The week the sun came out

What a busy & wonderfully clement week

The Hens
At long last the weather has allowed us to move the hens to their new site. They have an upgraded hen-house & a big run with lots of greenery. It wont be long before they have scratched-up & eaten everything possible within the run but NO PROBLEM. We have masses of expansion room now - bliss!
Ages ago we were offered a Light Sussex cockerel - he is still available but Mr PoppyM is wavering about having him. We have now also been offered 2 Guinea Fowl from the same source. Of course I want the cockerel & the GF - I love GF. I wonder how this will all turn out - tune in & see!

Spring

• The snowdrops are open & it is quite clear that they are not all the same variety.
• In my troughs & pots are hosts of exciting shoot: the 3 rhubarb seedlings I grew last year have fiery red, tough-looking shoots that gave me a huge thrill when I found them quite unexpectedly: the delphiniums have frondy green shoot - I saw the roving peacocks eyeing them up; and there are shoots & shoots of bulbs I had forgotten planting - so many pleasant surprises waiting to reveal themselves.
• Talking of peacocks - the local long-standing pair are still together & the tail, along with the rattling, was on display yesterday.
• In the hedgerows I have seen a few early celandines open - little bursts of sunshine laying on the ground.
• So many birds busy & singing & pairing-up. Spring is well & truly on it's way.

BOOKS
It was my birthday this week & I have had some great presents from friends. One I am particulary enjoying reading is a children's book that has somehow escaped me. Go out & buy it now ..... "The Little White Horse" by Elizabeth Goudge - such an innocent magical story.

It's nearly Spring!!

A few days ago my first crocuses opened.

And today I saw my first catkins in the hedgerows.

I have been eagerly awaiting the opening of snowdrops. There is a little wood near here with a floor of snowdrops & clumps & clumps of them under a sweet chestnuts & stand of beautiful beech trees. Then I found an on-line article by Monty Don (in the Mail) that indicates we haven't had a warm enough day yet. The weather forecast for the next few days looks promising so perhaps they'll be open for my birthday!
(http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/home/gardening/article-1118062/All-things-white-beautiful-Why-climate-change-good-thing-case-snowdrop.html#

A snowy week

What to do when you get snowed in!



Read a good book or two.
The image above is from a fantastic book "Birds Britannica" by Mark Cocker & Richard Mabey.

It is full of amazing facts & pictures -in Tudor times "the London population of kites was protected by statues for its valuable refuse-disposal services.." and "together with penguins and owls, puffins are the birds most often found in the baby's cot"-toy ones that is!!

Or ....

I've opened it at random to give a flavour -"Herefordshire Orchards" & "Strid Woods" (in Yorkshire) & in the chapter about Formby Point (a man-made landscape to stablise a dune system) "From the beginning of the twentieth century, there were around 200 acres of ground among the dunes, divided up into small "pieces", where local growers cultivated splendid crops of asparagus"!

I've just baked a brilliant chocolate cake...can't wait to try it with custard. It's a really dark colour & very moist.

CHOCOLATE BEETROOT CAKE

Serves 6 (in your dreams!!!)
Prep: 20 min Cook: 50 min

75g cocoa powder or powdered drinking chocolate
180g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
250g caster sugar (I used 200g)
250g cooked beetroot
3 large eggs
200ml corn oil
1tsp vanilla extract (I replaced this with ginger)
Icing sugar for dusting

METHOD
Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and lightly butter a 20cm (8in) round or square cake tin.
Sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder into a bowl. Mix in the sugar, and set these dry ingredients aside. Purée the beetroot in a food processor. Add the eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla and oil, and whiz until it is smooth. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, add the beetroot mixture and mix it all lightly. Pour into the prepared cake tin. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean (cover with a loose sheet of foil if it starts to brown at about 30 minutes). This cake will not rise a great deal, and the top will crack. After removing from the oven, leave it for 15 minutes before taking it out of the the pan. Cool on a wiore rack and dust with icing sugar before serving.

Jill.dupleix@thetimes.co.uk Very Simple Food by Jill Dupleix is published by Quadrille at £20. Order from Times Books First for £16, plus £2.25 p&p. 0870-160 8080

Some more serious stuff

The above cake is apparently an Australian favourite. My heart & healing thoughts go out to those who have suffered as a result of the bush fires. Especially those who have had to watch others suffer & die &, those who are being treated for burns & related injuries. Truely horrific.

