Roast salad

I am not sure exactly what makes something a salad, but this has lettuce, carrot and tomatoes, so surely must be salad.

Serves 2

1 gem lettuce (or other small lettuce)

10 cherry tomatoes

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium carrot

Herbs eg rosemary, thyme, bay

Salt and pepper to season

Dressing (mayonnaise, vinaigrette, whatever you fancy)

Put the tomatoes in a roasting tin with the herbs, the olive oil and the salt and pepper.

Roast in a hot oven (220°C) for 10 mins

Peel and slice the carrots and add them to the roasting tin and roast for a further 10 minutes

Cut the lettuce in two, length ways, and add to the roasting tin cut side down

Roast for a further 10 mins or until the lettuce is lightly browned on the bottom. The tomatoes should be soft and a bit dried but not burnt and the carrot should have softened.

Serve with the dressing, makes a lovely side dish to roast lamb or anything you fancy really. I like it with home made mayonnaise (ask google how to make it - easy once you get the knack, I love it and could eat it by the spoonful (!) but is rather fattening so not advisable)

Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning

Really this is just an excuse for a pretty photo. It did snow later this day so maybe the saying is right!
We have had very changeable weather with some wet windy days, a bit of snow and then the very next day beaming sunshine so warm we had lunch outside.

Pita Bread Recipe

We can buy pita bread here, but having made hummus I felt an urge to try making my own. Was not quite the same as shop bought, being rather softer, but more flavour.

250g White Bread Flour

1 sachet, or 2 tsp Quick Yeast

160ml warm water

1tsp Salt

1 tbsp Olive Oil

Put the flour in a bowl and add the other ingredients. Stir until everthing starts to stick together and then use your hands to bring everything together. Should be the same consistancy as bread dough.

Kneed for 10 mins, using flour if it sticks too much.

Cover and leave to rise until doubled in size.

Divide in to 6 pieces and roll each one to an oval about 3mm thick

Heat the oven as hot as it goes and put in a baking tray or pizza stone. When it is hot put on as many of the pita as will fit and cook for 8 to 10 mins until they are just starting to brown.

Best fresh, but can be frozen or kept for a few days in the fridge.

Rolled out

Cooked

Now I just need to find out where we can get a doner beast so we can have doner kebab!

Christmas food

Christmas Cake only iced on Christmas Eve

Started eating it soon after

Only batch of mince pies I got round to making, the mince meat
was left over from that I made last year. Keeps well!

Lamb for Christmas Eve

Cooked and served with boiled potatoes (home grown) and
roast salad (not home grown)

Self sufficient breakfast - eggs, fried potatoes and bacon (super
chunky at the top of the photo - really yummy, we didn't make much
unfortunately due to misunderstanding with the butcher most suitable
cuts were made in to chops) all home grown

Enjoying a Christmas present from Kirsty and Terry

Now started on leftovers

Alternative to pearl barley which you can't seem to get here
Tastes just the same to me but is wheat. Not sure what
the difference between the two packets is apart from the name
the contents seem identical to me.

No photos of Christmas Dinner. It was roast cockerel out of the freezer, we killed him at the same time as the previous one we ate. With chestnut stuffing, roast potatoes, carrots, parsnip and beetroot all home grown. The onions and garlic where not - we did grow some, but they didn't go very well. We followed it with Christmas pudding from Tesco.

'No blend', super smooth hummus recipe

50g Chickpea flour (gram flour)

230ml Water

1 Garlic clove - crushed or minced

Juice of half a lemon

Pinch of paprika

Pinch of tumeric

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp tahini (or peanut butter if you can't get tahini)

Optional - a few drops of tabasco

Put the flour and water in a pan and stir while heating gently until it boils. Continue to cook and stir for a further 5 mins.

Let the mixture cool for a few mins then add all the other ingredients except the lemon juice and stir

Season with salt and pepper. Add the lemon juice bit at a time until you feel it is right.

If the mixture seems too stiff you can add a little more water and/or olive oil. Top with paprika and a dribble of olive oil.

Chicken door opener is broken

Our main chicken house has a cunning gadget that opens and closes the door according to light levels. Unfortunately it has broken. After some advice from The helpful man at Green Frog Designs where we got it from I have worked out that it is the external sensor that is not working, it thinks it is always light.

Hopefully they can provide us with a new one and all will be lovely again!

Spraying is done!

