Not good news on the rabbit front

Mrs Robinson has had 2 babies, unfortunately one was dead already when I found them, and I don't see the other living long without any siblings to keep it warm. It is several days ahead of when we were expecting them. She pulled a load of fur and made a kind of nest - unfortunately I hadn't yet finished making the nest box! Neither baby was actually in the nest and they were on opposite sides if the cage, so I kind of remade the nest and put the alive baby in it. I am not sure whether she knows it is there or not, she keeps bouncing round the cage and stepping on it. I gave her lots of food to try to distract her and give it a slight chance - although it keeps wiggling madly out of the warmish nest so all in all it is not looking good for it.

It is possible that there were a few other very under formed still born babies as well, hard to tell what the afterbirth was made up of. Perhaps moving to a new home when pregnant wasn't good, or perhaps just one of these things. 

We are still not having much luck with project rabbit!

Chicken Heart and Liver Pasta Recipe

Invented as a tasty way of using the chicken liver and heart after we slaughter a chicken. You could add more liver is you want and have it.

Serves 2

1 small onion (or half a large one)

1 clove garlic

1 chicken liver

1 chicken heart

1 tomato

2 tblsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Optionally spice such as chilli, thyme rosemary etc.

Also splash of wine goes well

200g tagliatelli or other long pasta

The sauce cooks quickly. so do all the chopping, then put the pasta on and start cooking thr sauce about 5 mins before the pasta finishes.

Dice the onion finely. 

Cut the garlic in to similar sized pieces. 

Chop up the tomato (bigger bits than the onion and garlic)

Chop the heart finely and the liver a bit less so, but pretty small.

Fry onion and garlic in one spoon of the olive oil until golden brown (a few minutes on medium highish heat)

Add the liver and heart and cook for about a minute (still on highish heat)

Add the tomato

If you are using any herbs add with the tomato and the splash of wine if using too. Otherwise add a splash of water.

Fry for a further minute until it is heated through. 

Stir in the remaining olive oil - and more if you are greedy! 

Season with salt and pepper. 

Drain the pasta and toss it in the sauce

Serve with parmesan cheese.

Another cockerel bites the dust

We 'did' the 4th cockerel today. This time we held him upside down by his feet (the only way we can get them to stay still enough) and slit his jugular. I perhaps didn't cut quite deep enough so it took a little while for the blood to drain out. It was quite difficult cutting it as the skin is very thick, and also loose so it moves around as you do it, but I think having done it once I can do it more effectively next time. He seemed to fall unconsious quite quickly, but then there was a lot of flapping, it is hard to tell whether this is death throes or him coming round and thinking 'hey! what is going on???'

A lot more blood came out this way than when we have broken the neck and then decapitated. This is a good thing apparently, we shall see if we can taste any difference.

There are only two more to go. I enjoy eating them, but the killing and gutting is still a bit stressful. This was my 'favourite' method so far.

We had his liver and heart for lunch - see recipe here.

We have healthcare cover again!

I mentioned before that healthcare in France is not like in the UK where everyone qualifies to receive it. You have to contribute to the system before you are covered. Another difference is that the state doesn't cover 100% anyway, but that is another riviting topic. We were covered for the first two years because the UK paid as we had full NI contributions. As we don't work in France we are not paying the French NI equivelent so we had to apply to be allowed to make contributions and join the system in a different way. Since 2007, France has been denying this to citizens of other EU countries until they have been resident for 5 years. However this is slowly changing as it is against EU rules. 

I spoke to a help line to find out what the criteria for acceptance are, they said it was decided on a case by case basis so we just had to apply and see.

We did and we have been accepted - so we are covered again. Hurrah!

