There’s a wagtail in the woodshed

Honestly there is. Earlier today I was moving some bits of wood around when suddenly a wagtail flew out. Our woodshed used to be some kind of agricultural cow related building and has little feeding troughs in it. I hadn’t even looked inside until I saw this alarmed flutter.

On closer inspection she had sprung from a neatly woven nest containing three tiny blue eggs. I positioned my camera above the slats so I could get a view of her little den and took my hasty snap. I’ll now leave her in peace It would seem that for the forseeable future the wood shed is now hers…

Quail chicks!

When I told people I’d bought 12 quail eggs off ebay to hatch they laughed. As I signed for the little (heavily wrapped) package the postman actually told me it would never work. To an extent I could understand them being a little sceptical. I too was not holding out much hope for a 100% hatch rate but I was at least expecting something. I used a basic model hoverbator incubator which meant that the eggs needed to be turned by hand at least 3 times a day.

The temperature was kept at a steady 37.5 degrees and when pipping began the humidity was increased to 75%. It was at this point that disaster struck. We had been keeping the incubator in the spare room. The book suggested as much as it was as close to a constant external temperature that we could offer without a real quail mummy bird. This was all well and good until we had guests to stay. Unfortunately the incubator was turned off accidentally overnight the day before hatching was due. Naturally I assumed all was lost. But my boyfriend insisted we turn the incubator back on ‘just in case’.

Two days passed. And then… And then… The slightest of rockings, a barely audible cheep. Then I sat and watched as 6 quail chicks laboured their way out of their eggs. My excitement was only surpassed by my surprise.

The tiny baby quail were not exactly what you would call cute. They were small wet and slimy staggering around in the incubator. It took them a day or two to dry out and fluff up but when they did it was all worth it. Despite being the most delicate little things I’d ever seen they were determined to live even in my novice hands.

They went into a box under a heat lamp. Their water had to be in a dish of stones to prevent them from drowning (so the book said – see pictured) and the chick crumbs I had bought seemed too big for them to swallow so they were given a diet of soaked cous-cous, mealworms and mashed up boiled eggs.

Needless to say they  thrived. Seeming to double in size almost daily. Each morning the heat lamp is raised by another ring, so that they become accustomed to outside temperatures (although they are still living in the cupboard). By six weeks old quail are supposed to be fully grown, so hopefully it won’t take long before these guys are laying their own eggs! (providing, of course that there are some female birds among them, any hints on telling them apart would be much appreciated)…

They are tuxedo coturnix so hopefully will soon start to grow thier own little waistcoats! How eggciting…

Criffel Fire

I thought this was worthy of a post although it doesn’t follow my usual themes…

Yesterday at about midday a small group of people who were heather burning on Criffel ( a large hill just south of Dumfries ) lit a fire that got a bit bigger than they had intended and they lost control.

Heather burning is a brilliant way to rejuvenate moorland. My boyfriend’s blog explains what they were trying to do on Criffel here. Up until yesterday they had had some success.

Now dramatic pictures are being beamed all over the internet of raging fires, rings of light blazing in the Solway and the term “grass fire” has been flung about quite liberally. I took my photos at about 4.30pm yesterday. Fire engines were being called in from all over and people were gazing up wondering where all the smoke was coming from. It wasn’t until it got dark that you could really see what was happening.

The fire is still burning, as it would seem it is now in the trees, the heat of today (another lovely spring morning) surely won’t help but hopefully by this evening it will be better controlled.

Who would have thought all this fuss is to create better habitat for grouse? I hope they appreciate it…

(I’m also rather excited that ITV decided to use a couple of my images here!)

Preparing the raised beds

It’s a sunny day, its March and the time has come to really make an impression on the garden. I’ve had all sorts of plans coming and going about what I’m going to do with the place but now its time to stop dreaming and start doing. It’s quite a wild garden, to be honest, lots of scrubby grass, not really what you would call lawn. Theres a few plants that are starting to come up here and there, (snowdrops, daffodils..) but going to have to wait a little longer to see what they all are… we have a few trees, a sizable ash with a nesting box (I’m pretty sure there’s a pair of blue tits currently preparing for something inside…) and a hawthorn which I’ve hund my bird feeders on. This week I started to put out niger seed, something which the birds at the old house were never that fussed about, but here they have enticed a whole new selection of birds. The Siskins (pictured) were the most exciting of all, the male (the one with the black hat) makes almost mechanical calling sounds and you can’t help but watch them as they flash yellow across the garden…

My plans for the garden are, perhaps a little unrealistic, last year I started with great gusto during the planting season but I was away far too much on my various cooking jobs that I was unable to really give the garden all the attention that it needed. This year, I intend to do fewer jobs, my boyfriend’s book is coming out in the middle of the summer and as much as possibly I would like to be around for that. As a result I’ve planned more than ever for my little patch of land.