There seem to have been a lot of titles recently with exclamation marks in the title. Maybe I should have put more than one for this title as it feels more remarkable. It has taken a lot longer than we hoped (what a surprise!) to get the roof timber cleaned up ready for the spraying. The spraying is a hard work and horrible job, but much quicker than the preparation - as is the case for many things.

Now we need to fill various holes around the edge of the roof between the walls and the roof and then get the eves insulated before we progress to actually putting up insulation on the roof. Plenty of work still to go but a relief to have this stage done.

We timed the spraying to coincide with a night we are staying at friends (to avoid either not drinking or drink driving, it is hard at Christmas being the only driver). Although the house doesn't smell after the spraying, the Xylethene is pretty poisonous and it recommends you stay away overnight. 

Fortunately the weather is very nice today (it was cold windy and snowing yesterday) so we have been able to open all the windows and eat lunch outside.

5 eggs in one day!

Despite having  five chickens all through last summer we never got five eggs in one day. We now have six of an age (and gender) to lay but one is moulting so we would not expect her to lay. We did not really expect them to lay much in the winter but they are doing better than in the summer! Each one only seems to lay every few days but on Christmas Day all five coincided. V exciting! 

We just can't stop!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Despite starting to put up our christmas decorations on the 1st of December, Christmas seems to have snuck up on us. I haven't made any mince pies or gingerbread. We have only had a tiny bit of mulled wine, the Christmas cake was made in good time, but is not iced. And finally we haven't bought, never mind written and sent any Christmas cards.

Thanks for all those we have received and apologies for not having sent you one. It was nothing personal! Noone got one!

We are thinking of you all over the festive season though, and send you all many hugs and kisses.

Owen

Daisy

Tyson

Harris

We will fit some skiing and some horse riding in over the holidays and we have managed to do some socialising around the work on the roof and various other things we are busy with (mainly the animals and the land)

Its the dream!

Long long before we came here, we had a dream of riding our own horses with our own dog running alongside.
We have taken the dog and a horse out, but not the dog and both horses. Before we get on to nice safe tracks we have to go on the road and the dog is not brilliant at roads and she has not been trustworthy enough at staying at heel to come along. Today we decided she was ready. She behaved very well and had a lovely run. Doug (who was on good sensible Owen) had to really focus on keeping Poppy at heel on the road (which was icy and slidey for extra excitement) but once we got to the tracks in the wood, she had a super time running around. The horses weren't bothered by her, we didn't expect them to be as they are used to her, but good anyway.
She is tired now! So are we to be honest. It was nice to get out for a ride, we haven't taken the horses out except for lessons for a couple of months now. It is hard to fit everything in...

Finished grinding!

Grinding is finished... for now...
You can see on the left side of the top of this A frame that quite bit has come off in some places

 Despite that the A frames have cleaned up well, they will be the only bit showing when the insulation is in

 These two bits with a cross beam and upright will be replaced with two new A frames (eventually when the roofer gets to us). They can't stay as they are when the stairs are removed and the downstairs is open plan - the upright currently extends right down to the floor downstairs and are in the middle of the future living room

 This bit will be covered with insulation but isn't very pretty where the capricorn beetle have chomped away at it. Seems sound though.

 This bit in the upwind corner needs some work from the roofer. He is going to put some lead flashing over the corner as it seems the water is getting blown under the tiles by the wind.

 The next job is to spray everything with Xylethene, we plan on doing this on the 27th as we have been invited out to dinner and will stay the night there. You are meant to vacate the house when you spray and although it is upstairs and we live down stairs there are a lot of gaps between through which the spray is bound to enter a bit.
After that we need to clean the top of the walls (this bit is fine, but some bits are rubbley) and insulate them. We are planning on wedging hemp crete in there to give a right angle for the roof insulation to come up against. Then we are ready to put up the insulation supports, and finally the insulation. Won't be done this year!

Keeping out the cold

I have made a curtain to cover the front door as you can clearly see daylight round and through it despite our best efforts to tape them up and insulate with foam tape.

I used a blanket and it is sewn on to a hazel stick and held up with string. Not the most aesthetic thing in the world, but will hopefully reduce draughts.

Roof progress

Progress on the roof is slow. doug is still busy cleaning up the beams with the angle grinder and wire brush.

There are a number of spots that have been quite eaten by capricorn beetle, these are taking a long time to clean up. Doug is hoping to finish the grinding work tomorrow. There are a few difficult to access bits above the stairs and a final polish with a finer brush on the bits that will be visible once we finish.

