Nearly free dinner

Free things on the plate:  trout that Danny foraged, nettles and St. George's mushrooms that I foraged.

Things we bought:  Orkney butter, almonds, white wine, black pepper.

Slowly getting there...  :)

Morning walk

I think he is dead.  I didn't want to disturb him in case I was wrong, but...  Poor little guy...

Spotted quite a few of these and was thinking surely it's far too early for field mushrooms -- but a quick Google tells me they might be either pavement mushrooms or St. George's mushrooms (not in Scotland surely!  :) )  Will have to investigate further...

And look at this cheeky intruder in our garden this morning!  

Cookie update

For those of you who asked, Freya is doing just fine.  We are adopting Cookie to be a companion for Freya, not a replacement!  Here's Freya just now showing exactly how she feels about this afternoon's rain...  Yeah Freya, we're pretty bored of the rain too!  

Cookie is coming on in leaps and bounds -- she's got her eyes open now and is easily twice the size she was last time we visited her!

Went for a dawn swim at Whitemill Bay yesterday -- what a great way to start my morning!

In other news, still not much progress in the cultivated garden, but apparently rhubarb grows rampant across the island and we have been gifted quantities of it!  Made this rhubarb and orange cake...

...and started this batch of wild fermented rhubarb wine...

Animal update

Long overdue photo of chickens -- look at how big those chicks are now at 4 1/2 weeks!  The Mummy hen is still looking after them and they still follow her around, but only two of them at at time can fit under her now.  And it looks like they are going to be mostly black -- their genetic parents are the cockerel on the table and the hen over on the right -- who both have black in them, but not anywhere near as much as the chicks...

You will note that the title of this post is "animal update" rather than "chicken update" -- this is because we will shortly (in about six weeks) be getting another addition to the Sparrowhall family -- introducing Cookie!  Isn't she just so adorable???!  :)

Here she is with her Mummy and siblings...

And last but not least, totally forgot to photograph the food, but here's a selfie from my 50th birthday dinner at the Belsair...  One day Danny will stop making Chandler faces when I take the camera out, but...  :)