wild geese

There are animals all over these hills and don't we know it.  Our twenty-year deer fence has finally given up and the garden is now invaded nightly by particularly cunning deer.  They're reckoned to have escaped the culls on Rahoy so they've learnt to be nervous of people (especially people in landrovers with lights and guns) which makes them hard to get at but has not blunted their appetite for everything green and pleasant in the garden.  Even the artichokes, which are thistles dammit!

 Elsewhere on the west coast there are problems with geese which can strip grassland of the crops that both crofters and native birds rely on.  Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) has started culling Greylag geese and checking to see if this controls the population.  Since SNH is a quango and not a retailer they've been stuck for what to do with the resulting goose meat.  This Christmas some of it ended up on our table where I struggled to find any references to cooking wild as opposed to domestic goose - the birds came jointed with dark red meat, no fat (the biggest difference with the domestic birds) and a distinctly fishy smell.

In the end the breasts were pan-roasted for a fine Christmas dinner and the rest of the meat turned into a fine casserole to keep us well-fed and warm up here n the west coast while I mutter to myself about the evil deeds of deer and dream of the venison to come.

Wild Goose Casserole

* dripping or vegetable oil
* jointed meat (breasts and legs) from a couple of geese
* two chopped onions
* jar of rowan jelly
* glass of red wine
* cup of dried flageolet beans (soaked overnight and then cooked for 1.5 hours)
* 1 pint vegetable stock & salt

Heat the dripping or oil on the stovetop in an ovenproof pan that has a lid, chop the meat into cubes if possible, brown in the dripping and remove.  Add the onions and brown gently.  Add the red wine to the hot pan and stir to gather the bits and pieces stuck to the bottom, add the rowan jelly, browned goose, beans and vegetable stock.  Place the lid on and pop the pan in a medium oven (gas mark 3 / 180C) for an hour or so.  Check the seasoning, strip the meat from the legs (if you can be bothered) and you're good to go.

The ingredients for this reflect what was available in our larder - to be honest I'm not even sure if it was rowan jelly (could have been redcurrant, mixed berry or maybe even sloe) since slugs have played havoc with the labels in our pantry.  After the deer, the molluscs are next.

rain, snow and seaweed

So this is winter.  There's still a trace of lushness in the land but the beetroot leaves are, alas, just a memory now since deer got into the garden.  The fence is now rotten in too many places to patch properly.  If the deer sneeze next to the posts they'll fall down.  Hopefully we'll get a new fence in the spring and a stack of deer (who aren't supposed to be in this part of the estate anyway) will get culled this coming week.  Just to complicate matters there's been a breakout by the estate cattle who're kept up behind the house.  I'm not sure where the enclosure is so I'm hoping to walk out and check.

The winter weather of snow and ice hasn't made it to our valley yet although there are traces on the hill sufficient to prevent my lame fiat panda making it over the hill.  On the track here there are bits of seaweed from the Thursday storm and the boat has been shifted a metre or so but everything (track, house, boat) seems to be in one piece which is the crucial thing.  I'm still feeling a bit overwhelmed by the tidying up involved.  I've got a stack of clean laundry to be tidied away which is easy enough but when that's done I've got the hallway to mop then moving onto the really difficult stuff.  At some point last month the fank door was left open.  It might have been C or it might have been a passing walker (I offered a bed in the fank to a lad who's walking round the British coast, he didn't reply to the offer but he might have stuck his head in to check what was available).  The end result is the entry of the pine marten who shat all over the bathroom floor and had great fun with the bags of artisan flour left lying around.  All this mess is lying around C's half-installed CCTV system.

This probably explains why I'm sitting in my pyjamas at midday for the second day running, waiting for inspiration or enthusiasm to strike.  Fortitude, fine coffee and a decent fire should get me going.

turned out nice again

Autumn is upon us and all the machines have started breaking down with a vengance.  To be fair to the poor hard-pressed engines they have been a bit poorly all year it's just that when the weather turns brisk we realise how essential they are.

