MOURNING IN THE MORNING

This morning we found sadly that Hilda (AKA Hermasetas or Humphrina) had died in the night.  We suspected there was a problem but before we could deduce what the problem was she passed away.  She was made as comfortable as possible before we went to bed but it was in vain.  

Hilda on a better day..

So we will not be eating her as we have no idea why she died.  I feel quite sad about it as I began to get quite attached to her.  She was a sensitive soul.  We will not get more turkeys until July or August - so we have SPACE for something else perhaps?? hold that thought.

The rain is relentless here in Sa Pobla, everything is sopping wet, which for the fields isn't a bad thing as November and December were very dry months.  It is also very cold and there is now snow on the mountains.

View of snow capped mountains from Campanet

So today Ruffa went to the vet to have his ears looked at, he's got terrible itches in them and it's been driving him bonkers.  He apparently has a fungus in there - yuk but now we have some drops for him, I am hoping it will ease his insane scratching.

C & I have stocked up on straw and sawdust bedding for the chickens and I will be cleaning them out tomorrow morning.  I am also hoping to get the turkey pen thoroughly cleaned out and sprayed with disinfectant before anything else goes in there.  We are also trying to finish off a smaller hen cage, so that when we go to pick up some new ones we can keep them separate from the rest of the flock, just for a few weeks, in case they are carrying any diseases!  Our girls are laying quite well, but since the snow appeared on the mountains they have slowed down! 

Looking forward to more marmalade tomorrow morning, C said he was planning on making some, along with a marmalade cake, lemon cake and a pear and ginger cake.

Tonight there was a lovely sunset and I caught it's reflection  on some big clouds with the moon.  

Winter trees 18:00hrs

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE PRICKLY KIND

On Thursday afternoon, I cleaned out the chicken coop and the turkey pen, giving them all fresh straw and sorting out the dishevelled nest boxes.  Just as I was finishing raking up the poop in the Hilda's pen (the turkey), J gave a shout for me to go to him.  I thought something had happened but when I got to him, by the front of the house, there on the ground was a little curled up bundle of prickles - a hedgehog!  I was so excited, it's only the second one I have ever seen - alive - the dogs seemed rather interested in it, but were keeping their distance, they have obviously encountered them before!  I picked up our little spiny fellow and checked he was ok and not injured.

He was quite happy and seemed quite healthy.  He was obviously after the dry dog food!  We popped him into the old cat basket with some straw and I went to look up some information on them.  Hedgehogs are different here in Mallorca, in that they do not really hibernate.  We put him into the veggie plot as we had no idea where he came from in the first place.

We didn't see him on Friday, but on Saturday we found him again, in the middle of the driveway - he was nearly flattened by me in the car - very well camouflaged.  Again we put him back into the veggie plot.  If we see him again I will take him to the fields and let him loose.

C & J went to the local farm yesterday to help out the farmer, who was pulling plastic bags and rubbish from his rice field, it seems some of it comes with the fertilizer (natural) that he gets!  The call it 'abono' here, we had some from him a few months ago, but got some better stuff from another farming friend shortly afterwards.

This morning, I had one of the hen's eggs for breakfast - a double yolker - wonderful.  Keep 'em coming girls.

THE 18KG (40lb) TURKEY

A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE.

Christmas Eve was a busy day.  Mum took J Christmas shopping to Inca (the nearest big town to us here in Sa Pobla).  She had him for the whole day, which meant that C and I could pop out and do final bits and pieces as well as organising 'things' here at the house.

The hens laid their eggs, well, two anyway.  C & I wrapped the prezzies (not many this year), and did some cleaning and housework.  We then discussed what to do with the turkey. 

We decided to unwrap the bird and clean it up and place it, ready, into the large oven baking tray, we had a sudden moment of doom, thinking that it wouldn't fit in the oven, but then I suggested we cut off the parsons nose and bake it separately, that way the bird would fit.  We also realised the fact that there was NO WAY it would fit if we put the bird on a rack to cook. It would be too high and touch the top of the oven.  We strung the wings and legs together, I inserted butter under the skin and seasoned with salt, pepper and herbs.  Then stuffed a pierced orange (straight off the tree) and lemon into the main cavity and an onion (from our local farmer) in the neck.  We decided not to stuff it as it was so big.

C preparing the rack we didn't use.

All wrapped up and covered in foil we put it temporarily into the oven.  We originally thought to cook it slowly overnight, which is great if you have a very deep pan and a rack for the turkey, however, this would not have worked and actually cooking such a huge bird doesn't take a lot longer than a 20lb (9Kg) bird.  So we knew we would have to get up especially early on Christmas morning to pop the oven on.

Christmas Eve evening C & I went over to mum's to have a family dinner with my aunt and also to pick up J, who was exhausted from his day with Grandma.  Dinner was wonderful, roast pork with lots of vegetables, followed by meringue with cream and berries and mince pies - yummmy.  The pork had come from the local butcher.  Meat here is so much nicer than in the UK, even the supermarket meat tastes better than the UK supermarket meat.  We finished dinner, and a little mulled wine, and said our Happy Christmases and off home we went.

