Blog themes, and my Christmas card to you

When I started this blog, I had the intention of actually showing work I was doing. Well the less said about that the better at the moment because life didn't turn out like that. This is, if it is nothing else, real life. You'll have noticed, I'm fairly sure, that there have been no posts about my sewing.

I also thought, originally, the layout would be sufficient to show the photos of stuff in progress and finished. Except I hadn't really thought it through. I discovered that photos which needed big space don't fit in this theme, so I started another blog to fulfil this.  On the other hand, I love the brightly coloured thread lines of this theme, so it's staying put.

Which leaves me with the point of this post - to direct you to your Christmas card from me.  Click here and go fetch! You could print it out and hang it up if you want, whatever - there is no copyright involved.  I would just like to thank anybody who's been here and wish you Merry (and peaceful) Christmas. 

But I'll be posting as usual, and getting to grips with why my mother isn't entirely happy with her new life. So I suspect developments on that front. And blogging about anything else which catches my attention of course. Especially the mysterious life of chickens. Who, you'll be relieved to hear, have survived the desperate temperatures they've been exposed to recently, roosting close to the house in laurel bushes.

Brief memory

Something in the haze of today's early morning reminded me.

I was living in Shetland and at long last getting some sensible treatment for the injured spine. My hospital physio, Mike, was excellent. He lived not far from me at the south end of the 'mainland'. It's often the case there that you recognise people while you're driving around, so it's customary and expected to acknowledge them - a wave or a quick peep on the horn, whatever.

Lying on the padded table in my lunch hour, ready for manipulation, I heard Mike say "You must have been in a rare old hurry to get to work this morning".
"Why? Did I not see you?"  I was mortified. He must have been out jogging early, as usual, and I'd been too preoccupied to notice. "I'm so sorry."
"No", he said. "You've got your knickers on inside out." 

Getting warmer

For once, I don’t mean my tiny world in Derbyshire, although yes it’s drizzling and the snow is subsiding slowly and gently.

I mean that I just clicked on one of my listed reference sites to the right here, and saw a picture (well two pictures, years apart) and was shocked by their honesty. They said, truly, what a thousand words and endless arguments could not. They also have a text worth reading below. See this in the light of some of the current Cancun pissing–in–the–wind behaviour.  Go ahead, click here.

Small bit of Big fun

Prologue - hen-food kindling coal oil - all low or non-existent. Snowy roads not conducive for trip to usual corn mill. Local feed shop and hardware store instead.

Had been thinking of rigging up some sort of pallet to get the stuff down the hill from the car. Wouldn't have been surprised if I actually had a pallet lying around somewhere. Remember the 'has own drain rods' business?

Standing yakking at the hardware counter, my eye fell on the bright blue plastic sledges. Oh, yes. Very yes.

Eleven quid. OK. Needs must. Think 'Investment'. Might eventually pass it on to a convenient child if there's one handy.

Into the boot with it and away home.

When the car was safely back in its snowy noost (Shetland word for slightly hollowed out piece of ground where you lay up your little boat, right way up with the drain hole open) up in the top field, I loaded up the sledge with the sack of hen food and a huge heavily-loaded fibreglass-type shopping bag, and started dragging it down the hikers' track. 

Gravity and slidey frozen snow being the perfect combination to set it slamming into the back of my boots, I thought I'd let it lead me, like a large dog. Then I noticed that the channel stomped into the snow by the dell-dwellers next door was the perfect width for the sled. And I let go.

Away it went, only grinding to a halt once, all the way down the track.  Brilliant. Double brilliant because it made me burst out laughing and I really needed some silliness.

At the bottom, it stopped and I caught up in leisurely fashion.

Placed nicely for the final run down the lower part of the access drive, off it went again. It even took the curve on to the bridge over the river like a real bobsleigh. Triple brilliant. 

The flat bit to the house was as effortless as a stone skipping across water. 

I was still laughing when we both got home and, needless to say, the hens were absolutely delighted. 

 My hero

Emergency measures

I could have explained before now that the hens live in trees. It's lucky they don't lay eggs up there. There'd be a royal mess round the garden. Anyway it's a natural habitat and this lot were born to it.

Since the snow is 2 feet deep around Geronimo's conifer home, he's been playing Let's Go Camping in the beech hedge near the front door. Coaxing him out of there took half an hour the other day when it was still blizzarding. Eventually he was able to get down to the food and water, and actually used my emergency shelter for a day or two. Then today he was back up in the beech, and after expending much of his energy and thinking power (limited, it has to be said - hens aren't renowned for the size of their brains) and a load of chuckling and chortling, he got to a place I could actually reach in and grab him and plonk him on the path to feed. That beak may look fearsome but he's a pussycat in disguise. Really never minds being picked up. Unlike a certain real pussycat I could mention. He almost said Thank You. I know this because he just chortled again and started eating.   