The new place came with a selection of raised beds and I have spent the morning clearing them of left over crops from last year, weeding and generally turning the soil about ready for seeds to be sown.

Needless to say I’m now pretty exhausted and will probably spend the afternoon reading Alan Titchmarsh’s ‘The Kitchen Garden’ and decide what wonders my raised beds will produce.

Suggestions welcome…

Fame for little Scoop

Last December it snowed. Quite heavily on the hills around the house, a wonderful picture to wake up to when you have nowhere else to go. We took a walk, my boyfriend, Scoop the puppy and I into the snowy hills. Scoop had never seen snow before, she was only 3 months old and it was the most exciting thing ever. She spent her time sticking her nose in, sneezing and generally charging around. I had taken my camera in anticipation of some cute puppy action and I was not disappointed. With a memory card full of pictures we headed home and, with nowhere else to go on a cold day I settled down in front of my computer for some general procrastination… BBC news is one of my many starting points and I noticed that they were inviting people to send in pictures of their snowy experiences, I looked down at Scoop (now fast asleep in her basket) and wondered if they would appreciate a picture of a labrador puppy with snow on its nose. They other pictures were people cars snowed in, blocked roads and the general mischief that seems to happen when it snows. I sent them a picture anyway thinking “why not?” I was literally ecstatic when less than an hour later they emailed to ask questions about copyright and what was my lovely puppy’s name? Scoop got her first taste of fame and I was an exceptionally proud owner.

Last week I was have another little procrastination on the BBC news website and I noticed that there was a slide show of pictures for 2011, one for each month, pictures of uprisings in Egypt, the Royal wedding, riots in London, Gaddafi, Tsunami, and then… SCOOP! My little labrador puppy with snow on her nose was on the 2011: year in pictures. Excited is an under statement.

My lovely famous dog…

My new “garden guests”

This morning I filled the birdys nuts. Since we moved to the new house we’ve had the usual visitors, robins, blackbirds, chaffinch, blue tits, great tits and dunnocks, yesterday we had our first woodpecker, (I was so excited and he was so fast there is sadly no photo) but this morning came the visitor I had wanted most of all;

Our very own tutfy. A red squirrel.

The arrival of Quail

I know, I’ve had a bit of a blogging holiday but in my defense it was Christmas, new year and THEN we moved house. A great deal has happened in between time, one of the most notable things being the addition of quail. I’ll be honest, I’ve never been involved with the keeping of poultry of any kind before now and while I liked the idea of having hens ranging freely around the garden the reality of them destroying my garden would have, perhaps, been a little more difficult to live with.

I often use quail’s eggs when I’m cooking. Boiled with celery salt dip is a classic, but fried on crostini is like a tiny breakfast! Risotto starters also go down really well, especially if the main course is something light, like fish. Wild mushroom risotto (usually dried and re-hydrated) served as a starter portion is finished brilliantly by a poached quails egg, sitting on top – like an elaborate garnish. Yet it is often difficult to find these little gems for sale, the larger supermarkets have them in sometimes, but not reliably enough to have on a menu plan. So when I was offered some quail I jumped at the chance.

They seem to have settled in well, not many eggs just yet, but peeping well and adjusting to their new surroundings.

Time will tell…

The perfect (christmas) cheeseboard…

My cheeseboards usually follow a standard constructive pattern: hard, soft, blue and wildcard. That’s not to say preference doesn’t play a part, my father for instance, is dangerously allergic to blue cheese so for him we introduce an extra hard cheese, ewes or something similar.

The very first time I put together a cheeseboard it was for a dinnerparty I was having when I still lived in Glasgow. I walked into Mellis the cheesemongers (the one on great western road) and asked for help, not only did they set me up with possibly the best cheeseboard ever but they let me try everything first (a real perk to cheese shopping!)

When I was working on my ski season we were told to always put the whole cheese (or a significantly large slice) onto the plate rather than trying to anticipate how much people would eat, it looks much better this way and leftovers make fantastic canape ingredients later in the week.

The selection featured follows these basic rules, the hard cheese is a loch Arthur cheddar, a local one to where I live now, although I often use davidstowe (being a cornish lass) or Mellis do a very good ewe’s. The blue is blacksticks blue a good creamy one, the soft creamy is a vacheron – I first had this on my ski season and always go for it when its available, bries and camemberts also good in this slot. The wild card on this board is a festive effort, cranberries and mixed peel in wendsledale, which was actually very good, goats cheese is often my wildcard, depending on my audience, there are some fantastic cheeses out there, I once served a rather unexpected ginger cheese.