The photos aren't great as it was getting dark. Doug was still grinding away by head torch light. 

Hello Islay. Goodbye Helora

Islay was weaned a few weeks ago and has been having intensive training to walk on a lead rope, today she arrived here - at her now home. We were sad to say goodbye to Helora, but glad to finally have Islay.
She is a bit shy of us at the moment which is normal as she isn't used to us yet. She is more sane and calm than Hainoa apparently!
She is also tiny compared to Hainoa (maybe doesn't show in the photos), it shows how much Hainoa has grown since we got her.

How can she not be happy with this view?

In the trailer

First meeting with Hainoa

Getting to know each other

Awwwww cute

We now have to get the vet in to test her for TB and some other things. This has to be done within two weeks and it is this which will transfer the ownership of her to us. When we had Hainoa done it was a bit stressful as she was so scared of strangers and pranced around like a mad thing. In the end the vet said to Doug that he should pinch her nose (in the same place where they pierce bull's noses). It did work and she stayed still long enough to have the blood taken, but the 'cow man' told us this isn't a good thing to do. I think it hurts them so then they get scared of being handled.
He suggested it was better to tie them to something like a tree with the headcoller and then use a second rope to hold them steady by wrapping it round behind them. We are going to try it with Islay (once she is used to us and has got used to her new home) and then if it works, with Hainoa. We have been fretting about how we will get Hainoa treated by the vet if she needs it as she is so frisky. The cow man said he has a cow crush (metal corridor where the cows are held) but the rope is sometimes better as they can jump out of the crush - he had a giant bull leap out once which must have been a sight to behold!
In a few years hopefully both cows will be able to go back to where they were born to visit one of the bulls there (not their own father of course!). They can breed when they are two but it is better to wait until they are three and fully grown. Hainoa is about 18 months and Islay 9 months. We are hoping Hainoa won't take it in to her head to run off to the bull next door in the spring.

Hainoa looking less mad than normal

Wildlife videos

The wildlife camera takes short videos as well as stills.

That is a big gun!

Animals we didn't buy

I saw some female black faced lambs on leboncoin (that is the same breed as Harris our ram) and phoned the guy. He had sold them all, but had three older sheep he was selling (7years and 8 years) because they were struggling to get up the mountains in the summer. We went to look at them, but in the end decided not to buy them as they were totally wild. Sheep generally are nervous and don't rush at people they don't know, but these ones went MENTAL when the farmer went near them, we thought they were going to injure themselves flying at walls etc. They couldn't be caught to check their teeth or anything, but apparently one didn't have any front teeth left but he hadn't been able to check the molars. He said if we wanted to check them we could go back next week and he would get his young and athletic cousin to catch them before hand. However we decided that even though they were cheap and still bearing lambs we didn't need sheep that were so wild.

We realised on the way home that they were the first animals we have been to see and not bought!

They were in the mountains above Lourdes kind of near where the highland cows came from. Must be the area for Scottish breeds of animals! Didn't take photos unfortunately.

Eggs!

All summer we had less than an egg a day despite having five chickens. Two of those chickens have died now, but the three females we kept from the chickens we hatched in the spring have now started laying. We have had four eggs a couple of days and three on quite a few days. They are actually laying slightly faster than we are eating them!

Fingers crossed it will last!

We had eggs for dinner. You could call it a slightly strange recipe! It was curried egg pie. Made with curry sauce we had left over from the weekend heated up with an egg cracked in to the middle then naan bread for the crust. Easy and tasty.

Aww how cute? Or are we just cruel!

I didn't fall off!

Today was our sixth riding lesson, my third on Daisy. I managed to fall off while jumping in the previous two. Thankfully I managed to stay on this time as it was getting rather painful. She isn't very expert at jumping yet and the coordination for me to manage to get her to actually go over the jump, and then too stay on when she launches herself in to the air like a rocket was just too much. Doug has longer legs that he can wrap underneath (or he is just better than me!) but he has had some close calls too.

She is getting the idea more so it was easier to direct her at the jump leaving some time for stratigic mane grasping in anticipation of the sky rocket jump. Bless her she is trying hard.

Winter wonderland

After working hard all week to get the upstairs ready for insulation we decided we deserved a bit of a treat. As Poppy also needed a nice energetic outing we went to Payolle (rather than going skiing) and snowshoed on some of the tracks there.