Saturday 15 December 2007

Food glorious food

Another frosty start to the day here so after letting the chickens out and checking the alpacas still had hay I stayed inside and cooked the remaining meat from the second pork shoulder. It’s gently stewing away in the slow cooker as I write. It started off as Chinese style pork but having checked the stored squashes it now has some butternut squash as well as half a really ripe pineapple. It should have been close to ready by now but I had a power cut for most of the afternoon.

I’m also attempting to grow pineapples. I’ve one pineapple top that’s rooted a second that I’ve just put into soil after drying it and today’s top which will be left to dry for about a week before I pot it. I found this site really helpful;

http://tpss.hawaii.edu/pineapple/pinegrow.htm

The freezing fog only lifted for a short while so the shelter roof still needs to be done. The cold spell is forecast to last until at least Wednesday along with the fog so it could be a while. Here’s this mornings view over the alpaca shelter.



One of the everyday occurrences here is collecting the hay for the alpacas and nine times out of ten I’m joined by Cid. He leaps onto the hay bale and plays chase with the hay as I try to take it off. It’s his one-to-one time with me. That is one of the joys of being here – having time to indulge in play with the cats.

The colder weather seems to have brought out the robins (or Rouge Gorge meaning Red Throat in French). I have one who’s always around the front of the house and a pair who live just beyond the alpaca shelter. I also have one I see at the back of the house but I haven’t worked out if it’s the same one from the front of the house or not.

The cats still hate having their eardrops put in and I am gaining a few more scratches each day! I wish they could understand that it’s for their own good.

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