Sunday, May 13, 2007
Four pint
It gets better. I have been wondering about the fate of sacred cows, prompted by the sad news that a sacred cow up North somewhere is suspected of having tuberculosis, is under sentence of death and local cowites are talking of making a human shield around the cow for when the deed has to be done. I seem to recall that in India, any kind of restraint of such a cow is forbidden. So a cow can wander into one's china shop and play the bull in a china shop. Are sacred cows cows or bulls? Must do a wiki. In the meantime, I wonder what happens if, say, the cow had a gangrenous foot and had to be immobilised so that it could be anaesthitised before commencing operations? Or if it had a decayed tooth that needed removing? Perhaps sacred cows have survived with strict rules on such matters precisely because they don't get medical problems which play havoc on the margin of said rules.
Otherwise a day of smells. Bought some haddock fresh from the man from Hastings on Friday and it was giving the fridge an interesting smell by Saturday. But baked in the usual way it did very well; a counter example to the fish book which said haddock is best in the winter.
But a much more interesting smell from the compost heap - a very rich sticking smell, not unlike strong cheese or meat broth made with plenty of bones - or indeed the smell one used to get from the rendering plant at Widnes, across the river from Runcorn. The occasion was the early summer emptying of the house compost heap to provide food for the pumpkins which are about ready to plant out, given a bit of sun to settle them down in. Rich brown gear with said interesting smell. Maybe the better gear is the product of heap enclosure, as a result of which the compost gets far more meat waste than it used to. This was not on before because of the foxes rooting around the whole time. Five bags so far which gave me and the car said smell for the rest of the day - and the car is still going strong. One bag to the plant buried about six inches down. No burst or leaking bags so far - but if I don't find a source for post office mail bags fairly soon there will be. They seem to degrade over time. When I was working one used to come across them, abandoned on the pavements of London fairly often - but it hardly seems worth going up there just to scour the pavement for bags. There must be a better way.
Otherwise a day of smells. Bought some haddock fresh from the man from Hastings on Friday and it was giving the fridge an interesting smell by Saturday. But baked in the usual way it did very well; a counter example to the fish book which said haddock is best in the winter.
But a much more interesting smell from the compost heap - a very rich sticking smell, not unlike strong cheese or meat broth made with plenty of bones - or indeed the smell one used to get from the rendering plant at Widnes, across the river from Runcorn. The occasion was the early summer emptying of the house compost heap to provide food for the pumpkins which are about ready to plant out, given a bit of sun to settle them down in. Rich brown gear with said interesting smell. Maybe the better gear is the product of heap enclosure, as a result of which the compost gets far more meat waste than it used to. This was not on before because of the foxes rooting around the whole time. Five bags so far which gave me and the car said smell for the rest of the day - and the car is still going strong. One bag to the plant buried about six inches down. No burst or leaking bags so far - but if I don't find a source for post office mail bags fairly soon there will be. They seem to degrade over time. When I was working one used to come across them, abandoned on the pavements of London fairly often - but it hardly seems worth going up there just to scour the pavement for bags. There must be a better way.
# posted by Jim @ 2:26 AM 