October started with a bit of a bang when I got a phone call at work from C to say that my sister was in intensive care with Guillon Barre syndrome.  Can't really remember much of that day except that I did some intensive reading of the council's time-off-work policy, frantic wikipedia searches and clearing of schedules.  By the next morning I'd worked out that she didn't have GB syndrome she was in hospital for tests to try and uncover a reasn for her tiredness and the dramatic neurological syndrome was a possible rather than actual diagnosis.  The confusion arose because C can spook easily and sister's partner laid on the drama a bit thick for an elderly gent.

Once the all-hands-on-deck drama had dissipated we were left with the other looming crisis of a diesel generator that remains a key part of our wee Drumbuidhe-grid and which is losing compression.  For those interested in such things, local stand-alone power systems usually have a form of storage so that you can switch the lights on when the sun isn't shining (if you use photovoltaics) or listen to the radio when it's not raining (if you use hydro).  Batteries are the standard storage method (yes, yes I know there are lots of better systems like compressed air and pumped water but for those of us rubbish access roads and small pockets, batteries are the default) and they require maintenance.  Maintenance means regular, timetabled charging and (since neither sun, wind, nor rain work to timetables) that means a diesel genny.

The saga of the genny will continue at a slightly later date but it was missing a crucial ingredient in that it was played out against the backdrop of weather so strangely perfect that it felt like all of the west coast was on drugs.

Signs & Symbols

The sun is out and has been blazing its damndest.  Glinting off the pure white sand blown away from the Lochaline quarry.

Even with a lack of water the countryside and the garden are blooming away.  This fecundity brings with it a host of garden pests, all with their own telltale signs: sawfly larvae can strip the gooseberry bushes of leaves in a week and the first sign is two rows of neat, perfectly spaced holes on a couple of leaves as the eggs hatch from the underside; goldfinches pick away at the buds on the fruit trees leaving them brown, damaged and useless; wireworm burrow into the potatoes leaving a neat hole but a rotten interior; the pine marten gorges on our cherries (attracted by the bright red colour) leaving piles of poo filled with cherry stones.

The most destructive pest however is the EIV, the eager, ignorant visitor.  I left the cottage on Sunday to go to work in Glasgow and returned on Friday to the ominous words from C "The garden's looking great! the volunteers have done some fabulous work!" The garden is indeed looking great but mainly thanks to fruit trees planted 20 years ago and years of wild flower planting by my mother (slightly slowed down by last year's EIV who sprayed the wild flowers with glyphosate to 'neaten' the garden).  Alas the EIV's had been at the vegetable plot so that my dill, rhubarb and onions had all been dug up and there were a couple of suspicious footprints in the salad bed.

We do love visitors and C is especially fond of them.  The volunteers from workaway have been excellent: the admin is pretty arduous but C has really enjoyed the company and the help.  We love eager visitors - over the years they've built, fixed and decorated many bits of Drumbuidhe.  We love ignorant visitors - this is our home and we're delighted to explain its details and delights to all who visit.  However the combination of vague instructions from a demented elderly gentleman; a complete lack of knowledge about my garden and a willingness to 'have a go' produce disasterous results.  I do get mightly hacked off sorting out EIV's efforts and I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to prevent them.  I've had numerous talks with C about what needs to be done in the garden ranging from 'absolutely nothing' to 'weeding the raspberry beds - nothing else' but still my herbs get removed, my stored seaweed gets used to kill my salad and potatoes planted so we can enjoy them freshly dug are removed early for storage.  I'm mystified by people who think they understand someone else's garden and whilst I've considered putting signs up "Do not do anything!" I suspect that EIVs would ignore these, confident that their good intentions mean the signs did not apply to them.

So this is a general plea to helpful visitors everywhere: check with the person who planted the garden before you touch the plants.

