Incubating eggs

We have just put on to incubate, 20 eggs from our chickens. It took 6 days to collect them. They are mostly brown marans eggs but there are 6 white gasconne ones too. Hopefully the cockeral has done his job and they are fertilised. The hens all have feathers pulled off their backs, so I assume he has been 'at it'. We will see in around 21 days.

As advised by various sources on the internet, we kept the eggs pointed end in a cool room (about 12-14C) and we slightly tilted the tray with a book under it and changed which side was up a couple of times a day.

Finishing touches on the roof

You can see here that there is a gap, at the back, between the top of the wall and the new roof. This is because the angles on the back and front of the roof were previously different and are now the same.
We filled it in with stones (that have been taken out of the wall to fit the ridge pole of the roof etc) and lime mortar. We needed less than100kg of sand, but the man with the giant tipper truck at the quarry went a bit mad so we got 700kg. We will have plenty of use for the leftovers I am sure.

Ski area closing day

The forecast for the final opening day was not good, so we weren't going to go up. But when we woke up it was beaming sunshine. So we quickly fed all the animals and rushed up there.

 It was pretty quiet early on but got slightly busier, the snow was nice spring snow, soft but not slushy. Some runs felt like we had our own private pistes!

For lunch we decided to go up to the top of the Pic du Midi as it is included on the ski pass and it was our last chance to take advantage of that. The cable car is rather expensive otherwise.

A cloud passed round just as we got to the top

But after that, the views were amazing

Quaffing Beer Recipe

The idea of this beer is that it is a nice light beer with a delicate flavour.

Sorry there is no explaination of what to do in each stage, there are plenty of good brewing resource on the internet that can explain much better than I can. We are still amateur at full mash brews.

Mash

22l water at 70C

3kg Pale Ale Malt (we use Crisp from www.themaltmiller.co.uk)

500g flaked rice (or 'minute'/quick cook rice from the supemarket)

1kg flaked maize

Hold at 65C for 90mins (we don't have an insulated mash kettle so we heat intermittently so doesn't matter if not exact)

Sparge

12l water at 80C to get 30l wort

Boil

Boil for 30 mins

Add 30g Willamette hops

Boil for further 60 mins

Cool with wort chiller to temperature that yeast can be pitched

Put in to fermenter and top up to 24l

Pitch sachet of Safale US 05 (11.5g) yeast

Ferment as normal. We ferment for around 2 weeks or until the gravity has not changed for about a week

Bottle with 100g of sugar. We syphone from the fermenter in to a plastic barrel with a 'little bottler' and add the sugar which has been boiled in a little water. We then bottle using the 'little bottler'

Happy Easter!

Eating Out

Last night we went in to town (Bagnéres de Bigorre) for dinner. We cycled in with Poppy trotting alongside (on the lead). This was partially because it is fun, and partially so I could drink without having to drive home. We were heavily armed with lights, head torches and reflective clothing as the road is very dark on the way back.

We wondered to ourselves, as we ate, when we were last out in town for dinner and decided it was at New Year, with Nick. This highlights a change in our eating out since we moved here, we do go out a reasonable amout still, but to friends houses rather than restaurants. In London we almost always met friends for dinner in town rather than going to each others houses. This was probably due to the distance (timewise) between where people live in London - and partially down to having more money I guess too.

We do eat out in restaurants reasonably often at lunch times here, but it was still nice to have a 'proper' evening out. We will try to do it again, and slightly more often.

Easter Bunny Pics

Roof progress

The roof is progressing well. All the insulation is complete - amazing how much quicker it goes with lovely new square beams rather than the wonky ones we have upstairs. We are only putting 10cm in which admittedly is a lot less too.

The tiling is all done as well (yes Doug is doing end of season service of the skis)

Do you see the pattern in the end bit of roof? I cut the tiles for that. V exciting (what a sad life I lead!)

The end of a the tiles are shaped in to semi circles and the ones at the top edge just had one corner rounded.

Cutting the slate was suprisingly easy (with the right tools!) in that it cut straight and didn't splinter as I expected it too, but it was hard work on the hands. The cutter is a bit like using scissors really. The other thing is a compass with a nail in it for drawing the circles.

The side towards you as you cut comes out very sharp.

The other side is the front and comes out with nice textured edges.

Now there is just the gutters and inside facia to go.

First BBQ of the year!

We went skiing in the morning (with the roofer) and then had a BBQ in the evening!

More insulation

Doug felt he hadn't quite mastered insulating, so we decided to do a bit on the inside of the new roof. Although we are planning that most of it will be open, there is a faint possibility we could put glass doors across the front one day, plus we thought it would keep it cooler from heat radiating from the black slate for sitting in the summer.
We are doing it in the cheapest fiber glass rather than the wood fiber we are using in the house. It is sooooo much easier doing it with beautiful even rafters!

Burning stuff and other clearing out

We have been stacking up wood to be burned for a while and the weather hasn't really been suitable.
We needed to get the 'bread oven room', which is part of what is under the new roof, cleared out so we can insulate the underside of the roof and add the facing. It will also make it possible for the roofer to take down the old beams in there.

 This picture makes it look less chock with junk than it really is. This was all here when we moved in. It mainly looks like bits of the old roof from the main house. We burnt these, but saved bigger bits of wood from the roof we have just replaced - to burn in the wood burning stove.
We also saved some bits of metal work from and old door which we hope to reuse at some point.

