Alphabet in August – E to H

Posted by louisa on Monday 8 August 2011 in meta | 2 comments

This is a month-long creative exercise led by Chiot’s Run: descriptive words and pictures about me/my life starting with each letter of the alphabet. Most people are doing a letter a day but I’m doing it in groups instead ;)

• Alphabet in August – A to D

(Natch.)

E is for …

• Eclectic: I like (and do) a whole load of different stuff.
• Elephant-memory: Although I usually don’t say I have “good memory” but a good retrieval system (I say my brain is like Google; John, who can’t ever remember anything, is like Lycos circa 1996. Both of us have the results but I can find them more efficiently.)
• Envious: Not of diamonds and wealth, but of soil, growing conditions, seed selections… I can’t read growing or making blogs without wanting to do it myself too.
• Euphemistic: My favourite Twitter hashtag is #notaeuphemism
• Emoticon: I’m not a fan of fancy ones or multiple ones used in rapid succession (which my dad does, all the frickin’ time) but I use the basic smiley one a LOT – including every time I sign my name (electronically or on paper). It makes me smile whenever I type it. :)

(Food and [marrow flower] fritters – double whammy!)

F is for …

Fig and fennel seed soda bread recipe

Posted by louisa on Friday 5 August 2011 in cooking, Featured, recipes | 3 comments

A few weeks ago, I wanted a sweet treat but didn’t have enough butter in the house to make something cake-ish. After a bit of Googling around for inspiration, I came up with this sweet bread instead – and because it doesn’t use yeast and doesn’t need kneading, it’s ready to eat in next to no time.

It’s a little different to my usual soda bread – I’ve made it a few times now to tweak the flavourings but my expert focus groups contradicted each other with their opinions on less or more fennel seeds (same loaf, wildly different opinions), so I’ve made it how I like it, sod them ;) If you like the liquorice taste of fennel seeds, you might want to up it to 5tsp of seeds; if you prefer it to be subtler (but still there in the background), drop it down to 3tsp. And don’t feed it to any of my contrary friends ;)

It can be baked on a flat cookie sheet (dusted with flour or semolina) or in a lidded cast iron casserole dish (like the slow rise bread). The latter traps moisture and reduces the cooking time – but make sure it’s super hot before adding the dough or it’ll stick.

The latest beauty treatment

Posted by louisa on Friday 5 August 2011 in chickens | 1 comment

Have you heard about fish pedicures, the “beauty” “treatment” of the moment, where hundreds of little carp suck away the dead skin from your feet?

I have a homegrown alternative:

The chickens’ new rocket ship, um, I mean drinker

Posted by louisa on Friday 5 August 2011 in chickens | 3 comments

Earlier this week, the chickens had a new feature installed in their run – a 30litre (6.5gallons) drinker.

It’s a somewhat excessive for six chickens really (they get through about 3-4 litres a day between them) but I’m sick of buying small drinkers and then wishing I’d bought a bigger one (that’s happened twice now), and this one was about the same price as one about half the size so I thought it’s easier to half fill this one than double-fill a smaller one, if you know what I mean ;). Given there is a plan to expand the team slightly next year, and at some point (although probably not imminently) expand into having chickens-for-meat too, I’ll consider this too-big purchase an act of futureproofing.

And it’s not just about future benefits: their feeders hold about four days worth of food and this drinker will easily hold that much water too, even if I only half fill it — I’m not planning on neglecting them by any means, but it’ll lessen the burden on anyone looking after them if we want to go away for a long weekend (the chicken-sitter will only have to check on them and collect eggs). Now, to start planning a weekend away somewhere…! :)

Alphabet in August – A to D

Posted by louisa on Thursday 4 August 2011 in meta | 2 comments

Susy from Chiot’s Run is running a themed creative exercise this month: words or ideas to describe ourselves, using a different letter of the alphabet each day, often accompanied by a letter-focused photo.

A good number of people are taking part, doing their letter each day like they’re supposed to, but as you will read when I get down to “R”, I’m rather rebellious and not good at following rules, so I’m going do them in batch form instead, picking no more than five words for each letter. My photos will be things in my life which start with (or evoke) that letter too, rather than the actual letters themselves.

Here’s my first few letters – A-D:

(I’m rather over-excited about the achocha growing in our garden at the moment.)

A is for…

• Animal-lover: I prefer them to (most) humans.
• Addictive-personality: Thankfully my worst addictions are video games, not noxious substances.
• Animated: When I get into a conversation, I REALLY get into it.
• Argumentative: See “Animated”. Rarely productive or beneficial to the situation.
• Atheist: Something I often get animated and argumentative about. ;)