 

anti-blizzard shelter par excellence

His little tribe has been sheltering each daytime around the corner under a convenient window, which made feeding them ridiculously easy. Once I'd tracked them down, that is.  Since 3 out of 4 house exits are severely snowed up, it was a long trek round the garden but needs must, to give them water. Tonight they're all perched in the beech hedge by the front door next to His Lordship. They opened sleepy eyes when I arrived home after an epic and successful trip to The Shops. Took an hour to dig out the car, a block 2 yards by 2 yards by 18" deep between car and a bit of track to the gate already cleared by neighbour. 

only half an hour to go - why only 6" on top and 18" on ground? Not fair.

It's done my back no good whatsoever. But I will sleep with a clear conscience. I spent a bloody fortune on birdfood and got four packs of lard to do the special bird treat I do every winter, at least twice a week. 

Recipe:

• roasting fat congealed in the bottom of the roasting tin, grill pan, whatever (there's none available just now hence my buying lard)
• cheapest porridge oats (not rolled oats - they're too rubbery)
• if you've got them, sultanas or raisins, preferably out of date  - these are optional and are best mashed up or cut up in a blender first. Same could be said for any stale unsalted nuts you might have at the back of the cupboard.
• stale catfood leftovers from you-know-who  -  this too is optional
• some sort of suet, even if it means using 'suet treats' which are expensive and happen to be Geronimo's favourite food
• hot water
• low to medium heat on hob throughout.

Heat the fat and pour in the porridge, stirring until it absorbs the fat completely. 
Adjust amounts to get flakes nicely covered. Throw in sultanas and smelly catfood and stir into mess. 
Add suet and melt it down while stirring.
Scrape up bits which have fallen out of pan while stirring too enthusiastically.  Add to pan.
Add hot water and stir all into one big mass of gloop. (This is the magical chemical reaction of hot water and suet.)
Spoon gloop into suitable receptacles like empty coconut shells (previously filled with commercial gloop), plastic chinese takeaway cartons etc. Squash in and tamp down.
Leave to cool and set. 
It might sound a bit involved but only takes five minutes. Honest. (Basically if you have only fat, oats and hot water it will still work. I did that for years before discovering the wonders of suet.)

Hang up shells where birds are sitting waiting, singing silly songs and telling jokes to keep themselves amused.
Empty cartons out and break into pebbles size for hens, pheasants, blackbirds, chaffinches, robins, magpies etc. Sounds wrong but I've noticed robins do not like trying to hang on by their claws.

Count to twenty by which time most of the pebble crumbs will have disappeared.  The shells take a little longer, being besieged by bluetits et al with teeny beaks.

Altogether a better day and more exercise than I've had in months.

Smidgeon of the week

It's been a weird and difficult week. Not going to blab on about it just now but the best bit was the huge snow which I could enjoy because a) I adore snow and b) I had tons of food and everything all loaded in, and didn't run out of oil. Yet. (Last delivery didn't make it in time.) Coal has gone, and sawdust 'heatlogs' are on rations. One fire's worth, I think. Amazing how a deep cold can overcome really hot radiators. On Monday night I drove the car up the steep access drive and parked it in the little field next to the main 'A' road above me. This is a clever trick we in the dell use every winter. Then they closed the road and that was that. It reopened yesterday but I didn't have the energy to go out.

Except I didn't enjoy the snow. And this is a girl who frequently uses the word in passwords and usernames and what all. (But had better change them now I've said that.) (Come to think of it, none of them say snow at the moment except my twitter name which I haven't used yet. God I'm waffly today.) So I'm the one who jumps up and down like a kid at the sight of a few flakes, but I almost couldn't have cared less. What a state. Something is not right. Could be to do with the weird week it's been, obviously. Not rocket science, is it?

Today's big question is Will She Get the Car Out and To The Shops?
Going to tramp up the hill and take my spade, and rubber car mats to put under the wheels etc. I have just about run out of bird and hen food and my rice milk. Black and green (and white) teas are great but black coffee is not. And if I can find a couple of bags of coal I'll be very happy.
 
Meanwhile here's a bad photo of the view from the kitchen on Wednesday 1st, complete with desperate pheasant and hesitant bluetit -