What a lovely little room (for bikes, skis etc) it is going to be! Dog is astonished. We need to do something about the chimney surround which is held up by a dodgy tree trunk (behind the wire in the foreground - just to right of center) and has had some other problems too. We think we will demolish it (the rectangular shape above the entry to the oven).

This is the bread oven - which is through the little hole in the previous picture. Cool huh. We will see one day if it still works! Bit of junk in there too.

The bunnies snoozed throughout.

Cute bunnies!

There are seven cute little guys like this one. They are just coming up for three weeks old and starting to annoy their mum by running around all over the cage and trying to suckle while she is eating.

I forgot to mention that Bernardette has also had a litter. There are five babies and they are a week old today. Hard to get photos when they are all snuggled up in the nest. Project bunny is really getting going now! Are they too cute to klonk though?? Doug assures me not.

Mrs Robinson should be pregnant, perhaps she will learn from these good examples of mothering. She is living on the lawn at the moment and has been a bit of a nuisance by digging out several yimes. She isn't too hard to catch, but it means there are holes all over the lawn which isn't so great. I put the mesh bottom back on the cage, but the holes are too narrow to let the grass poke through, so then we have to feed her hay. We are experimenting with a manky bit of mesh from the barn what size of hole might work better.

This is 5x5cm, I think 5x10 might be better, so I am going to cut some bits out of it to see. If it seems good we can possibly doctor the bottoms that came with the cage, or buy some mesh of suitable dimensions.

Doug helping tile the roof

The next thing that will be done is the shaping round the chimney - which will be similar to that round the chimney on the main house.

Oat and Golden Syrup Cookie Recipe

Makes about 15

100g sugar

100g butter

1 tbsp golden syrup

90g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

75g porridge oats

Pinch of salt

Raisins or chocolate chips or whatever

Cream butter and sugar

Add golden syrup, stir gently

Add oats, stir gently

Add raisins/choc chips, stir

Add flour stir

Use a desert spoon to put blobs in a buttered baking tray. 

Cook for 15 mins or until pale brown at 180C

The blobs will spread right out to quite a thin cookie with the heat.

When they are done, hey will still feel soft but will harden as they cool. 

You can cook hotter and longer and they will come out crispier.

Soufflé Recipe

Serves 2 to 4 depending on what you serve with it

50g butter

50g plain flour

300ml milk

4 eggs -separated 

1tsp mustard (optional)

200g grated cheese or other filling

20cm ceramic dish or 2 smaller ones.

Prepare the cooking dish(s) by buttering and then sprinkling with grated Parmesan cheese. Rotate the dish and tap until the whole inside is covered.

Melt the butter in a pan. Remove from the heat. 

Add the flour and then the milk and stir, then return to the heat.

Stir and heat until the sauce thickens and eventually boils. Remove from the heat.

Leave to cool a bit then stir in the mustard, the cheese and the 4 egg yolks.

Beat the egg white until firm

Mix a spoonful of the white in to the sauce in the pan, and then mix the sauce in to the egg whites by pouring over the egg whites and stirring gently with a metal spoon.

Pour in to the dish and cook at 200C for 25-30 mins (or a shorter time for smaller dishes)

The soufflé should wobble when you jiggle the bowl, but not be too much. It should be a light brown colour on too and be soft but not runny when you cut in to it.

Happy Birthday Poppy

Poppy is two now. Her birthday is the 5th of April - we think that April fools day would be more appropriate! She had some pork bone as a treat.

Baby animals

The quail eggs are hatching - they are hard to get a good photo of as it is dark in the incubator and very red under the heat lamp, and they are all bombing around like mad. Always a worry for the not yet hatched ones as their siblings crush them...

The baby rabbits are 10 days old now and doing fine. They pogo all over the place if the nest is disturbed so counting is hard, but I think there are 7. They have a reasonable amount of ginger fur now, and their eyes should open in the next few days.

5 of the 6 Ouessant lambs (the little black sheep) we hope for have been born and are doing well. Only Tiree hasn't had hers and she is quite small so we are not 100% sure she will manage one. 4 of the 5 are definately girls and we think the 5th might be too! A friend has goats and had only boys, so we are making up for it.

The other flock have only had one lamb. It is a boy who we call rug as we have been wanting a white lamb so we can have a white sheepskin rug. We will let him grow to a decent size, maybe about a year before we take him to slaughter. We thought this showed that Harris was definately fertile, but thinking about it we are not sure as it could have been fathered while he was out of action - which would mean one of last years lambs (now in the freezer) was the father. It is now 5 months since Harris went back with the flock so we hope for more (up to 4) lambs any moment. Otherwise we will be eating hogget (which is sheep between 1 and 2 years old).

Look at the tiles!

Generally I don't like heights, but I climbed up the 'ladder' made by the slats before the tiles went on to look at where the electric supply goes in to the house. I felt safe doing it as I had seen the roof being put together and it looked good and sturdy! As the roofer pointed out the wires going in to the house look very fragile, a strong wind would blow them off! EDF have been round and told us they are going replace the pylons and wires to our house, they have not yet said when though. Soon I hope! They say the new pylon will be shorter and behind the house, so it will be less noticable than the current rusty monstrosity.