Eggs And More Eggs.

Hello

Greetings from sunny, not, but very humid and slightly soggy, Bronllan.

Anyhow, on Tueday I decided to give pickling eggs a go in my continued effort to preserve the things we raise, grow, etc.

I used plain distilled vinegar and in a little muslin pouch I put half a cinnamon stick, black pepper corns, mustard seeds, fresh basil and a star anise. 

I steeped the pouch in the vinegar and left it to cool for a couple of hours then poured it over the hard boiled eggs. 

They are now sitting on my shelf for a month until we can taste them. Very excited about that little project!

You may just be able to make out that the eggs are standing on a copy of John Seymour's Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency. I was encouraged by a post from Bovey Belle to purchase it and so glad I did. 

Wednesday morning our little harvest looked like this. A good sized courgette, five eggs, susar snap peas and our first ever dwarf beans. Eeeek!

We have acquired 200 small slates and Jon fetched them that morning so they boys were helping them to be unloaded and put into one of the sheds. Such looks of determination.

I made the decision the other day that as the swedes had not done very well in the veg plot I would leave the few which had, dig over the ground again, weed and then plant the turnips and so I have. The turnips had grown very well in the Poly House and I hope they grow without too much trouble.

Happy with the result as this end of the patch is full with the turnips, few swede and you can just see how the onions are coming up well.

We went into Aber today for some lunch as Jon's mum is staying a couple of days and wanted to treat us. I took a quick gander in Craft and came across this in the 50p box. It could be used as part of one of my seasonal vignettes or I could use it for crafting. I already have a lot of sheet music I use for papercrafting so I think I will keep this one as is, and maybe next year Alfie will be able to play some festive tunes for us!

 I also went to Aberdashery and bought a meter of muslin. I think this will be very useful for things such as when I make soe cheese which I intend to do in the next few weeks. (The recipe is something I found in the John Seymour book.)

And one more thing on the egg theme, my girls are on track to lay just as many as they did last month, even though we had some lean days where we only got two, because we have had six every day for the last week or so. Go girls!

Well, I have written this post whilst the boys are playing upstairs and both Jon and Nana are having 40 winks. Will just take a few more minutes to see what other delights I can add to my bucket list of new things to try from Mr Seymour whilst I have the chance.

Bye for now.

Lou.xx