J put his gifts under the tree and laid his stocking at the foot of his bed.  He put out his note, a mince pie & a glass of milk for Santa, a carrot for Rudolf and then off to bed, complaining that he was never going to get to sleep as he was so excited.  He crashed out 10 minutes later.

C & I made final preparations, had the fire burning to warm the place up, carols and mugs of mulled wine.  I think Santa came at about 23:00hrs because I heard a rustling sound, but when I looked in on Josh, there was his stocking filled to the brim, but no Santa!  I was happy for him that Santa had visited and C & I went to bed.  Setting the alarm for 4am so I could put the oven on - groan!

1AM RUFFA WAKES ME UP - HE WANTS TO GO OUT!
ALARM GOES OFF - ITS 4 AM - ohhhhhhh, I am sooooooo tired.  I leap out of bed and bleary eyed turn the oven to 250 c degrees, remembering to pull the turkey out first, crikey it weighed a ton at that time in the morning, I nearly did myself in!  I popped the kettle on and went to put something warm on.  The cold creeps up your legs through the concrete and tiled floors - it's painful! So with my red woolley Christmas socks from Norway and my turquoise crocs (lovely combo!) I went to make mugs of tea.  C joined me.  We were trying to be very quiet but it seems that the quieter you try to be, the more noise you end up making! we sat and talked and drank our tea, at 4.30AM I said I was putting the bird in.  In it went.  A feeling of panic arose as I thought, perhaps, after all our crazy efforts to raise our Christmas dinner, it would be inedible!!  We blasted the turkey for about 40-45mins then turned the heat to about 210 degrees C and went back to bed.  It was now about 5AM.  I had just snuggled in when I heard 'Mummy?', there in the gloom was a very bright eyed 9 year old.  I asked him if Santa had been, he said he had, so I told him to get his stocking and bring it to our bed.  This is normal for him, he always opens his stocking with us - it's quite a laugh really and fantastic to see the look on his face - a kind of sick, exhausted, excitement!

We all got a few more zzzzz's.  At 8am I was up and we all went about our chores.  Feeding the animals, collecting eggs, preparing breakfast, skyping family abroad etc.  At about 9.30am we took the turkey out of the oven to see how it was doing...AMAZING, it was doing fantastically. There was so much stock in the base of the pan that I had to remove it with a turkey baster before pulling the turkey out, otherwise the kitchen floor would have been swimming in it!  The bird was too big to turn over so we left it, basted and back in the oven.  By 11am the bird was done - we couldn't believe it.  Only 6.5 hours.  We let it rest for some time and cool down a little, steam was still coming out of it an hour later.  C prepared most of the vegetables and started cooking and preparing the rest of the dinner.  When it came to carving the turkey the meat just fell off the bone, the flavour was great.  I am so happy we did it,we produced our own turkey and it was good.  However, we now have enough to last us for weeks, so we are going to make pies and curries and freeze them.  

Done, so well, that one of the legs fell off!

The turkey plate is for a normal size turkey, we had to remove the wings and legs and then it only just fitted.




A happy Christmas was had by us this year and on a small budget, I am proud of ourselves for achieving this.

EGGS!

This morning was really chilly when I ventured out at 7.30am.  The cockerel was crowing like mad but I decided to feed Humphrina the turkey as she is now all alone...

Once I had finished my little chat with her and made sure she had everything she needed I strolled up to the chicken coop to see what all the fuss was about.  





Humphrina taking a stroll at sunset before roosting


When I opened the gate and walked in, there, on the ground was a perfectly formed, if not a little small, egg.  Yippeeee, they have finally started laying.  Although I really wish they had done it in the nest boxes C so lovingly made for them.  I am so happy.  I fed them and ran back to the house to show J and C my find.  They were also very happy, so now we can stop buying so many eggs from the supermarkets.

Our first chicken egg - hooray.







Whilst I was out on an airport run this afternoon, C sent me a text to say that he'd found another two eggs beside the hen house but that their shells had broken and were very thin! oh dear.  He got rid of them quickly as we don't want the hens to get a taste for them!  We will have to keep a very watchful eye on the laying status of the girls.

Not much else to report today.

 The chickens and roo at sunset this evening

Sunset over the potato fields and town with the mountains in the distance.

CHRISTMAS TURKEY, CAR AND LOGS

Well, today has been extremely eventful already and its barely 1pm! I'm exhausted and so is C, partially through hard & unusual work for us and partially, or more likely, emotional.

The day began with us flying out of bed around 7am, C had to walk J to school because the car has been in the garage for two days and they still haven't found the problem! All I know is that the antifreeze/water keeps leaking out and then the car computer screams at me to STOP in big red letters and the alarms start going off!! AARrrrrrgh.

