Mad cow and other animals

Doug sent me some photos to remind me what home looks like. It is hard being away so long. Just think of the money!
I was particularly impressed with how mad Hainoa is looking. Her horns seem to be growing at mad angles...

Also like this one of Poppy jumping

Harris is looking very handsome. Hopefully he is up to the job and not to young (like Bunny Boy)

The cockerels are looking like they surely must be ready for the pot soon

Juicing apples

Last year we bought a (very small - Iain was astonished when he saw it in person because he had imagined it was bigger) apple press with the intention of making apple juice and perhaps cider.
We also have a juicer which we have only just unpacked to participate in this experiment. It is great because apples fit in whole.

Doug has tried making apple juice in 3 ways
1.) Cooking the fruit and straining the liquid off with a sieve
2.) Juicing with the electric juicer
3.) Liquidising and then pressing the fruit

The results were as follow
1.) Medium yield, not great flavour/consistancy. Easy clean up
The juice came out like very thin apple sauce rather than juice.
You can buy steam juicers which I guess is a similar idea, but it sounds like they work a bit better - I presume there is no sieving and the juice just runs out and is therefore thinner.
Clean up is relatively easy.

2.) Medium yield, grainy texture. Medium clean up
The juice from this method comes out very foamy which means some is wasted getting rid of that. Often gives a bit gravelly texture to the juice.
Yield could probably be improved by pressing the resulting pulp.
An advantage of this method - if you have room in the kitchen to always have the juicer out - is that it is quite quick and easy. Just about the whole machine goes in the dishwasher, but it helps if you rinse it first.

3.) Good yield, bit brown. Big clean up
This method yielded approx twice as much as the other two. The juice came out quite brown but the addition of a bit of lemon at the blending stage might help that. Also the blending made the fruit too fine so it oozed out between the slats of the press.
This method would work better with a fruit crusher (which is what they are designed to work with) than a blender.
The cleanup is a bit of a big job as you have the blender and the press to clean plus juice tends to ooze out the press rather - it is caught in the bottom of the press but can sometimes escape...
The press would be easier to use if it was possible to fix it to the ground. Bigger ones have screw holes in the feet. When we have a final place for it (the outdoor kitchen?) we will have to work out a way to fix it down.

Lovely pair!

Look what Doug found!

He found a nice one last year, then found one of these and hoped it might be a good match. But then he found another one which really does look like it is from the same deer. They are quite a bit bigger than the one from last year.

Breeding like rabbits

A while ago we took one of the bunny girls to visit a friend's male rabbit. The gestation period for a rabbit is about a month. We felt her belly a few times to see if we could feel any growing little babies. We couldn't. We waited the full month though because apparently it is sometimes hard to feel them even for rabbit breeding experts.
5 weeks later when we were sure there was no success Doug put her back in with our male rabbit. Previously he has had no idea what to do and has cowered in a corner while she harassed him. This time roles were reversed, he was super keen - but didn't seem to know in detail what he was supposed to do, but gave it a go anyway. She cowered in the corner with her tail tucked under her. Doug thinks that given this and his misunderstanding about some of the mechanics involved that it is unlikely she is pregnant.
Where did the phrase 'Breeding like rabbits' come from. In our experience this would result in the race dying out...

The Roof

You can kind of see on the picture after the wall around the stairs was knocked down that there is a ceiling above the stairs remaining (you can only just see it - creamy coloured bit balanced on the wood cross bar above the stairs)

This is made of really really thick plaster boards which are huge and weigh a ton. We were going to take this down and then I had to come to the UK. So Doug was left to do this on his own - they need to be removed so the roofer can put in the new A-frames (not quite sure when that will happen, but at least we are ready now). For extra fun the top of them is about 3 inches deep in bat poo and other unidentifiable gunk. I am not sure exactly how Doug did it, but it involved supporting them with rope and lowering down. One was lowered then cut up, the other had to be sawed up before it could be lowered. The bits were then blocking the stairs and had to be sawed smaller to be carried out. Not sure where the remains are now. Perhaps in to the trailer waiting to go to the tip along with all the rubble from the demolition.

The roofer has fitted the three velux. Apparently they look great - inside and out.

Two of the velux

Photo taken from my eye height (apparently)

View sticking head out of the window

A while ago we mated out rabbit with a friend's male. We were unable to detect any babies inside her (which apparently it is possible to do) but we waited anyway for over a month to be sure she was not pregnant before mating her again. Doug put her back in with our male a week ago - in the past the problem has been that he cowers in the corner not knowing what to do while she pursues him. This time he was super keen (although clearly didn't have an exact vision of what he was meant to be doing) and went at it madly while she huddled in the corner with her tail tucked under. Maybe next time they will BOTH be keen. Honestly - who thought it would be so hard to mate rabbits!

Wildlife Camera

A while ago we bought a wildlife camera (waterproof and with a movement sensor and night visions). We have had it in various locations, but have not taken pictures of anything except ourselves, Poppy and Sambuca.
Doug put it higher up the land than before and we finally got some pictures of actual wildlife (and some of the neighbor - presumably picking our mushrooms - which might explain why we never find any cepes)

A deer

A fox (watch out chickens and rabbits!)

A wild boar (sanglier) at night

We are now wondering how to catch the wild boar. Mmmmm that would make tasty sausages!

What has been going on in France?

Doug has been super busy while I am away, mainly keeping all the animals fed, but also helping out neighbors and being sociable as well as overseeing some work on the house and performing heroic (death defying) DIY activities.
Both lots of sheep have been moved and the horses have been on the drive for a while and soon to be given access to a new field. The horses have been getting a bit escape-y as the grass in their field, while not bad, is less long and lush than in the surrounding fields.

No photos of the fencing and animal moving, but it is very hard work and apparently it has been pretty darn hot which doesn't make it any more fun. Kim helped out one day in return for Doug's help injecting her sheep and goats with wormer. One of her sheep died and the vet diagnosed liver fluke. But of a worry and we need to keep up to date with worming ours too.

The next few posts cover some more detail.