September News

September has been an awesome month for fungi at the boggy brae. See here and here for a few examples. By the end of the month the ash log looked like this:

Earlier this year at a Rotary meeting our District Conference, to be held at Crieff Hydro, was mentioned. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to go. On the one hand I'd never know quite what to expect if I didn't give it a go but on the other hand Rotary does have a reputation for rather more formality of dress than I wish to be bothered with nowadays. Our own club is pretty informal – it's good to find like minds where unnecessary formality of garb is concerned (especially at a time when school uniforms seem to be getting more rather than less formal; Toadlet has far more uniform rules to put up with/resist than her sisters had to deal with) – but I didn't know what to expect from the rest of the district. Toad and I have had no need of formal attire for a long time. So long a time, in fact, that we'd forgotten whether he actually possessed a 'lounge suit' for the Saturday evening dinner dance, which is what was specified for men if they weren't going the whole hog with 'black tie' or formal kilt! Then I vaguely remembered dust-covering a good jacket of his with an old nightshirt and, it turned out, he had a matching pair of trousers. He had to buy a new shirt though as his usual scruffs, which are fine most of the time, are not what you would call smart. As for ironed... well... tell me another joke! He baulked at wearing a tie and went cravatted instead. Well done, that man. If Rotary really wants to attract younger members, they could start by learning to 'chill' a bit about people's attire. Respectable is fine; formal – meh!

I wore some plain black trousers, and a silk tunic and scarf, which latter contained in its pattern the same colour as my new 'understated elegance' (some of my readers will get the joke about these) shoes: 

So, you see, we went. The decision was made when Toad mentioned a half-day Zoology conference in Oxford that he wanted to attend the same weekend. "You can't," I said, "We're going to Crieff that weekend." Funny how decisions get made when you think a choice is being removed from your grasp. Toadlet came too. She enjoyed staying in a proper hotel instead of the usual youth hostel or tent, and she especially enjoyed getting to go on two hacks on two different horses from the hydro riding stables.

I enjoyed the various talks and presentations and an enjoyable walk with a few others along the River Earn on the Saturday afternoon. The best speakers were the younguns, confirming the conference theme of "Today's Youth – Tomorrow's Rotarians". Eleven and twelve year olds from Luss Primary School spoke about their highly successful hatching of powan fish eggs and the release of the hatchlings into Loch Lomond. The powan fish is native to Loch Lomond and only Loch Lomond and is suffering from predation of its eggs by an alien invader fish. You can read more about their success here.

The Lussers were followed by three brilliant young debaters from the third and fourth year at Glasgow High School defining "Britishness" in the here and now. Other young speakers included three young professional women who had been on a group study exchange to India and spoke of their experiences, what they had learned and the friendships they had made. Two members of Renfrew Interact Club came and spoke, with much humour and evident enjoyment, about what they get up to, and there was a presentation by members of the district Youth Leadership Award scheme.

The older, more practised Rotarian speakers were no less interesting in what they had to say but my overall impression was that they simply had too much to say. Perhaps they had not had the benefit of learning how to be succinct that the younger people clearly had. Or maybe young people are just better at cutting through padding and speaking more to the point.

The only thing I really disliked about the conference was the fact that (a) there was a Sunday morning religious 'service', and (b) it was overtly christian in flavour instead of being, as in my opinion it should if there must be a service at all, non-denominational, even non-religious, while still encompassing the universal secular values and ethics of all Rotarians whether they are religious or not. I did give some 'feedback' about this on one of the available forms, though whether anyone will take any notice remains to be seen. In my view secularity is something else Rotary officials need to think about if they want to attract more young people to become Rotarians.

Overall an enjoyable weekend, and the food was fab.

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The first half of September was quite cold, marking the getting out of sheepskin slippers and the stacking of the winter wood supply. The second half was milder and typified by the penultimate day of the month when Little She Bear and I used my last year's christmas present from DivingDaughter – a champagne tea at a local hotel. We went for a wee walk on the loch moraine afterwards while the tide was out and enjoyed the blueness of the day and looking across at the beauty of our home ground.

Happy October, folks!

A little bit of autumn

New sage growth

Common Cat's Ear flowers and peony leaves

Autumn crocuses and multi fungi

I only went out to photograph these

before they keeled over completely as here in 2006

But I could hardly place my feet without standing on toadstools of one kind or another

This is the bit of moss that pulled the white stuff off
the toadstool above

This one has 'ears'

And then I noticed the last of the flowers

Like self-heal

And herb robert

And buttercups. This is our front'lawn', btw.

Just before I went in, I found this within a stride of the front doorstep

 and this piece of collapsed rose rooting itself on the front terrace

I was watched from down the lane

Fungal treasure I found on a mossy ash log

I noticed some tiny fungal fruiting bodies behind the bark of this piece of old ash trunk. You can see at the bottom the piece of moss-covered bark that I broke away.

My secateurs are to give the scale

















Zooming in

Part of the 'treasure' is, of course, the water droplets on spider silk.

Berry pancake/soufflé/omelette

I tried a new technique for making Mark Sisson's berry pancake. His method is to cook the berries first in butter in a frying pan and then add the eggs (whites beaten to a froth, cinnamon and vanilla added to the yolks and all mixed together). The trouble with this method, I have found, is that the fruit tends to if not quite burn, then at least get slightly overcooked, and some of it sticks to the pan when you tip it all out onto a plate.

My first attempt to overcome this problem was to change the cooking fat to beef fat because butter burns at a lower temperature, relatively speaking. This didn't make a significant difference. I concluded that the problem was the method of having the fruit in contact with the hot pan for too long while the egg cooked above it.

My next attempt was to slightly cook the fruit and then transfer it to a soufflé dish, add the egg mixture, and bake the whole lot. That solved the sticking problem but the egg texture wasn't as nice.

What I did a couple of days ago when I made this pancake was to cook the fruit in the frying pan in a little beef fat, then tip it out into a bowl where it stayed until the egg froth had started to cook in the pan. Then I tipped the fruit (blueberries seem to work best, though a mixture of blackberries and raspberries are good too) on top of the eggs, as for an omelette. The visual effect was fun to watch, as you see from the photos below and the colours are wonderful.

This is definitely the best treatment for the fruit – it keeps its taste and juiciness and doesn't get overcooked. Toad was less keen on the egg texture this time, which was different again from the other methods. I liked it but perhaps will try getting the eggs almost completely cooked before tipping the fruit on another time.

I suppose one could just cook a plain frothy omelette and eat it with the stewed fruit. Unless someone has a better idea.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them

The cooking blueberries

Fruit tipped onto the egg base

The omelette bubbles up or the berries sink, as if into quicksand

Ready to eat – with whipped cream
(one day I will try it with ice-cream, possibly as well as cream)

A walk in the rain

Aspirin and decongestant failed to shift a headache so I went for a walk in the rain, shielding the camera under my jacket. In most cases I bent over the camera while taking shots. I had to use the flash in the low light in any case. I'm pleased with the results, especially as aspects of my new camera continue to baffle me. (Encouragingly, even Toad, who has several hundred per cent more knowledge of photography than I do, found the same things baffling). I've sussed something now at least!

The photos can be enlarged by clicking on them

one of the compost heap dahlias

flowering currant leaves

absolutely masses of these under goat willow
on a base of dea and rotting spiraea stems

cup lichen on side of ash log

new yew shoots – roe deer nibble at it so it keeps regrowing

dog lichen and mosses at the base of a bird cherry trunk

fading bird cherry leaves on the same trunk