Dinner will be late tonight...

...I’m still plucking the chicken. 

Tuesday
As one does in the stodgy depths of January, I have been daydreaming. Perhaps 2014 should be the year when I attempt one new creative activity each week.... re-upholster an old armchair, make fridge magnets out of beach pebbles or, at the very least, cook a new recipe.

Plucking and gutting a chicken was not quite on my list (although it had crossed my mind). We do, after all, have a couple of spare roosters. I know a man who will willingly come and despatch any unwanted fowl. I’m sure he would have shown me the ropes, if the slinky red fox hadn't got there first! 

From my studio yesterday I heard a disturbing level of clucking and squawking at dusk. I raced out to the hen house, just as said fox slipped covertly from the scene. I was lucky. He had only killed one cockerel. Head dismembered, lustrous sheen drained from its limp feathers; I was boldly determined that the fox wasn’t going to have the reward of eating this one. 

So, my first creative challenge was thrust upon me. 

It’s a well known fact that birds are much easier to pluck while still warm. I got that done  swiftly, before dinner. Which left me the evening to do some research on crop removal, neck severing, 'powerflush lung removers', bile and the fascinating contents of gizzards. 

My rooster could hang until the morning and I could tuck into bed reading masterly advice from Elizabeth David on simmering tough old birds.

Wednesday
Strange how a good night’s sleep often clears the mind. There’s no way I can face dealing with that torpid corpse... the fox could have been carrying a deadly disease. The local butcher shook his head gravely at the very suggestion of coq-au-vin and what’s more the family have all flatly refused to have anything to do with the bird. I would have been dining alone on soup for weeks. 

So, I’m going to shove him in the compost heap and attempt some genteel upholstery this weekend instead.

Fair weather gardener?

What a joy it is, in summer, to linger on the way to the vegetable patch; enjoying the beckoning fragrance of a new flower. To follow the meandering path of a passing butterfly. To pick a rainbow of produce and set a brimming basket down on the kitchen table.

A couple of years ago I made a promise to myself to grow more winter vegetables. Now, head bent against the wind and rain, light failing and mud clinging to my fork I’m beginning to question the pleasure of playing tug-of-war with an obstinate parsnip. 

But at least when I resort to the allure of nice, clean, supermarket vegetables, I do spare a grateful thought for those who have toiled on my behalf.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

OK, so no more excuses. The kids are back at school, I've tidied my studio, scrubbed my palette, laid out my paint tubes in colour order, sorted my brushes, ordered more paper....  re-sorted my brushes.

The sun is dazzling this morning, the birds are rejoicing and I've just picked my first snowdrops. 

Let the year begin!

lastminuteturkey.com

My local weekly auction room is usually home to polished fluted mahogany legs, pert copper kettles and the sonorous tock of well oiled grandfather clocks. 

Just before Christmas however the annual poultry sale comes to town and so today I am confronted by a sea of puckered flesh and frigid claws!

As 300-odd locally reared birds compete for best goose, champion turkey and supreme duck, almost as many bidders are gathered to compete for best Christmas dinner!

Unfortunately I’ve already got my turkey, but next year I may well don a flat cap and a barbour jacket and join in the bidding! Happy Christmas!

My Country

This time last year we were busy getting our house all Christmassy for a photoshoot for 

‘My Country’ magazine (Japan)

Copyright My Country

Ha, this year I can relax in an armchair with my copy of the magazine,

 in the knowledge that there are boxes of decorations all ready and waiting in the attic.

Only... on a recent mooch around the vast, vintage wonderland that is Rokit, I was rather taken by these shiny pom-poms by artist Karen Hsu. Check out more of her amazing creations here. I can sense I might just have to have a little play around with some cellophane before the festive season is over. 

Short and Sweet....

....the latest goodies from Blue Hill Farm featuring my watercolours

photos copyright bluehillfarm

Hello Winter

"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."

Henry David Thoreau

Last week,

Autumn’s jolly tartan waistcoat was completely unravelled by the wind, 

Yellow, gold and ochre ripped from its fraying hemline.

Only the shiny-red rose-hip buttons clung tightly on,

until,

Observed by a pair of ebony crows, 

I came to snip them from their worn out lapels.

This little pig went to market...

It’s been a ‘pig’ week.

Monday, we took Joan and her friends to the abattoir. So meekly did they all climb into the trailer, I’m sure they thought they were setting off on a caravanning holiday.

A ten-minute drive... the country route... no main roads and we were there. Still no squeals. No hanging about, no stress.

No tears. 

Twenty-four hours later we’re discussing ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ with the butcher.

Then Wednesday, I finally got to play with my shiny new mincer....

Colour cuts the mustard

There’s an incredible stillness outside today. Sitting on my favourite bench, looking across the garden, there’s not a whisper of movement. I'm studying an etching, in which even the quivering willow has been abridged to a sketch of finely inked outlines. Splashes of colour hang suspended against a blue sky; autumn has hoisted her bunting aloft.

A bee startles me, his industry almost incongruous in this serenity. He dodges from one flower to the next, enjoying the memory of summer; a souvenir sunflower, big and bold, dahlias and chrysanthemums, clinging to the sun's warmth, rich reds fading to russet, purple bleached to pink, a thousand pointed petals. 

If a bee can interrupt my reverie, even more so the chickens, who have sought me out. Sylvie, so named after a ballerina, looks more like a pantomime dame as she launches into the air to peck at dried poppy heads. The clumsy thud of her landing is applauded by the rattle of tiny castanets as the seeds shake from their pods.

With overnight frost forecast there's a guillotine hanging over the dahlias so I'm off to quick step round the garden myself to gather a final few blooms.

Ladies who lunch

 

With the advance of Autumn, the demarcation between pig and mud is becoming increasingly blurred. 

Wet clay soil and tapering trotters are not empathetic. The latter are as impractical as stilettos on the lawn at a summer wedding! 

As a result, Joan breaks into a comical high-kneed skip to traverse the quagmire, when she sees me coming with the midday slops. 

Today she guzzled the remaining rosehip pulp from my syrup making. At least the vitamin C content should keep her joints well serviced! 

November

1st..

A couple of weeks ago I mislaid Jennie. 

Negligent? Nay, surprisingly easy in a large garden. But today I discovered she was savouring the mild autumn from underneath a lilac bush. Underneath her fluffed up body were a dozen warm eggs.  

She had the radience of any expectant mum. From my studio window I could just catch flashes of amber through the leaves, as the sun burnished her feathers.

Hmm, what do I do now, leave her be and chance the perils of the night? 

2nd..

My birthday today was well timed. 

Gifts included one mincing sausage attachment for my Kenwood. 

Two pork cook books. 

Three piggy cards... 

Chorizo recipes make gripping bedtime reading... honestly

4th..

Booked pig a date at the abattoir.

5th..

Bonfire night. For a pig, (unaware that it might be the next sausage at the next bonfire party), that means one thing... leftovers! Viva called round this morning with ‘turnip a la rhubarb avec du pain'. 
It’s not every day Joan gets served from Le Creuset! 

6th..

Despite having survived many nights camping wild, this morning Jennie and her eggs had disappeared. I'm feeling horribly guilty that I didn't intervene and provide her with shelter sooner. A couple of bedraggled feathers are all the loose change the fox left behind...