I just realized…
…it’s Monday night. I gotta post something!
See, we got our menus out of sync this weekend and had leftovers we had to eat on Easter Sunday (ain’t nobody waste leftovers at the moment), so we’re having our Easter Sunday dinner tonight. That’s what threw me.
It’s only a chicken, but those are mighty scarce at the moment. Unless you’re willing to buy one of them fancy, free-range birds that costs a fortune.
It’s not the fancy free range chicken in the picture, though. She wouldn’t make a proper snack. She’s just a silly bird having a bath in a flowerpot.
April 13, 2020 — 7:56 pm
Comments: 11
Uncle B had a good Friday
Good Friday is when people traditionally planted their potatoes in this country. It’s about the right time of year, and it’s one day the poor bastards had off work.
So Uncle B planted our potatoes today, in one of the raised beds at the end of the garden. The Eastern boundary of our place is a stream (it’s actually a drainage ditch, but that’s a lousy name for a thing that has swans living in it). He was rocking out to Bach’s Goldberg Variation on the headphones, he looked up, and not a dozen feet away these two (and their mum) were cavorting about on the far bank in the sun.
At that moment, he declared it the Easteriest Easter EVAR.
Happy Good Friday, everyone, and stay safe this weekend!
April 10, 2020 — 9:19 pm
Comments: 21
They’re winning…
This here is what it’s all about. I have my own self-sustaining protein snack factory.
Actually, they’re wearing me out. I have to eat a minimum three a day or they start to outpace me. I hard boil them and put them in salads, mostly.
Oops! I hit ‘publish’ on that prematurely. Oh, well…it’s not like anything happened today.
April 8, 2020 — 7:50 pm
Comments: 14
Nice timing
There’s a huge arable field across the road just to the west of our house. It’s mainly used to grow animal fodder, something different every year.
This year it’s rapeseed.
We’re allergic to rapeseed.
Well, maybe not allergic allergic, but there are volatile oils in the crop that irritate some people and cause bronchitis-like symptoms. Also, it smells nasty. And looks ugly.
The prevailing wind blows right across the crop and into our front door. The main symptom? A ragged cough.
It’s all I could do getting through my shopping yesterday without having a hacking fit in front of strangers. THE faux pas in the time of Coronavirus.
Honestly, I’ve had so many lung issues this year, I’ll never know if I get the bug.
Except fever. I keep my eyes peeled for fever.
April 7, 2020 — 8:23 pm
Comments: 10
We escaped into the wild…!
We are allowed to shop for food occasionally, of course. But we took a very, very roundabout way to get there. Uncle B was worried about the car sitting idle for so long, so we gave it a good run on the way.
Gosh, it was beautiful out. Sunny and warm. The hedges are coming into bloom (hawthorne, mayflower, all in white) and lambs EVERYwhere. It’s an unremarkable cellphone pic through the windshield, but I feel compelled to share it in color.
We had a long debate beforehand:
Farm shop? Nearby. Low risk. Not much more in stock than milk and bread, though.
Supermarket? Far away. High risk, but they’d have all sorts of things we’re running low on.
In the end, we settled for a large local independent market, which fell halfway between the two on all counts. Still a pretty daunting experience.
All the open shops are organized along ‘one comes out, one goes in’ principles. We queue up six feet apart all down the sidewalk. We aren’t both allowed in at the same time. Slathered in disinfectant at the door, hands and the handle of the shopping cart. All cashiers behind plexiglass shields with a hole cut in for the credit card machine (they’ve raised the contactless limits. I hope we aren’t seeing the death of cash).
Today was the first time in fourteen days I’ve put on a pair of shoes.
April 6, 2020 — 8:07 pm
Comments: 11
Tolja
I didn’t make that image today. I made it six years ago in a post wondering if ebola was the overdue pandemic. Probably not, I concluded, but buy some extra cans of tuna just in case.
Told you I’d been waiting for this sucker for a long time. And yes, I bought plenty of extra tuna in February.
Now comes the close of Week Two of the Lockdown and I heard a rumor today there’s a confirmed case nearby, though no-one seems to know exactly who. Have a good weekend and take extra care!
April 3, 2020 — 7:46 pm
Comments: 18
Tweet…!
This is fun: Bird Song Opera. Holy shit, I know what everyone’s doing with their downtime: scraping YouTube. I can’t tell you how many videos got shared on my local Whatsapp today. (This one’s from Uncle B).
The bird in the picture is a robin. We’ve discussed this before: British robins are a completely different species than American ones.
The European robin is a beloved bird because it hangs around all Winter and is not very afraid of people. Hence, they’re often on Christmas cards.
Truth be told, they’re assholes. Highly aggressive and territorial with each other and not afraid of people because, well, they’re assholes. But they’re so little and cute nobody cares. They remind me of chickadees.
They hang around me in the garden because chicken food. One little bastard buzzed me from behind the other day and actually grazed my cheek. Adorable asshole.
April 2, 2020 — 7:24 pm
Comments: 8
I’ll take “things unexpectedly impacted by Covid-19”
No, I am not an unlicensed stoat. This is a license for trapping stoats AND MURDERING THEM.
I’ll give you “vermin”!
I think we’ll venture out tomorrow. We’re about to run out of milk. Not sure if they’ll let us both in the store at the same time, though. It’s gotten that weird.
At least we can go to a small local grocer and avoid the supermarkets.
March 31, 2020 — 8:15 pm
Comments: 6
The Stoats of Science!
Stoats as a Unit of Measurement. Get your poster here. No, not my work.
A reminder:
American British
Weasel Stoat
Least Weasel Weasel
First lambs today! I could hear them yesterday, but not see them, so I went in search of laa bam at dusk today. I couldn’t get close enough for photography, though — the mamas didn’t like the look of me at all.
The lockdown continues apace. It’s as quiet as Christmas morning out there. We’re doing fine, though we’ll run out of fresh milk soon. My spies tell me the shop in town has plenty of everything. May go for a field trip soon.
Welcome to Week Two of the Plague!
March 30, 2020 — 7:42 pm
Comments: 11
The Return of Spoon
I hauled myself out at six this morning, no Spoon. I had plenty to do in the garden (it’s a mess after six months of daily rain) so I hung out and pottered around and about 8:30, a blackberry bramble in the drive began to softly “bok?…bok? Bok?…bok?”
You’ll have to take my word for the question marks. She sounded puzzled. And, honestly, who among us has NOT woken up in a hedge mid-morning with no idea how she got there?
She was about six feet up a bramble, in a kind of hole. I had to get my gloves to lift her out or I would have been torn to bits.
She was safe enough up there. The polands generally go way high and are protected for the night. The danger is next morning, when they flap down to ground level. If there isn’t a human around to stink up the place and keep the foxes at bay, there’s a real risk.
Tonight, all my chickens are right where they should be. Perhaps I can get a decent night’s sleep and a bit of a late morning, for once. Have a good weekend, everyone! (As if weekends held any meaning).
March 27, 2020 — 7:19 pm
Comments: 13