pumpkinstrokemarrow

Now at 100% willow down. Large pile of bean sticks and row markers. These last all being cut to the same length - so amongst other things I will have the neatest rows ever. 45 wands planted in three rows giving a plantation about 6 inches across and 8 feet long. We will see what sort of a hedge results. I didn't, in the end plant any upside down but the last few were much greener than the rest. A vague memory that one should use one year wood for this sort of thing.

Next step 1 is large bonfire in a week or so to burn off all the rubbish after it has dried out a bit. Pyromaniac format all in one go or a controlled suburban affair feeding in two sticks at a time? Baked potatoes or marsh mellows? Next step 2 is construction of a runner bean wigwam. In this case the puzzle is how to secure the fixing at the apex when one can't get anywhere near it.

Yesterday's meat fest was sheep - at least it ought to be called sheep as a five and a quarter pound shoulder is going it a bit for a lamb - although I think the rule is that a lamb is anything up to two years old. Cooked it for two and a half hours at 185C which seemed to be about right - don't bother with pre-heating the oven - said to be unecessary with a fan - although we do pre-heat with things which like a very hot oven like pizza. Moist but not pink and most of the fat had leaked out - important with what can otherwise be a rather fatty joint. It was fresh - bright red and white when raw - and this seemed to make a differance to the texture of the finished product compared with a frozen New Zealand. Sweeter and not so stringy although quite hard to carve in a neat way. (But what about Australian? The butcher was knocking out a whole lot of Australian shanks for some restaurant with an Australian chef who would not settle for anything less). With rice, cabbage and swede. Followed by apple crumble and custard. The apples doing a very good job of offsetting the fat sweetness of the meat. All in all an excellent meal.