So at about 7.55am I leapt on my bike and peddled like a crazy woman, to the garage, to find out what was happening.  Everything here in Mallorca can be very laid back, sometimes too laid back for my liking, but hey ho.  It was really chilly this morning and my eyes were streaming by the time I'd got into town.  The car hadn't even been looked at properly...groan!...SO I peddled, like a mad woman, back to the finca (farmhouse, for those not remembering).  I saw C walking J to school and let them hurry on.  

As I went through the gate I realised the bonfire was still burning from yesterday afternoon.  There is a big area outside the finca gates, that we and other local farmers use as a dumping ground for all sorts of things, then the whole lot is burned up in one go.  There are of course times of the year, namely the summer, when it is illegal to have any fires of this sort.  Good thing too, considering the number of wild fires we get on the island.  The smoke kept wafting into the chicken coop, I don't really want smoked chicken yet thanks!

I prepared a huge pan with water and set it on the gas to boil up.  Meanwhile I had tea and toast and put the computer on.  This morning was the time of turkey dispatch to be made ready for Christmas.  Our wonderful, beautiful turkey whom I was growing a little fond of, although he pecked me really hard yesterday - ouch! But he did look beautiful when he puffed himself up to show off.  I knew he was a big bird, but we were in for a surprise!

A friend of mine, who lives in the town, has her parents living nearby, they are used to dealing with chickens and turkeys etc and were coming round to help show me what to do.  They turned up at 9.30am as organised.  Armed with the necessary 'things' needed for the deed.  I was feeling very nervous about the whole thing and had no idea how I was going to react or feel.  They were lovely people and my friend's mum was very matter of fact and just-get-on-with-it type, it was good really, I think she could see I was a little flustered!  When she saw the size of the turkey, along with her husband, they both immediately mentioned how big he was (in Mallorquin).  I went into the pen to try to capture him, this was the first time in quite a while since I'd tried to pick him up and as I caught him I discovered how heavy and strong he was and my grip slipped.  His wing flapped in my face and I ended up with a red Harry Potter zig-zag line, from my forehead down to my chin! NICE!! I guess it was my just deserts for what was coming to him...

Mr and Mrs C managed to get him with not too much difficulty and little stress to him.  Then we carried him away from the pen and the deed was done.

I am deliberately not going into details about it as I know a couple of people are a lot more sensitive about these things than I am.  Don't get me wrong..I am sensitive about these things but in a more practical way.

So once done, we said thank you and goodbye to Mr and Mrs C and they offered help and advice for the future.  C and I continued to deal with the bird and prepared him for hanging.  So, it is done, finally.  He will hang for a few days and then be frozen ready for Christmas lunch.  HOWEVER.....it turns out that he is about 18 or so KG - MASSIVE.  So I know that it will not go in our local bakers ovens (which is where we normally have our bird cooked on Christmas morning), so I have devised a plan.  It will be cooked in our oven but because it is so big, it will probably take about 6 or 7 hours.  Guess who's getting up at 4 in the morning to prep everything and put the oven on!! 

I feel a little saddened that Spock is gone but we got him for the purpose of rearing for meat and that is what he has become.  We will enjoy it.

Immediately after dressing the bird, I had to walk (at full speed) into town again, I had to be at the log man by midday.  He was going to deliver a small van load of logs but wanted me to meet him as he didn't know the way.  So, when I got there, he was leaning on the van waiting for me, I could hardly breathe but managed a few words of Spanish in between breaths of air.  The van was loaded ready and we got in and drove back to the finca.  We unloaded the logs in the middle of the driveway and he only charged me 50€ instead of the 60€ he said it would cost.  I did plead poverty a little in the car but never expected him to let me off 10€.  Anyway, he did so that was good.  C helped the man unload and C then took the logs round the back of the house near the back door (which is undercover), so they are easy to grab when the weather is much colder and it keeps them drier.

Well, this is a long post today, C has gone off to pick J up from school and I am going to have a cuppa.  




  

WALK ON THE BEACH

Today is a lovely sunny day and the temperature outside is about 13.5 degrees, the sun feels lovely and warm on your face.  We decided that we would go for a walk on the beach, and take Ruffa (our boxer), to see if we can find pine cones and bits of wood.

The beach was fantastic, no chilly wind, warm sunshine (although still only about 13 degrees as mentioned before).  There were loads of empty shells to pick up but no drift wood today.  I think we need a big storm so we can go collecting again.

We decided to walk back under the pine trees (along the beach) to collect some cones and twigs, we gathered a bag full but most of the cones are still on the trees, another week perhaps?!!

Ruffa had a lovely walk and was quite well behaved for a change.  I am trying to get him used to water but he is scared of the sea and its little waves, when I manage to get him to stand at the waters edge he freezes and won't move! So I didn't push it today.  I wish you could have dogs on the beach in the summer (or a specific beach for dogs only would be better) then he could learn to like it more and have a bit of fun.

This week coming is the time we are going to get rid of Spock!! so I can prepare him for Christmas.  It will be a difficult week for us all I think.  

On our return to the house our old cat (old abuela) was taking a drink out of the dogs water trough!