Wednesday 29 February 2012

Mushrooms

We've had a day in the garden, while the biomass system continues to be installed.

The remaining green manure in the kitchen garden has been chopped and dug in, in preparation for planting the beds over the next month or so. We moved a few more bags of leaf-mould, which I collected at the weekend, down to the 'compost area': we were donated several plastic composters by a neighbour, which we'll use to store the leafmould, when we get round to siting them and transferring the leaves.

Next to the coal-bunker outside the back door, there's a small triangular bed (with sides of about 3 foot) which has had a sorry looking holly growing in it since we arrived. It's never looked attractive: stunted, poorly leafed, and dismal. I dug it out this morning, and wasn't surprised to find that it's been struggling from a shallow bed: probably only a foot deep, with loads of gravel in it. We've topped up the soil with some compost, planted a red-stemmed bamboo: Fargesia scabrida 'Asian Wonder'. It's meant to like a sheltered spot, part shade or sun, so hopefully it'll thrive. It should, when it gets to its mature height, be more attractive than the holly—and productive, too.

We also took one of the poplar logs, which I'd had cut to a two-foot length, and implanted it with oyster mushroom impregnated dowels. In about six months, it should yield a crop of tasty mushrooms, and then continue doing so every six months for a few years. A medium-term project, but hopefully a successful addition to the food we grow.

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Delivery

The biomass installation started today: the oil boiler is now offline (and partly disconnected); the old hot water cylinder is out; the new accumulator tank (enormous) is roughly in position, and the boiler itself is on a pallet in the garage.

We've had nothing to do with this, admittedly, and have, instead, cleaned the house, and switched the beds around, so that the spare divan in the garage (which has drawers built into it) has replaced the one in the guest room (which doesn't). This has been something we've been planning for ages, and means we have much more storage space for things like second duvets—unfortunately, I think it's immediately filled.

Monday 27 February 2012

Long-Standing Task

Finally, after sixteen months, I have put the divider on the floor join between the kitchen and utility room. In my defence, the strip was slightly too thick, which (when I looked into it) was mainly because the door's hinges are so worn that the door was hanging about a quarter-inch too low. I have now replaced the worn hinges (adding a third, in fact), and the divider has gone down effortlessly. We've also sorted out the garage, ready for the installation of the biomass boiler, which starts tomorrow.

Sunday 26 February 2012

Squills

I've spent most of the day, and yesterday, splitting poplar, ready to season. It's going reasonably well, and I've cut a couple of trugs-worth into kindling, too. While I was outside, I noticed that the first of the squills (Scilla siberica) are about to flower. The daffs, puschkinia, and tulips are all also up and getting buds; the crocuses are flowering too.

Spring's almost upon us!

Sunday 19 February 2012

Stove

We've had the new stove installed on Friday. It's a Dunsley Yorkshire woodburner, and we hope it's going to mean the sitting room can be made nice and toasty, without having to turn up the whole house's heating. Some before/during/after photos!

The open fire (© Ian 2012)

With fire basket, accessories, and canopy removed (© Ian 2012)

With stove installed! (© Ian 2012)

We've since put the bits and pieces back, and stacked some wood in the inglenook, and tonight lit the first fire in it. The first few are meant to be on the small side, as the paint cures, the firebricks dry out, and the seals firm up. The fire cement also needed 48 hours to dry, but fortunately we've had the weekend at Alan and Ann's, in Newmarket, so we were away and couldn't be tempted to light a fire.

It was a really enjoyable weekend, too: plenty of board games (Cities & Knights, and Alhambra), a good film (Inception), and good food. It's been a while since we've seen them (October, I think), and it was good to catch up. We called in on Rachel and Philip for lunch on the way home, which was a nice opportunity to see their new house again (we called in briefly a fortnight ago). They've adopted a couple of old rugs, and a garden table, from us: it's good to see them in use.

Also on Friday, we had the partition wall that separates the boiler room from the garage taken down. Having decided on a biomass boiler, we needed to make access to fit the accumulator tank (2000l, and 150cm in diameter, 220cm tall) into the boiler room: it wouldn't go through the existing doorway. I attempted to take the breeze-block wall down, but it wasn't happening (the mortar was much stronger than needed). Builder's cut-off saw made short work of it (his more muscular frame probably helped, too). I need to make a 'hatch' in the garage ceiling, because the access between joists is limited to about 40cm, and an expansion tank will be going in the loft space. My plan is to make a 80cm square opening, which will only entail cutting one joist, but that's for later this week.

More stove reports when we've had a chance to try it out properly...

Sunday 12 February 2012

Cider Press

We've had a really good weekend, with a visit to my parents', time with Liz's, and some sorting at home. Being my birthday, there was also plenty of lovely food, and a few presents. My sister gave me some Nerines (Nerine bowdenii), my parents gave me a foraging book ("The Thrifty Forager" by Alys Fowler) and a bee hotel (which will go up in the copse soon). Liz and her parents joined forces to find me an apple press, which I've wanted for some time. It'll be a useful way of dealing with the apple glut, either as cider, or a bottled and pasteurized juice.

New 12l cider/apple press (© Ian 2012)

A couple of bags of cheap apples were ready for a first try-out: ten apples yielded about 500ml of juice, and very easily. It would actually be easier with more fruit—the pressing plate had to have a lot of spacers on top of it, because ten apples is a very small proportion of the press capacity. That said, the juice itself was delicious. It browned quickly (we hadn't added citric/ascorbic acid to the bucket), but that doesn't affect the flavour.

Roll on autumn!

Sunday 5 February 2012

Sous Vide Venison

On Friday/Saturday, we were visiting Katherine in Cambridge, who took us to eat at High Table at Pembroke College. I've not eaten so well in years. It was a fantastic menu, in a beautiful setting, and we had a great time.

The menu:
Pea and Coconut Velouté with a Coconut Foam

Smoked Salmon & Mozzarella Terrine

Venison with Caramelized Red Cabbage, Château Potatoes, and a Game Jus

Chocolate Fondant with Peanut Butter Ice-cream and Cumin Caramel

And we then retired to the fellows' parlour for artisan cheese and biscuits (a phenomenally good blue brie-type cheese, a really strong cheddar, something like a parmigiana, and a goat's cheese I didn't try), fruit, and chocolates, with a good port, a lovely Riesling, and a claret.

Pembroke's chef maintains a blog, Under Pressure at Pembroke, which depicts some of these lovely dishes. The sous vide cooked venison was the best venison I've had. I'm still revelling in it all.

We also, inevitably, had a wander: the Backs outside Trinity are looking good, although the crocuses aren't quite out yet.

Aconites outside Trinity College Cambridge (© Ian 2012) 

The Backs and Trinity College (© Ian 2012)

Back home on Saturday, and we've spent today cutting and sawing a load of wood Calderdale council dropped off. We already have too much wood to process, you might say. I'd agree: but we wanted to check this as a possible supply of biomass for wood central heating. Not bad, but not brilliant, in fact; quite a lot of softwood, and some stuff that was a real pain to split.