ilultham

Today is the first time this season having both fires running.  So I've escaped upstairs away from the heat!   My wife has been making the Christmas puddings with my daughters - normally she does this with friends but that's not possible this year.  Great to steam them for a few hours without using any electric and heating the house up in the bargain! 

With modern supermarket birds or even some of the hybrids you can breed yourself for meat there isn't always that much difference between the light and dark meat on the bird.  The same isn't true with our Indian Game birds - look at the difference in colour!  And both were as tender as anything. Such a shame some meat you buy has the texture of cotton wool rather than real meat.  A really home produced meal. these aren't our spuds (a friend grew them) and we didn't make the stuffing but everything else we had a hand in.   My younger daughter also baked a cheese cake - good old bake off! I get some good food because of that program! 

 I'm loving the hour of light after school pick up at the moment.  My eldest and me have been heading outside to do a little green woodwork.  She's been working on shaving down some legs to make a raised chopping block while I've been roughing out a very rough scoop out of some pear. She seems to really enjoy it and it's lovely to just chat as we make wood shavings together. 

Well that's it - no more cot beds in the house. End of an era! My youngest (4) is finally out of his cot bed into a cabin bed I've made him. He's super excited and already made a den under there. His room is tiny so it's a great way to gain a bit of space.  I made the bed out of pine so it didn't cost too much. I've also used some fixing that can be easily taken apart alongside some loose mortice and tenons (domino joinery). I had a high sleeper growing up and loved it so I hope he does as well.  

  Growth is way slower on my Indian Game x Colombian Plymouth Rock meat birds when compared to Ross Cobbs but they are such different animals. Also although growth is slower, at 5 weeks they're only half way through their second bag of feed - Cobbs would be on the 5th by now. And just a picture of on of my Indian Game cockerels - they're just built like units! I love this breed. These pen is pure breeds and I'm hopfull to get some really good birds from them next year.  What meat crosses would you like to try? 

  My eldest (8) spent the weekend making her curtains. Her mum pinned them for her but she did all the sewing on the machine. She's as pleased as punch with them! We asked her last night what she would like for Christmas and all she could come up with was some empty bobbins!

So full disclosure, I was given this book to review by Leigh Tate . We sometimes email each other about different things so I would class her as a blogging friend, but I only agreed to review it if I could be completely honest. I had planned to buy the book anyway as I had enjoyed the first.  I'll start by saying that this is certainly a sequel. I'd recommend you either read the first book first or at least follow her blog or have read some of her other books.  I went for a long time of reading pretty much every gardening, homesteading, smallholding, alternative living book out there but I got completely fed up with how-to guides or books preaching about how I should be doing something. I loved Leigh's first book because it wasn't one of those, and her second book follows on in the same way.  This book is not a how-to and for that we should be thankful, although I saw a review of her first book criticising of this fact. For me, and my level of knowledge of this subjec...

Doing a small commission for the local cathedral, need a small amount of light coloured wood that will take a bit of detail and know this lime will be perfect when planned up.   When I got it months ago the saw mill told be it grew on the cathedral grounds, cut down 20 years ago. I like that it's come full circle even if it is only going to be a tiny bit used.