Accompanyments are a must. Quince paste and grapes featured but also good with sliced Apple, dried fruits like apricots or cranberries, celery sticks and chutney.

Oh, and biscuits, don’t forget biscuits.

Never serve butter with your cheese: good cheese doesn’t need it and bad cheese doesn’t deserve it.

Biscotti – for chocolate mousse

I serve chocolate mousse fairly often. Is the sort of pudding that even people who say they don’t eat pudding will eat. Usually I slice some strawberries or raspberries to go with it, but it the wrong kind of year for berries so today biscotti is its accompanyment…
110g of caster sugar, 110g self raising flour, zest of one lemon, 50g almonds and 1 egg. Combine and shape into a sausage, place on baking paper, cook for 20mins at 220.
Slice thinly, eat. Also good with coffee I hear…

Cooking In The Highlands

What interesting weather we’ve been having! Snow, wind, rain, hail all in one week. Yet I can’t help being thankful that this year it all seems to have happened during a week that I was at home.

Last year I wasn’t so lucky. I booked a weekend with a friend in Aberdeenshire, it was October and to be honest I didn’t expect there to be any problems, not because of the weather anyway! It was a shooting weekend (as they often are this time of year) and I had left my car in Edinburgh to car share with my friend. The weekend went well, lots of shooting related hearty fare, beef consomme at eleven’s, fruit crumble, cake in the afternoon, that kind of thing. Our problems began on Sunday when it was time to leave. Snow had been falling fairly steadily all weekend, we had heard snipits on the radio about the conditions, bridges being closed and ferrys cancelled, but it was difficult to gauge whether we would be able to get back or not from the confines of the warm lodge kitchen. The answer was, basically, no.

 

 

Aberdeenshire, to be fair, wasn’t all that bad. Sure, it was snowing and the snow ploughs were out in force, but once we’d dug the car out it was pretty plain sailing, that was until we reached Dundee. By this time we had heard a selection of traffic reports which, to be honest, had not filled us with optimism. Reports were that the motorway south of Perth was closed meaning our main route back to Edinburgh was impassable. Jack knifed lorries began to litter the way and progress became painfully slow. As we closed in on Dundee we heard that the  Tay bridge was closed, our last remaining option. By this time it was dark, snow was still pouring down and the single open carriageway was making increasingly slow progress. We took the decision to carry on for Perth, perhaps the road would have reopened we mused. It didn’t and four painful hours later we were in Perth with nowhere to stay and no forward route. A small ray for hope shone through the radio speakers; the Tay bridge was reopening, the winds had dropped and it was no longer too dangerous to cross that way. We didn’t have a great deal of options and found ourselves turning around and heading back through the blizzard to Dundee. By now it was midnight and the roads were eerily quiet, the snow was still falling but progress was quicker. Over the bridge and through Fife, progress was slow but constant. Our next challenge was the Forth Road bridge, by now it was about 3am, dark, cold and rather frightening, the wind was beginning to pick up again and as we crossed the struts began to sway and we heard a crash next to the car. Four foot icicles were falling from the struts and crashing onto the road, I really thought we weren’t going to make it over, one hit the roof of the car but we kept driving. By 5am we had reached Edinburgh. My car was snowed up to the middle of the door. It wasn’t getting out the car park let alone back to Dumfries. My friend’s plane had been cancelled (the entire airport closed down) the hire car (plus one sizable dent) returned to its bay and now to make the rest of the trip via public transport. Waverly station was like a refugee camp, lots of the trains had been cancelled or delayed, an exodus of people had made their way from the airport and were desperately trying to buy tickets, children were crying, people were shouting, and we hadn’t slept since the night before.

I took the executive decision to call a friend who lived in Edinburgh. Luckily she was home and had the kettle on. Phew. Everything looked a little brighter a few hours later when I returned to the station and boarded the train to Lockerbie. Rolling through the borders you would wonder what all the fuss was about, people were going about their daily business as if there were no great drama. When my boyfriend picked me up he asked me what I had been doing for the last twenty-four hours, apparently it hadn’t even snowed in Dumfries and Galloway…

Two weekends later I cooked in a lovely lodge in Fort Augustus, this is the view of Loch Ness for the kitchen window

A week later we returned to Edinburgh for my car (we still needed to dig it out). Even now, a year later, this escapade plays on my mind, especially as next weekend I’ll be heading up to do a shooting weekend in Tigh Na Bruach… Wish me luck…