An old work colleague sent me an e-mail that caused me some thought. In this age & back through the ages, in every country & amongst every race, so many families have been unwillingly seperated. The pain this causes is carried through the generations -so remember this little girl - she must be somewhere & someone must know something - Madeleine McCann http://www.findmadeleine.com/2008/

Imbole & Poetry Day

2nd February - poetry day

Here's my own contribution:

Naughty chocolate
.

Forbidden chocolates.

Such melting, sweet delights

Are worth regrets!

.

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And here's a great poem by Mary Oliver:

Why I Wake early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello , you who makethe morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the window of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety -

.

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light -

good morning, good morning, good morning.

.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in happiness.

.

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Happy Imbolc to everyone.

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New Shoots & Buds

• I thought today might be "the day" when I saw the first spring buds open into flowers - not so - they just need a few rays of encouragement from the sun. Today was grey, gloomy with a biting wind - nothing soft to tempt them there. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to celebrate the start of a new growing cycle along with the snowdrops & crocuses.
• 
  
• In a number of my tubs are dense masses of vibrant stocks that have developed from the undistinguished plantlets I planted out in late autumn. Through great temperature changes, heavy frost, winds & limited sunlight they have continued to grow. Yesterday I noticed that they were producing buds - how amazing is that. I just hope the peacocks don't get them - I found a full grown male, complete with long tail, sitting on my window box pecking at the pansys & the following day he was perched on our rather delicate bird table stealing the peanuts!
• 
  
• In the human world I see "new shoots" to - we have moved our hen-house to a new site, one friend has started a course in tarot another has her own radio show. I have restarted my own writing projects with fresh vigor & direction & I have experimented with dying & decorating eggs. Even in at this gloomy part of the year amid depressing world news confidence, optimism & defiance are thriving.
• 
  
• So if winter is giving you the blues tune into Boundary sound (Saturday 31st 10am-noon UK time) & listen to "Girls on Top". Watch "Lark Rise to Candleford" on the TV Sunday, bake a cake, go out looking for buds & flowers, then get warm & comfortable & read a good book!
  
• .http://www.boundarysound.co.uk/shows/
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/larkrise/
• http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/saturday-carrot-cake,874,RC.html
• http://www.alexandermccallsmith.co.uk/lda/MiracleAtSpeedy.aspx

Poetry Day 2nd Feb

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Invitation to The Fourth Annual Brigid in the Blogosphere Poetry Slam

Feel free to copy the following to your blog and spread the word. Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!

WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2009

WHERE: Your blog

WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day

HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.

RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on this post. Last year when the call went out there was more poetry in cyberspace than I could keep track of. So, link to whoever you hear about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun. Feel free to pass this invitation on to any and all bloggers.Thank you, Reya, for beginning what is now an annual event.
Posted by d. oak at 8:02 P

The Seed Packet

I recently went to the local garden centre & found myself in the seed section. There was quite a cluster of people around the beautifully presented seed packets. All present had a serious air of deliberate selection and anticipation. There was no frivolity, nothing remotely light & fluffy about this cluster of gardeners, more of an earthy, deep focus, like growing roots.
.
I bought 4 packets of seeds that instructed the gardener to plant them indoors in February. It's only a few weeks away but I am so impatient, impatient for the smell of damp soil hugging the dry sleeping seeds. Impatient to make those anxious, excited visits, many times a day to check the precious pots. Eager to feel the anticipation of those first probing shoots, then the unfurling soft leaves. To have the simple pleasure of reading & re-reading the the seed packets & envisaging the fully grown plants in glorious leaf & flower. With all this comes some anxiety, has all been done as instructed by the packet, and what should be done to avert mishaps or illness to the courageous protoplant on it's phenomenal journey from unremarkable seed to voluptuous bloom.
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Those unremarkable seeds are magical things sustaining gardeners through the cold winter chill that lies ahead after all the glitter of the mid-winter festivities have passed & been put away in boxes - their seed packets - ready to sprout & bloom next December.
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I wonder, are we - the planters -helping the seeds grow the way they grow, because we so strongly hold their final images in our heads. What a responsibility. Are we seed growers the 21st century's elementals - the fairies & gnomes so loved of fairy tales & myths. What happens when the wrong seeds are put in the wrong packet? Nature must have a back-up plan, after all a majority of seeds grow quite happily without an anxious garden present.

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Not long now til February. To curb my impatience I'll plant up a winter hanging basket & keep checking my outdoor bulbs.