or imagined we’ve caught glimpses — of badgers before, but this is the first one to turn up on the naturecam. And a big fat boy he was, too.
After a cooler than normal Summer, we’ve just had a few days of blazing heat. Well, blazing heat for England. And they call it Indian Summer too, poor dears, without knowing why (they think it has something to do with the Raj).
But last night the spell broke, and the world remembered it’s October, the wind shifted, the cold blew in and — voilà — badger in the garden. There’s a sett about three quarters of a mile from here, but if he’s a bachelor, he may be setting up housekeeping nearby.
Oh, that’ll do wonders for Uncle B’s pansies.
October 4, 2011 — 9:20 pm
Comments: 15
Ghosteses
I spent the long weekend (when I wasn’t snoozing in the sun under a downy layer of chickens) weeding the borders around the house. When you live in a four hundred year old cottage, the job ain’t so bad.
I always — I mean always — dig up interesting bits of junk. And by “dig up” I mean, more often than not, find lying on the surface, thanks to that curious process by which earth acts like water, drawing objects down and lifting them up again. Fluid but glacially slow.
Today, I dug up part of a tiny pelvis and several long bones. I’ve either exhumed someone’s beloved cat or secret lovechild. Um, oops?
Also, several small lengths of clay pipestem. I find a lot of that. I’ve only found one bowl so far (pictured above) and it’s a very early one. The small bowl and wide angle between it and the stem puts it around 1600-ish, the internet tells me. Maybe the very first owner of this house was the smoker.
Found them by the place where the front door used to be. Imagine the master of the house knocking out his pipe on the threshold before coming in of an evening, and “oh, bugger” it breaks. So he throws it…four centuries into the future.
I find dozens of pottery chips. Makes me laugh. Blue and white could be anything from Delft, 1580 to Woolworths, 1976. Same with the mysterious lumps of rust; they could be anything, any time.
One of these days, I’ll dig up a coin. I know it. I don’t care what it is; I just want some lunch money from the past.
I often think the saddest thing about living in a house this old is how haunted it isn’t; how many people have lived whole lives inside these four walls and left no trace on them. All I have to know them by is little busted up bits of junk they threw out in the yard.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere. A really depressing metaphor.
April 25, 2011 — 10:33 pm
Comments: 24
Noo loo
Behold, our new upstairs toilet. The old one always had a crack in the cistern and finally started to leak last weekend.
It’s a heartbreak to spend that kind of money for a pot to piss in, so let me at least get a goddamned post out of it.
British toilets were my first hint that being a foreigner might be harder than expected. I have difficulty flushing the ones with levers. They look like the familiar American toilet handle, but turning them does nothing. You have to put a little…hell, I don’t know. A little oomph on them.
Maybe it’s because English toilets have the handle on the right and I had a lifetime experience flushing handles to the left.
I don’t know. I looked in the tank once — instead of the good old Yankee doodle float-and-flapper, there’s all this spooky alien tech back there. Weird shit. Not messing with it.
The worst was the toilet in London. I was completely that toilet’s bitch. Every time I turned the handle, it gave a little growly noise, swirled stuff around in a bored, perfunctory way and…nothing. I never got it on the first try, and after the third or fourth try, I’d have to wait for the tank to fill up again.
A bathroom break could take me twenty minutes. Uncle B must’ve thought I had some kind of unspeakable problem down there. It was a while before I explained.
Because, let me tell you, the thing when you’re in a new relationship and trying to look all desirable and attractive and stuff: you really, REALLY don’t want to ask the new boyfriend in to check out your bidness and help you flush it.
Luckily for me, the new one’s foolproof — it’s pushbutton! And like a lot of toilets here, it’s a two-stager. The big button is a little flush, the little button is a big flush.
Get me! Flushing like a big girl!
Oh! And then there was the time we went to Arundel and the toilet at the train station was a proper old-fashioned water closet, with the elevated cistern and the pull chain and everything. I was so excited. It was the highlight of my trip.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
February 11, 2011 — 10:19 pm
Comments: 55
Name that beast!
Check out this mystery beast we caught on the wildlife camera last night. Usually, the pictures are a bit clearer than this, but dark objects are difficult for the infrared.
Remember, wildlife of this size is very limited in the UK, so don’t be guessing raccoon or wolverine or spiny anteater, okay? Little baby bear? Right out.
Maybe an obese black cat, but the legs are awfully stumpy. For reference, the grass is not especially deep and the heap of shit on the lawn (my goodness, how Uncle B hates my heap of shit on the lawn) is about knee deep.
Badger? The legs and body fit, but it’s too dark, a little small and I’d expect to be able to pick out the stripey snout.
I haven’t posted about the wildlife camera before, have I? I was kind of waiting to catch a hedgehog wearing pants or a tapdancing stoat or something really interesting.
But no. Most nights, we get a few pictures Meester Fox and our two cats. Not together. When the sun comes up, chickens and dickie birds. This is because I put leftovers on my heap of shit on the lawn. Heh heh heh.
I bought the camera for Uncle B, but I think I get the most pleasure out of it. I really look forward to checking that chip every day.
This is the one we have (and let me say I think “Prostalk” is an appalling product name). They make much better ones, of course, but this seemed like a good entry level.
Mucho recommendo. And you might get lucky and catch a nice shot of your burglar or your ex or something.
February 9, 2011 — 8:17 pm
Comments: 52
Meet my leetle freend
This is Henry. Oh, and it looks like he’s happy to see you!
Yes, my new vacuum has a name. And a smiley face. And a derby. (Eh. It could have been worse).
Don’t laugh; this is a serious piece of kit. The Numatic Company got its start forty years ago making industrial vacuums for cleaning out boilers.
Six people in a shed kludging together rugged little industrial workhorses. Originally, they made vacuums out of “found” components — oil drums, furniture casters, suitcase handles, kitchen mixing bowls.
I just love that.
You live in a 400 year old house, you have to vacuum. A LOT. In 360 degrees. Spiderwebs, bits of wool blown in from the fields, tiny fragments of oak beams. (Get me! I Hoover up artifacts from the reign of Elizabeth the First!)
It must be said, I’m awful at it. Here’s hoping a decent vacuum will help.
December 29, 2010 — 10:18 pm
Comments: 47
Harvested the last of the driveway…
Blackberries, the end of the harvest. Now I have to cut those suckers back ruthlessly, before they take over the planet.
Today’s batch is still in the primary fermentation vessel. Those are secondary fermentation vessels, of course. Elderberry, blackberry, elderberry/blackberry, and some abomination I made out of all kinds of fruit that had been taking up room in the freezer for too long.
I only make wine so I can say shit like “secondary fermentation vessels.”
Speaking of which, I ordered a couple of extra demijohns at the local hardware store. Their supplier told them it’ll be a month or more. I guess everybody’s got the same idea this year.
In the Olde Countree, we sold out of milk, bread and eggs whenever a snowstorm was coming. When a financial shitstorm is predicted, looks like people buy laying hens and make wine out of junk from the hedges.
October 7, 2010 — 10:10 pm
Comments: 25