(Mini) Brawn

Some friends recently slaughtered some Vietnamese potbellied pigs these are a miniature breed, and were only about 5 months old so small even for small pigs. Apparently they were 15kg dead weight which is about what our bigger lambs were (last year when we let them grow for a bit longer).
Anyway they very kindly gave us a head and a leg (and some teeny tiny pork chops to sample) so we have made brawn (also, less appetisingly, called head cheese). They have some more piglets so we are buying a carcass in a few weeks time - to make some more mini charcuterie!. so we have made brawn (also, less appetisingly, called head cheese)

1 mini head
1 onion
5 juniper berries
10 pepper corns
sprig of rosemary
sprig of thyme

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper to season

Chop head in half (recipes suggest quarters, but this is a small head)
Put everything in a pan and cover with water
Boil for 4 hours (I put on the wood burning stove, not always boiling, so left it rather longer)
The pigs were black, it is strange how pink the skin has come out once the hair was removed.

After this time the flesh should be very soft and easily pull away from the bones. Lift the heads out of the liquid and let cool a little, Remove the flesh and chop reasonably finely (i put aside some fat and skin as treats for the dog at this point to make finished product slightly less fatty)

Strain the remaining liquid and then continue to boil until about a pint remains.

Mix the chopped meat with the lemon juice and season.

Put in to containers (I used metal trays like you get curry in - 4 x 0.75 liter)

Share about 100ml of the reduced cooking liquid between your containers and refrigerate.

You can use the rest of the cooking liquid as stock - I made very tasty peas pudding by adding some onions and split peas and boiling for ages, we had with some left over pork tenderloin.

It came out considerably nicer than I expected, we tried fromage de tête from the supermarket and did not much like it - too gelatinous and too vinegary. This tastes like pork pâté, with a bit more jelly texture.

It is also nice on pasta, fried with some chopped onion and tomato and lettuce (yes fry the lettuce, is nice) or spinach.

Ethological horse riding lessons

We have started a five week course of lessons covering 'ethological horse riding techniques'. This is pretty much the stuff we have been doing in our other lessons, but we have done quite a few new things, and it is interesting doing it with a number of other people - there are perhaps 10 people and horses on the course.
We have bought rope head collars for Daisy and Owen and some longer lead/longe reins. I will leave you to read about the theories (look up Natural Horsmanship, Parelli, Monty Roberts). The generally idea is that you try to communicate with the horse, using body language, in a way that it understands based on the herd nature of horses. I would say there are three main concepts I have taken from the lessons 1) The idea of comfort vs discomfort - horses want an easy and comfortable life so you use it as a reward and make it more effort to disobey than it is to do what you ask 2) Whoever moves the others feet is the boss - so there are lots of excersizes where you remain still and the horse moves 3) you are looking for a partnership where both sides respect and care for the other, but with a definate leader and a follower. There are various different theories and people can get quite religious about one or another thing being the only right way. 

It is very interesting and amazing to see how effectively it is working - particularly on Daisy who 'has a lot of ideas' as the riding instructor says. Owen generally is more obliging, but he can have his moments. He tends towards laziness which is not something Daisy suffers from…

What a grubby leg he has! It is all the rain...

Deer in the potager

We have been expecting the deer to find the potager one day, and they finally have. I went up there a couple of days ago to find they had nibbled on the broccoli and left hoof prints all over the place.

I put up some sheep fence around it immediately. I didn't electrify it though

Unfortunately the next day they had been back and had just plowed through the fence and scoffed the rest of the broccoli and the leaves off the beetroot - leaving the beetroots themselves pulled out of the ground and scattered around the bed.

I then electrified the fence and bated it with peanut butter - I read that if you put some on foil wrapped round the wire of the fence the deer are attracted to lick it and never never never dare to come near the area again having been zapped with 10,000 volts in the tongue!

You can see how close they were to the house. Much braver than usual. There is still grass and no snow on the ground so strange they are coming in so close. Perhaps they just really love broccoli - which was just starting with the purple sprouts - v annoyed, I really like purple sprouting broccoli!

Strangely, they seemed uninterested in the peas and broad beans. There were footsteps all over the beds, but the plants were unharmed.

The potager looks a bit bleak at the moment. We haven't weeded or mulched and prepared for spring as we intended to have by this point. Hopefully we will manage to get something done 'just in time'. We are planning on focusing on the house this year, but we will plant things we know work and save experiments for later - 'When the house is done' is a common refrain!