Fabulous though the garden is, the location means there are some things we just can't grow but the market in Partick provided a stack of cheap tomatoes for the classic summer soup.  I studied architecture for six months in Seville and found the heat in mid-summer destroyed any appetite and energy I had.  I lived on a combination of gazpacho served with my landlady's unlimited olive oil and black coffee served by the air-conditioned cafe across the road.  This recipe is taken from Lindsey Bareham's Good Soup Book


Gazpacho

1kg ripe tomatoes, skinned and roughly chopped
250g stale white bread
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
8 spring onions chopped
2 garlic cloves chopped
2 red peppers, skinned, de-seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons sherry vinegar
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons vegetable stock
900ml water

blend the ingredients together and chill for at least 4 hours but longer is better

serve with whatever you fancy from bread, olive oil, croutons, diced ham, hard-boiled eggs, chopped peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions..... 

falling through the floor

The hallway has always been a bit bouncy but recently it was getting very bouncy, verging on soft with the distinct feeling that it was just the cheap vinyl that was holding it together.  On Saturday an urge for action overtook me (along with the idea that this was a task C might be able to get involved in) and we started ripping the whole thing apart.  This sounds quite vigorous but, in reality, most of the floorboards (and joists) crumbled in our hands through a combination of woodworm (where it was dry) and rot (where it was wet).  The original joists (and their 1970s replacements) had been laid directly on the earth and, this being the west coast of Scotland with the highest incidence of horizontal rain known to man, the earth was always going to be damp.

Half the floor has been removed (along with the pervasive smell of damp) and we're now starting to think about sourcing timber replacements (the ideal of a concrete floor will have to wait awhile), laying them in place and patching up the internal t&g lining.  At least we have plenty of material for edging the vegetable beds.

Alas (or possibly Hurrah) this was the task that forced C to face the fact that he's getting on a bit and if specifying timber joists is beyond him then he shouldn't really be building an expensive prototype wind turbine that he doesn't understand (even if it does give him the opportunity to buy lots of shiny things).  He's sent out an announcement that he's stopping work on it and, although he's sent these out before, I think he might mean it.  He's very subdued at the minute but, with a luxury break planned for this weekend, he'll get a fillip of fine food and good company.

The garden is still struggling with the cold spring and subsequent dry spell (as ever the opium poppies are doing marvellously) as well as vigorous attacks on the fruit trees by attractive yet evil gold finches.  I gave the salad crops a good talking to whilst I watered them and hope that this will do the trick.  The seedlings have started coming away so we'll have cauliflower (posh violet!) and broccoli to go in when the potatoes come out and parsley, dill and chervil to bulk out the herb bed.  In a rush of blood to the head I bought some exotic herbs from seeds of Italy in the hope of adding architectural splendour to the herb bed but the angelica is proving rather reticent.

The stalwarts of potatoes (Anya and Charlotte) are doing great (as they should after all that double-digging care and seaweed was lavished on them) and my thoughts have turned to Calmac's summer recipe challenge for their on-board cafeteria.  Potatoes are an obvious choice but, as any true islander will tell you, potatoes must be dry.  We betray our effete metropolitan nature by only planting waxy potatoes but these do allow us to make some quite superb rosti.  So here's a quick potatoe cake to use the last of the stored potatoes and the first of the wild garlic.

ramson rosti
for two people

3 medium sized potatoes, peeled and grated
good handful of wild garlic (ramson) finely shredded
salt and pepper

heat a tablespoonful of oil in a heavy frying pan; mix the ingredients together (with your hands is easiest); form it into a rough ball and press down into the pan when the oil is hot, turn down the heat immediately and place a lid over the pan; cook for ten minutes then (carefully) turn the cake out onto a plate or board and slide it, uncooked side down, back into the pan; cover and cook for a further ten minutes.

Serve with poached egg, ham, sausage, cheese or whatever takes your fancy

the corvid knocks

Many years and miles away I worked as an assistant teacher in middle schools in the north of Hiroshima prefecture.  I worked out of the local authority education office alongside the, experienced and erudite, subject advisors.  When I left to return to the UK I was given a seal with my full name written in kanji.  I already had a seal with my surname written phonetically (you needed this to open a bank account) in katakana but, since the kanji ideograms have meaning as well as (multiple) pronunciations, this was a more personal gift.  My office deliberated and discussed and eventually the characters were selected for my surname, pronounced 'sen' and 'puru'.  These translated as an archaic and obscure description of a 'thousand raindrops falling from a roof'.

On days like this out on Scotland's west coast I comfort myself with the fact that this weather is my destiny: the sodden birds are sheltering on windowsills and the steady drip from the eaves is drowning out the birdsong.

