Bunny bunny bunny

We have acquired yet another rabbit!

This one is a boy, we arranged to borrow him because we thought Bunny Boy wasn't doing the job (although it now turns out he is). In the end he has been given to us, so now we have 2 males and 3 females. A bit of an unbalanced herd (warren?) but never mind. 

He is a good chunky boy who should make nice chubby babies who looks very like Mrs Robinson and similar to Bernardette. He seems to be settling in to his new life on the lawn. We have mated him with Bernardette which was very quick but I am sure he enjoyed anyway - not so sure if she did.

I have palpitated Ginger who was mated two weeks ago to Bunny Boy and this time I am sure I can feel kits inside her. We will see for sure sure in a couple of weeks. Hopefully the weather will be warm then and she will be a better mother than Mrs Robinson - although apparently first litters often don't survive. It is too traumatic!

New toy!

Look what Doug gave me for my birthday!!

I was sensibly waiting until the house is done and we have a lovely new kitchen to put it in (by which time we wouldn't have the money of course!) but as we just worked out that very best case we will have the downstairs just about finished in 18 months time I got depressed, so here it is, a lovely new toy to cheer me up!

Doug is not really impressed that it just mixes things and yet is so expensive. But I LOVE it, look how pretty and shiny it is. My bro is giving me a pasta making attachment for it. Very exciting too. Why isn't it here yet I wonder!

A friend's husband was astonished that Doug could get away with getting me a household appliance for my birthday, she had to explain a kitchenaid is different - her birthday is soon and she had visions of getting a hoover or something...

I am thinking about a series of recipes for the kitchenaid - just to make sure I use it you know!

Guest pictures

Rob and Sarah have been staying. Doug went skiing with them off the top of the Pic du Midi (I stayed at home to look after the dog and have fun cooking various things Kim brought round - pigs blood, pigs heads, sheep guts - yum!)

Amazing view

Sarah took some sweet photos of the sheep and cows and the view from the top of our land

Morcilla (spanish black pudding)

This recipe has less cream than most 'authentic' recipes because I find them a bit rich. You can use up to 500ml (300 more than I have put in the recipe).

You can also replace the apples with 400g of raisins and the 200g of breadcrumbs with 150g of rice. Depends what you have in the house - and what you think will taste best!

2l pigs blood

200g breadcrumbs

150g cooked rice

4tsp pepper (black and/or white)

3 tsp nutmeg

6 tsp smoked paprika (or smoked mild chilli) you can use unsmoked but it is not as nice

5 cloves ground up

5 tsp salt

The following spices are optional - perhaps increase others if you don't use

2 tsp chilli powder

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp ginger

250ml sweet sherry

2 apples peeled, cored and cut in to small bits

500g onion (2 large) chopped reasonably finely

1 garlic clove

3 tsp dark sugar

300g back fat or belly bacon cut in to small chunks.

200ml single cream

Fry the onions (ideally in lard) on a low heat until they are cooked and transulcent but not brown. Add the apple and fry for a few minutes more. You don't want the apples to turn to mush so don't overdo it.

While you let the onions and apple cool a bit add all the other ingredients to the blood and mix well.

Add the onions and apples and stir some more.

Fry a little bit of the mixture - which will be very sloppy - and taste to check the seasoning. Overall it will taste better when cooked properly as everything blends together more, but check the salt and spices and adjust if necessary.

Fill sausage skins with the mixture. To do this, cut the skin in to manageable lengths. Perhaps 50cm, then tie off one end with string. Use a funnel (or make a funnel from a plastic bottle - cut the bottom off and use the top bit) to fill the skins with a ladle. You may have to poke your finger or the end of a wooden spoon down from time to time to help lumps move through. Slide the end of the skin off the ladle and tie off with another bit of string. Try to get rid of all the air as you do this and don't pack too tight as they expand slightly while cooking.

Cook in a large pan of hot water - you need to maintain about 80C throughout. They are done when the liquid comes out brown not red if you prick with a needle. You can prick also while they are cooking if there are any air bubbles to let the air out.

Poppy has been spayed

We were wondering about having puppies with her one day, but it couldn't be practical until the house is done (several years) so in the end we decided to have her spayed. She seems to be on heat for quite a long time and it is hard work never letting her off the lead or going anywhere there might be male dogs for all that time. Then there was the phantom pregnancy...

She is in a sorry state now, she is eating but doesn't want to move around, I guess it hurts. It is quite worrying as it takes a lot to stop her bouncing around, hard to know whether it is normal or not. Not panicking for now as she is eating. She has a giant cone on that keeps smacking off things when she does anything - but that didn't stop her running around when she had one before. Hopefully she will perk up after a bit of a rest in front of the fire today. 

We have to take her back in 12 days to have the stitches out, the poor thing has to wear the cone until then.

Yay! A frames are done!!

It is so exciting! The roofer has finished the two new A frames and Doug has lime cemented the walls back together around the four feet (as well as filling some gaps in the end of the roof).
Doug worked with the roofer on some parts of the installation that were a two man job and we got a discount for the work as it saved him having to hire someone to help! Perhaps it is Doug's new career!
The two new ones are the paler coloured ones, we plan on staining them to similar to the old ones - which are oak, the news ones are Douglas Fir.

A bit of a strange view - it is a 360 taken with a setting on the camera so the two ends join together. You can see where Doug has repaired the wall in three places and a fourth that still needs doing. The repair will be covered over with hempcrete when we one day get on to doing that so the finish is a bit 'rustic'

We still need to clean up and finish the surface of the new beams, the plan is to wire brush them with the angle grinder, Doug has done an experimental bit, as you can see it makes the grain stand out nicely - and has a finish similar to the existing beams.

Project Bunny

As one of our rabbits died recently, we were very happy to accept a rabbit a friend offered us. She is 6 months old and we have called her Bernardette. I went and picked her up on my almost birthday (my real birthday being the 29th of Feb, I count it as the 28th other years)
We are giving her a few days to get settled before mating her as she is quite shy at the moment.

Ginger (the remaining female fauve rabbit) failed to give birth a month after having mated with Bunny Boy, so we mated her again. At the time we were not sure whether it was Bunny Boy or her that caused the failure to conceive, so I have arranged to borrow a male rabbit from a friend (he is bored and apparently 'getting his rocks off' will entertain him - the rabbit that is not the friend...).
Then this morning, 30 days after a visit to Bunny Boy, Mrs Robinson gave birth to 11 babies. Unfortunately she still hasn't worked out what she is meant to be doing . She had pulled a bit of fur, but not built a nest and had had them scattered all over the cage. She had eaten half of one and there was one that looked like it had been born dead, I brought the rest in and warmed them up under the heat lamp, seven of nine (yes sounds like a star trek character) came back to life while we were out at our riding lesson. During this time also Mrs Robinson had got on and built a proper nest with hay and a lot more fur. So I have slipped some cardboard under the nest and put the seven revived babies in it. No idea whether she will feed them or not, will check tomorrow, if she does not I don't suppose they will survive until then.

So all in all we haven't made any concrete progress on project bunny, but at least we know Bunny Boy is fertile, and Mrs Robinson has slightly improved her mothering skills in that she managed to build a nest eventually this time.

Ginger (the remaining fauve de bourgogne female)

Mrs Robinson

Bernardette (if you look at the photo of Ginger you can see
why she is called Bernardette - the cages are made by Bernard
Semiac and say it all over them.

Bunny Boy is bottom left - his official name is Bernard