Reptiles and feasts

December 19 2016

We have survived the Xmas party and the mess is mostly cleared up.  Today I separated the stock, bones and solids of turkey and vegetables. The bones were thrown away and the stock and the remaining dog food frozen. We had a lovely group of family and friends come to the party and it was cool enough this year to have the turkeys hot.  I also attempted to serve hot scalloped potatoes but they took ages to cook through and did not turn out very good.  I think I will go back to baking them the day before next time.

Beth brought beautiful seafood and salads and everyone else supplied the trimmings and deserts so there was plenty top go round. I cut open two of my latest batch of hard cheeses, a plain style and a Wensleydale and they were fine.  Beth’s boys nearly ate the lot as they arrived early and they are a good test. Luckily, this time I wrote the recipe down so it is just a matter of trying to get it repeatable.  And to think, I was just about to give up!

Edd has found a remarkable thing. One evening he called me out at twilight to see a long necked tortoise that was digging a hole in the bank. It was busy for some time and we think it may have been laying eggs. The tortoises usual swim around in the dam and sun themselves on the bank but they do move around and constantly die on the roads.  I think they must have an instinct that tells them to move to higher ground to lay eggs.  I often wondered what they were doing.

I have also seen a beautiful blotched blue tongue lizard by the ruins. It was not at all worried by my presence and made no effort to hide.  I have mostly seen the Eastern striped blue tongues recently so it is great to know the blotched ones are still around. Josh had a pet blue tongue called Silver when he was small and I wonder if this one is a relative.

Edd is back onto fencing. We have brought the horses up into the crofts by the dairy because they were getting too fat and they have already eaten everything down in the first area. Today Edd finished re-fencing the bucks’ pens and he has let the horses in there first to eat it down a bit.  It is good to rotate stock through areas to keep the parasitic worms under control and it is good to have very short grass by the shed now that we are going into the fire danger period.