A stream scramble

autumn colours

beech leaf bank

looking up a beech trunk

mossy rocks

An old wall

the top fifth of a silver birch tree; the rest is trunk

wee red fungus

moss covered pile of branches – hedgehog homes?

An old rowan tree

a jelly fungus

A bit of stream

and a bit of splash

light in water

light, water and bubbles

Autumn morning

Forking roe deer track through the grass

Soup for a cold and wet 2 November

2 Nov Soup

Ingredients and method

You need:
the leftover juices and fats from a (beef) sausage, beetroot and shallot casserole
some chicken bones that you found in the freezer (wings mainly) with a bit of meat and skin on them

Boil the above with a couple of onion ends (the bits you cut off, including the skin) to make stock.
Strain through a colander.
Take any meat off the bones, chop it and chuck it in with the stock.

Then add:
Some sliced mushrooms
a small chopped onion (or half a large one! – not that it matters really)
some leftover pumpkin that was mashed with coconut milk

more water if necessary

Reheat and cook the mushrooms and onion.
Whizz in liquidiser.

 

Lovely dark mushroom soup with a few extra mushrooms to slice and fry for garnish

October News

The month ends in an ocean of worry for a friend who is missing in the Haute Savoie region of France. Carol was last seen on Sunday 27 October and no-one has been able to contact her since. She often went hiking in the mountains near where she lived  but never left indications of her plans with anyone so searching for her cannot be narrowed down very easily, especially as her car, a black Fiat Panda 4x4 licensed AZ522AP, has not been found. If anyone reading this feels they could help in the search in any way at all, either on the ground or with communications, please look at the Facebook page members of her family have set up for information.

Early in the month I heard from friends in Utah that their daughter-in-law, currently in Japan, had been taken to hospital with a threatened miscarriage. Margaret flew to Tokyo to help with the toddler. On 2 October the baby was delivered weighing 3lb. Last I heard he was doing well and Margaret flew back home in good time for her youngest son's wedding on the 26th.

Back here the inconvenience of having our car off the road for five and a half days for a major repair, the fitting of a new (well... secondhand; it's such an old rattletrap that 'new' parts no longer exist) rear axle pales into insignificance.

There was a parent's evening at Toadlet's school. I met five of her teachers. Liked them all. She's brilliant at art and chatting in class. No surprises there. She is much better at Maths and French than she thinks she is. And I was amused in particular by her PE teacher's assessment. He put it more diplomatically but he has clearly sussed her other great talents – a penchant for stubbornness (a useful trait; let's not knock it) and a certain scattiness. I seem to remember my mother rolling her eyes about my scattiness at a similar age. So, in short, she's doing fine. This month also marked the official start of her teenagerdom. One of her birthday presents was a trip to a hairdresser to get her hair purple dip dyed. It's much nicer than I thought it would be. In fact, I positively like it!

With a Rotary partner, Mary, I've been involved with setting up a Rotakids club at Luss Primary School, the same school that did the Loch Lomond Powan fish project which I spoke about here. We've had an initial chat with the kids and we'll get started properly next Tuesday.

Last night at Cubs we did a lantern walk – tea light in decorated marmalade jars (knew they'd come in handy) held on a stick with wire. About half of the time was spent re-lighting lanterns. Hey ho, ;-). We'd left Sumbdy's Dad back at the scout hut in charge of a camp-fire and cooking Bratwurst (we've had a German theme to our Global Challenge this term) which we ate dipped in tomato sauce that had had some mild curry powder mixed into it. All except one of the Cubs loved it. It was a fine night, which was a great bonus as the rain earlier in the day had been positively tropical, in its ferocity if not its temperature.

When I went out to empty the compost bucket this morning, I was surprised and delighted to see this lovely yellow dahlia, growing out of the compost heap but on the field side of the fence.

I shall call this the Hope Flower for Carol

Just near there is the old bird cherry tree with its fascinating gnarled growth. On the right of the following picture is where a large branch has been removed many years ago and where the sulphur polypore fungus grows in the summer.

Sulphur polypore fungus on 9 June

Looking up at some of the younger branches and their autumnal leaves

Autumnal peony leaves

Sunrise at the beginning of the month

And at the end

I leave you with the rain belting down again after a sunny morning and pleased to hear just now that the police in France have finally started an official search for Carol.

Sunup from my garden late October

When I'm cleaning windows

As November approaches, I decide to do my "spring" cleaning. It doesn't get done in the spring because that would be a waste of good outdoor, good weather time. Spring is often the driest time of year here and November often heralds the local Even Wetter season. I'm starting in one corner of the kitchen. This blog post is to record the beginning. I wonder if I'll have finished by next spring?

When I decide to clean a window I have to expect the job to include cleaning several other things too – job extensions. I also have to expect to have to first find the ladder – Toad is not yet programmed to Put Things Away, try as I might – before I can use it. My expectations were not disappointed today.

Today I decided to clean this window in the west corner of the kitchen. It has been needing done for a while and there was an accumulation of pieces of onion and shallot skin near it (dropped by the monkeys – see pic; the onions are now on a different hook but the monkeys used to hold them), not to mention a cobweb or two – job extension one.

First I had to clear away some of the things that had accumulated in the corner since I last had a thorough rummage there. In putting away a hob kettle that we're not using at the moment (it gets used on the sitting room stove when there's a power cut), I found Toad's sake jug and cups, still in the box they'd been packed in back in 2006 when we moved here from Oxfordshire. I took them out of the cupboard to make space for the kettle which is being stored full of water. Yes, the water supply has been cut off a number of times too! At least, it was in the first few years. Scottish Water have improved the supply pipes on the peninsula now so it shouldn't be a problem. Once (or many times) bitten though...

I would post a picture of the sake cups but Aperture is playing silly buggers and won't let me. Oh, wait! I've managed it via iPhoto:

This is what the board at top right of the window pic says

present from a friend who knows me well

Tools of the job: stool

so I can get onto the counter to reach the window, brush (for the inevitable cobwebs now that I can reach the high pan rack and the ceiling), cloths and soapy water. I love brushes, especially hand-made ones like this. In the top left of the window pic you can see the rack that needed divesting of its cobweb dress. It is not much used pans that get stored up there so it doesn't get much attention. While I was up there, I decided to get rid (via the recycling bin) of two old frying pans which I had been keeping for goodness knows what.

To clean the outside of the window I needed a ladder. Did I mention that Toad doesn't put things back where he finds them? Sigh. So getting the ladder required a tramp up the garden to beyond the archery target boss where it had been left to gather leaves last time the back net was taken down. Job extension two: clean leaves and spider webs and wetness off ladder and carry ladder back down to house.

While I was outside I decided the 'moat' outside the back door needed swept – another hand-made brush job (and job extension three) – the drainage channel gets clogged with leaves in autumn and we've had a lot of rain lately. Other people have wet room bathrooms. We have a wet room wash-house.

The bristles are split bamboo, very stiff

I rewarded myself with a pot of coffee and a giant empire biscuit. I didn't think I'd manage to eat it all but I did.

And a final brush pic, for today, just because I can. This one came back from Thailand with me. The bristles are made of dried rice grass stems so it is a soft and flexible brush. Everyone used these for sweeping floors. 

BoggyBrae streamside or Spot the Frog