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!

Chicken Update!

I know, I know, my camera keeps accumulating photos and I keep failing to post them...

The chicks are getting big -- these photos are from Monday when they were two weeks old but already I need to take more photos as they are now at the awkward teenage stage and not looking so cute anymore!

I discovered that the rubbish-strewn space in front of the house had actually been planted up by Jean with lots of lovely bulbs so have been having a tidy up and pulling lots of decaying plastic out of there -- it's quite a nice space really!

This is a selection of some things I pulled out of the front garden that were not plastic:

As its Easter, I've made Hot Cross Buns...  Also, as it's Passover, I will be making matzo tomorrow -- and I have an interesting twist on it -- watch this space if I remember to post photos tomorrow!  :)

On days when the weather permits, we've been working on the polytunnel.  Concrete down on one side for fastening the cover to -- all hand mixed!

And these are the cross-braces that Danny has been welding on to his hand-fabricated steel frame -- we are going to have the only completely handmade steel polytunnel frame on Sanday I think

Rhubarb plant that we discovered growing in the back garden!  Think it needs a bit of TLC so will transplant and relocated it to a better spot probably sometime in the autumn...

And while the weather overall has been getting better, there's still the odd day here and there where winter tries to come back!

Solitude

One of the things I love most about living here is the peace & quiet.  Went for a walk early this morning and didn't see any people -- just the birds and the fence posts!

In chicken related news, here's a better picture of the chicks:

The Mummy hen is VERY protective of them, and directly after I took that picture (achieved only by physically removing her from them), she started gathering them under her again...

Nearly all back under her now -- look at all the little legs underneath the hen!  :)