I was woken at 5am this morning in the half-light of a northern spring morning by a hooded crow repeatedly banging the porch window (and knocking off my inappropriate geranium plantings).  The porch faces west so, as the eastern sky lightened, the crow, in a breeding season frenzy, must have seen its reflection in the dark window and decided to attack.  One of the side effects of staying somewhere so quiet (our nearest neighbours are about 7km away) is that any noise, no matter how small, can be disturbing.  I find the scariest thing is a mousetrap going off just as I'm falling asleep: part of my mind interprets it as a footstep and before I know it my mind is racing through paranoid ideas of invasion.  An even stranger side effect is auditory hallucinations which occur when it's completely silent.  My mind doesn't like the absence and so invents something (generally the diesel generator running ... not that gothic really) to fill the gap.

Although being woken by mad birds to a damp day is not ideal, this is a great time of year: it's mild out and the days are long but the midges haven't quite started yet.  C is finding it increasingly difficult to cope with anything apart from hot, dry, mediterranean weather and he's headed back down to Glasgow to get gloomy about the cost of building untested wind turbines.  This means I'm completely alone up here and, since it won't last for too long, revelling in the peace and freedom.  Which I'm using to weed the garden and plant out some brassicas.  As you do.

fire and ice

Spring has arrived complete with peacock butterflies and bumble bees.  It's been delayed of course by dry ice-cold weather here on the west coast which led to both frozen ground and a series of hill fires.

The delay in planting wasn't too serious but there's always the danger that early sowings (parsnip, beetroot, carrot, spinach and mixed salad) will never actually manage to germinate.  I'm being philosophical about it but I did hold off with the potatoes 'til the clocks went back.  A new issue is the planting (sowing? spreading?) of the nematodes.  These are minute (12 million per pack) worms that are mixed with water and spread on the ground to kill slugs.  They can be kept for a while hibernating in the fridge but this time I had to keep them for a month and, what with them being minute, there's no way to tell if they're still alive.  I'm not that concerned about nematode welfare but they are fairly pricey and I get grumpy about wasting the money.  Hey ho.

We've just started advertising Drumbuidhe on the workaway website which pairs hosts and volunteers looking for a working holiday.  Our first volunteer was a young Hungarian who coped brilliantly with mud, potatoes, Highland cattle and the isolation.  Thanks to him I got the potato beds cleared, dug with seaweed and planted.  K and friends had visited from Devon over Easter and had spread the collected seaweed all over the vegetable beds (note to visitors, think once, twice and then telephone me when C suggests you do anything in the garden).  It doesn't rot down fast enough and forking it is like wrestling with damp wigs so it all had to be picked up (yes, by hand, truly filthy work) and put in its intended location, under the potatoes.

If everything goes according to plan I should be starting a local authority energy job in the next week or so which meant I had to sprint back from potato planting for a crash course in energy monitoring software.  I'll be heading back next week for some more vegetable fondling but in my time in Glasgow I did manage to squeeze some mezze from the fabulous Ottolenghi.  Since I couldn't find any tahini in the Partick supermarket I had to use my Japanese pestle and mortar for its correct purpose (grinding sesame seeds) for the first time in 20 years.  Definitely worth it.  So for those who have a suribachi hanging around here's my version of roast carrots.

1kg carrots
1tbsp coriander seed
1tsp cumin seed
1tbsp rapeseed oil
1tbsp honey

cut the carrots into thick sticks (I cut them into eight pieces each); toast the coriander and cumin in a pan 'til they just start to smoke then crush in the mortar; stir together the spices, carrots, oil and honey and spread evenly on a baking tray; roast at gas 6 / 200C for roughly 40 minutes 'til browned and smelling lovely

1 cup greek yoghurt
1/2 cup sesame seeds
juice of half a lime
salt

toast the sesame seeds 'til they just start to colour then grind in the mortar 'til you have as fine a powder or paste as you like; add to the yoghurt, lemon and salt; pour over the roasted carrots and serve.

