WINTER GLOOM

Well, another delay in writing the blog, mainly due to winter illnesses brought on by wood-smoke, mould and a lot of damp!  Mallorca in the winter (mainly February) is never the best place to be, especially if you live in the country.  

The past week has seen a couple of marmalade cakes being devoured, along with cheese & curry savoury biscuits.
The weather has been very on/off, with breaks of sun -which has been quite warm during the day, but also a lot of gloomy cloud, which quite frankly is darn depressing.  HOWEVER... this week we are going to go to the farm down the road to pick up some new plants to pop into the veggie plot.  This should cheer things up a little.

C is outside chopping up the last of our logs so that they will actually fit in the wood burner.  We need to order another load as soon as possible.

We still have loads of oranges and mandarins on the trees and they also need collecting and large batches of marmalade need to be made by C.

All animals at the finca seem to be happy at the moment.  Adolf appears to have recovered and even has some fur growing back around his neck.  We also have another couple of cats that seem to be creeping around, both black, so we will see if they become more friendly or not!

The turkey pen is being cleaned up and we are going to rebuild the turkey house to make it bigger.  No rush though as we don't need to get more turkey's till about July.

The olives are almost ready to pickle but just need a little more time in brine.

Tomorrow I have a trip to Palma, then back to Sa Pobla in time to teach some art and get messy with papier mache!

MARMALADE AT LAST

We finally have a small batch of marmalade.  

Made from a few of the mandarins off our only two mandarin trees.  This was a test batch to see how it would turn out.  It seems that many people struggle to get their marmalade to set properly here but C used extra pectin this time - bought in from the UK.  We only have a few jars but one went to our local taster, who reported that it was the best flavour he'd ever tried! However, it was a little too sweet.  So the next batch will be altered slightly with the amount of sugar used.

The trees are now completely groaning under the strain of fruit, we need to get picking pronto!  C is going to make another batch or so of mandarin marmalade and obviously several batches of orange marmalade.  I think we will have to order in some more pectin as without it the setting process seems to be a failure, and runny marmalade just isn't the same!  So, much more to come in the marmalade department.

Today is Ruffa's birthday - he's 2, where does the time go?  He is now classed as an adult, although he still behaves like a puppy most of the time.

Not a good shot but Ruffa was trying to climb onto the bed for cuddles whilst we sang happy birthday to him! - He is definitely NOT allowed on beds or sofas in our house.















Whilst doing some writing this morning, C came in from cleaning out the hens and Hilda, with a whopper of an egg.  We now have two whoppers and three much smaller eggs - I might have an omelet at lunchtime!

We are hoping the two on the right are double yolkers - hooorrah!

THE MINI AND THE GIANT

Since the last post, we have had a steady succession of eggs (only one or two per day).  Some have been broken and found lying on the open ground, but near the hen house.  Some have been found in the hen house but on the floor and some, much to my happiness, have been found in the nest boxes.

We were finding a few eggs that had very soft shells so we've increased the hens intake of oyster shell and that seems to have done the trick.  As the hens are quite young still it is normal for eggs to be a little strange at first.  

For the last week J has been unwell with high fever. Now that is gone, but he has been left with a nasty head cold.  Needless to say he hasn't been to school since last Friday, so I took him to see his teacher and to explain that he wouldn't be participating in the School Christmas carol concert tonight at the church. 
I picked up his school report, which I have to say was excellent, and his polystyrene guitar (Paul MacCartney's Hoffner bass replica), that I made in a hurry a couple of weekends ago.  


Just as I was leaving the school, I had a hurried phone call from C saying the hens had laid again.  On our return home J and I went to the kitchen to view the eggs - 2 of them, one small, just like the previous ones and one - extra large! yipppeeeeee.  Bigger eggs!

The mini and the giant!














I am hoping that some of the eating oranges are nearly ready to pick, but we only have two trees of them, the rest of the grove are juicers.  The mandarins are ready, maybe another day or two.  Lots of them this year.

Last night I began making vol-au-vents for a 'do' we are going to on Saturday night at mum's.  I finished them this morning, I have no idea how many there are, but they are mini so I know there are more than 100!

Mini vol-au-vent order.









This morning C cooked a full breakfast using two eggs that were laid yesterday afternoon.  But the bacon fought back, much to his consternation.  That'll teach him to cook in last nights sausage fat - deary me!

C fighting with the bacon!

 J's fresh boiled egg, yummy.






So we are almost ready for a more basic Christmas this year.  We have had to tighten the reins considerably due to lack of work, but we shall be together and we'll be having a big family dinner on Christmas eve at mum's as well.  Everything else will be normal here as we have the animals to look after.  If the weather is good we will go off for a country walk with Ruffa - or perhaps a bike ride.

A couple more photos:

C closing up the coop after checking for eggs this morning.

Just before dawn with Venus as a bright dot.  It's a bit grainy as my mobile isn't good with photos!