Sanday Agricultural Show

Friday was the annual Sanday Agricultural Show -- not quite as big as the Royal Welsh, but as this is the first show I've been to since before pandemic, I'm not complaining!  Also, I've had longer walks from the car at the Royal Welsh to the show than we had from our house -- this is the view of the show field from our driveway:

In accordance with the rule that if there is something on the menu I've never eaten before I must order it, I tried the Scottish speciality of macaroni cheese chips...  I like macaroni cheese and I like chips, but this is possibly the stodgiest thing I have eaten in my life!

Random things I took pictures of at the show in no particular order:

And for a little Cookie update:  She doesn't seem to have worked out how reading the weather forecast works!  She looked at it and then went out in the rain and came back looking like a little drowned rat!  But she did catch her first vole the other night!  (Vole not pictured...)

First egg from first chicks!

One of the hens from our first lot of chicks, who were born on Mothering Sunday, has laid her first egg!  Egg on right is hers, egg on left is from white hen (her birth mother) for size comparison.  They will get bigger once she gets used to it...  :)

Not sure which of the three black hens it was as I was out when it happened, but here's a random one of the three...  Presumably now that one has started the other two won't be far behind...  So much bigger now than when she was born -- a mere 129 days ago!  :)

Making hay while the sun shines...

 

I live here now! :)

Got a letter in the post this morning with no house name on it but still delivered to me -- does this mean I'm a local now?  :)

The Whole Menagerie!

We seem to have acquired quite a few animals in the span of less than a week so here is a photo gallery of everybody who lives at Sparrowhall now:

The four black chickens here are from the original set of chicks that hatched on 28th March so 13 weeks old now.  The white one is a cockerel that we got on Saturday (his arrival was slightly overshadowed by Cookie) -- he's about 12 weeks old and the plan is for him to be the cockerel once we take the head off ours.

The black one here is the fifth from the lot above, the white hen on the right is the birth mummy of all the chicks, the little bantam is the one who sat on and raised the first lot of chicks, and the cockerel is mean and nasty and we are eating him just as soon as we can...

Cookie obviously needs no introduction...  :)

In the centre of this picture is the VERY shy duck and her 11 ducklings...

This is Freya, looking bored and fed up with the world...

And this is the other bantam hen with her chicks (there are five even though you can only see four here) which were born on 30th May so 4 weeks old now.

AND THESE ARE THE SHEEP!  MY 14 YEAR WAIT IS OVER!!!!  :)

And then there's me and Danny, so that's 35 animals and 2 people.  Sounds like a reasonable ratio to me...

COOKIE COOKIE COOKIE

She's here!  SO ADORABLE!!!!!

In other news, there's rhubarb, the gift that keeps giving...  :)

And the tomato tunnel as I've now renamed it...  :)

Duckies!

Look what Danny just came home with!  Mummy duckie and her 11 little ducklings!!!!!

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...  :)

Swimming

All I have to say is that if you have never done this, you need to go do it right now...

I have been wanting to swim in the sea since I decided we were moving here, and I've read far too much about sea swimming and I've had far too many conversations about it -- and today I actually did it.  

This is the most amazing thing ever.  Okay, I am using the word swimming loosely.  I walked out until the water was about waist high and then I submerged myself and then I walked back to the beach.  But wow.

Seriously people, find yourself your nearest bit of natural water and go immerse yourself in it.  You will not regret this.  My only regret is that I spent so long thinking about it when I could have just been doing it.

Already looking forward to my next dip!

Backaskaill Bay beach walk

A few photos from our walk on Backaskaill Beach yesterday afternoon at low tide:

The world biggest egg case!  I think this is even bigger than the last one we found.  Boot for scale (UK size 7) as no bananas to hand...

First live mussels we have seen since moving here!  Rather on the small side, and two does not make a meal, but it's good to know that they're here...

Cliffs on the eastern edge absolutely full of nesting seagulls -- there would have been more photos of these but my camera battery died!

Baking day

Bere is a type of barley particularly adapted to growing in Orkney, and Barony Mill is still milling beremeal with it to this day.  I've been wanting to play with this for a while, but of course the problem with barley (and rye, and crops that grow better in northern climates in general) is that they are lower in gluten and thus harder to bake with.  (This is also why people in northern climates traditionally ate flatbreads and "fluffy" breads tended to be eaten more in southern climates where wheat grew better, but of course now everybody eats the same thing everywhere...  I digress...)

As it's Passover, I decided to finally do the thing I've been thinking about for years and make my own matzo.  I decided to make it with beremeal -- I mean, if you are making a bread that's not supposed to rise, no point wasting all that gluten...  :)  Is beremeal matzo a world first?  :)

It's not bad.  Could do with being a bit crispier, but maybe this is par for the course with handmade matzo?  The only thing I have to compare it to in my mind is Manischewitz in a box so...  

As a random aside, I timed myself, and it took me 24 minutes, so not Kosher for Passover, but a large part of that was down to oven space and number of baking sheets in my possession.  With a helper and an industrial oven, I could have done it in 18.

And then of course I had to make more Hot Cross Buns, completely not Kosher for Passover!  :)  This dough was much stickier than the last batch I made (same recipe -- no idea why) so the crosses didn't come out as well but still delicious!

On the random weather front, it was unusually foggy today -- these pictures are about 6:30 in the evening and we can't even see halfway across our fields!