I'm afraid I ate this with my fingers.

down and dirty

'Tis the season to get planting; which means weeding which means grappling with couch grass, dandelions and buttercups.  Evil, pure evil the lot of them.  Last year the garden didn't get a lot of love and it's hard and dirty getting control back.  I've spent hours, days, seems like years up to my elbows in mud and roots to get four beds cleared (four still to go).  The root vegetables have been sown: carrots (I don't have the soil for them but hope, and mishapen roots, spring eternal), beetroot and parsnip.  The five remaining artichoke plants have been wrapped against the cold and surrounded with spinach and salad.  Another five raspberry canes have been planted out.  Lettuce, leeks and tomatoes (see reference to hope above) are sprouting under glass and last year's grobag is planted out with cut price salad from Waitrose keeping the early slugs up to their slime in classy greens.

The spring sunshine is warming up the rest of Drumbuidhe as well: C is back and in residence with new plans and old grumpiness.  We got the diesel generator moving again simultaneously identifying the leak (the diesel return from the cylinders had frayed Lister-Petty fact fans) and so he's back to his carbon-hungry ways.  In December he lost the last of the diesel tank by leaving the tap for filling the landrover switched on; paid £1000 for another tankful and then lost most of that (the tank's now just 1/4 full) running the generator with the return leaking.

The new plans involve the building of a second wind turbine.  This will be installed in front of the fank and filmed with the film to be used as a promotional video for the selling of the Darrieus concept.  There are a number of potential problems with this (the current turbine doesn't generate net electricity; the plan is to install the second turbine without foundation; previous installations have tipped over dangerously; the new turbine blades are a new, untested, design) and there isn't enough money for another turbine.  Hence the grumpiness.

So far I've been shouted at a number of times for stuttering (the fact that I don't stutter isn't really relevant) and today when I pointed out that I couldn't "make sure" I brought up components for the turbine if A (who has the components) didn't reply to my phone messages, C told me that A wasn't replying because I was "difficult".  Crikey but I do wish he would take up stamp collecting.

seems grim up north

In the depths of February it can seem as if everything is a bit grim.  After the second person in the course of a week had commented that I didn't have to look for troubles I realised that I was maybe talking things down a bit.  Like vistas on the Yorkshire moors, the description (snow! wind! seven effing miles!) can obscure the delight that comes from a sunny day standing on top of the world with good boots on your feet and fine food at the end of the walk.

I've been delaying writing up the blog in the belief that I'd have a sturdy new job to report but, alas, the construction industry has not yet responded to my availability.  I've applied for a fair few jobs but I've either been under-qualified and over-experienced (a graduate trainee programme for the nuclear energy industry where I was surrounded by 20 year old physics undergraduates) or over-qualified and under-experienced (carbon reduction officer for a local authority who were obviously surprised to be interviewing an Oxford graduate). While I would really, really like a salaried job at the minute I'm not yet knocking on Ian Duncan Smith's door and I'm happy enough that when the right one comes I'll be ready for it.

Drumbuidhe is still a bit battered from the winter with standard energy problems (flat battery on the diesel and an unidentified leak) but the solar panels have kicked in as we start to get glimpses of sunshine and the system works well enough to let you see where the problems are.  Also C has cut down his drinking on medical advice which has calmed everything down a bit.  A wee group from Mull is coming out on Wednesday to have a look at the possibility of installing a working wind turbine which could help with the guddle of inputs and outputs from the Darrieus as well as providing both electricity and income (from the feed in tariff which, yes, pays out even if you don't have a grid to feed into).

Even in the darkest part of the year there are delights to be had and Saturday's dinner was one with blood oranges in season and in caramel.  Two ingredients but still delicious.

oranges in caramel

oranges
sugar






peel the oranges by slicing the top and bottom off then cutting peel, pith and all off in a spiral.  The sharper your knife the easier this is and do it over the dish to keep as much of the juice as possible.  Slice the oranges into rounds about the thickness of a pound coin and lay in your dish.  Put the sugar and a dash of water onto heat (the water will all boil away but it's there to stop the sugar sticking to the pan and burning ... use enough to dissolve the sugar) and boil 'til it starts to colour.  Swirl the pan to make sure it colours evenly and, when it's as dark as you want, pour over the oranges.  Leave them for an hour or so or longer for the caramel to dissolve and then eat with ice cream, cream or anything you fancy.