Three degrees at 8am. Raining continuously.
But at least with the warmer weather, the hens have called off their strike and today produced their first eggs in what seems like months. Just in time to have decent eggs for Christmas!
Showing posts with label Chickens 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chickens 2010. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Friday, 10 December 2010
Mea culpa
Bright sunshine, blue skies. Yesterday's gales have given up battering at Carmine Superiore's 1,000-year-old ramparts, and gone away, content with having knocked down a few trees.
I blame myself.
We arrive home from school, a snarling rabble, all hungry, all tired, all fractious. I hear above the din the clarion call from the chicken coop - danger! danger! help! help!
I put the dog in his stable, the kids in the kitchen and go outside once more. And listen.
Nothing.
And like the menfolk in the village of the boy who cried wolf, I recall the many times I have run 500m uphill to the coop to find nothing amiss. I turn back indoors to light a wood fire in Edna the stove and start cooking a much-needed evening meal.
This morning, daylight brings a grisly sight. A dead cockerel. Minus throat and face. The remaining 14 huddled in the coop or gingerly skirting his stretched-out, ravaged body to come greet me in what seems like bewilderment.
Two breaks in the wire. Way in. Way out. A hawk.
I move the corpse out of sight of the others.
Mea culpa.
I feed them generously and stroke their ruffled feathers.
Mea culpa.
I find some netting and close the gaps, all the time remembering the puffball chick I raised back in the spring, and the beautiful, lively young adult he had become.
Mea maxima culpa.
I blame myself.
We arrive home from school, a snarling rabble, all hungry, all tired, all fractious. I hear above the din the clarion call from the chicken coop - danger! danger! help! help!
I put the dog in his stable, the kids in the kitchen and go outside once more. And listen.
Nothing.
And like the menfolk in the village of the boy who cried wolf, I recall the many times I have run 500m uphill to the coop to find nothing amiss. I turn back indoors to light a wood fire in Edna the stove and start cooking a much-needed evening meal.
This morning, daylight brings a grisly sight. A dead cockerel. Minus throat and face. The remaining 14 huddled in the coop or gingerly skirting his stretched-out, ravaged body to come greet me in what seems like bewilderment.
Two breaks in the wire. Way in. Way out. A hawk.
I move the corpse out of sight of the others.
Mea culpa.
I feed them generously and stroke their ruffled feathers.
Mea culpa.
I find some netting and close the gaps, all the time remembering the puffball chick I raised back in the spring, and the beautiful, lively young adult he had become.
Mea maxima culpa.
Monday, 20 September 2010
One of those days
Monday. A wet-blanket day. A wrung-out-dish-rag day. A walk-in-the-woods drippy, damp, gloomy day.
In fact it's one of those days.
It's half past nine. There's a semi-bald, caked-in-blood juvenile cockerel cowering in the woodshed (I've mentioned before how nasty chickens can be). The wild boar have been at the garden again. Jakob! is lying panting in the doghouse, covered in wild-boar mud (read poo-poo) and licking off the yolks of nine (yes, NINE) stolen eggs. Mamma's also covered in mud, along with chicken poop, egg yolk and cockerel gore, and there's weasel poop on my walking boots.
Oh yes, and I have the first cold of the school year.
So.
Sod the washing up. I'm off to take a shower, throw everything in the laundry, and then retire to the sofa with a glass of hot Lemsip and the last two chapters of Wuthering Heights, which I hope will show me that it is possible to have worse days...
In fact it's one of those days.
It's half past nine. There's a semi-bald, caked-in-blood juvenile cockerel cowering in the woodshed (I've mentioned before how nasty chickens can be). The wild boar have been at the garden again. Jakob! is lying panting in the doghouse, covered in wild-boar mud (read poo-poo) and licking off the yolks of nine (yes, NINE) stolen eggs. Mamma's also covered in mud, along with chicken poop, egg yolk and cockerel gore, and there's weasel poop on my walking boots.
Oh yes, and I have the first cold of the school year.
So.
Sod the washing up. I'm off to take a shower, throw everything in the laundry, and then retire to the sofa with a glass of hot Lemsip and the last two chapters of Wuthering Heights, which I hope will show me that it is possible to have worse days...
Monday, 6 September 2010
Autumn term begins
Nineteen degrees at 8am. Overcast and sultry.
Trees all around are showing occasional glimpses of their new colours for autumn. The old chickens have started to moult and this years' junior hens have started to lay. After a week of trial-and-error, our new autumn-term routine is beginning to emerge, and Mama's days are now spent sparring with Jakob! trying to rub the rough edges off this ever-so-nearly-finished building project we call our home, and in the ongoing search for our garden, which has gotten lost under a summer's growth of grass and weeds.
Easy does it.
Trees all around are showing occasional glimpses of their new colours for autumn. The old chickens have started to moult and this years' junior hens have started to lay. After a week of trial-and-error, our new autumn-term routine is beginning to emerge, and Mama's days are now spent sparring with Jakob! trying to rub the rough edges off this ever-so-nearly-finished building project we call our home, and in the ongoing search for our garden, which has gotten lost under a summer's growth of grass and weeds.
Easy does it.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Dawn raid
Sultry, about 20° with a sky loaded with layers of dirty wadded cotton-wool.
Woken this morning at dawn by a riot in the chicken coop. Not only the usual morning cacophany of seven juvenile cockerels and a big guy, but also the bell-like call of distress and the cackling of panic.
Jumped out of bed, sending a surprising number of cats skittering (can they all be mine?). Bleary-eyed, I belted down three flights of stairs, out of the front door, and sprinted through the sleeping village. Then came the 500m uphill hop-skip-and-jump across the cobbles and the stepping stones to the coop. In PJs and bare feet.
There, as my eyes finally focused, I saw a large fox, shining gold in the morning sunlight and looking handsome as all get-out. He was pacing the perimeter fence dangerously.
Having lost one Chicken Licken to the chicken hawk the other day, I was glad to see Foxy Loxy off.
This time...
Image: The Fox of Highgate, linocut 38 x28 cm, Jazmin Velasco.
Jumped out of bed, sending a surprising number of cats skittering (can they all be mine?). Bleary-eyed, I belted down three flights of stairs, out of the front door, and sprinted through the sleeping village. Then came the 500m uphill hop-skip-and-jump across the cobbles and the stepping stones to the coop. In PJs and bare feet.
There, as my eyes finally focused, I saw a large fox, shining gold in the morning sunlight and looking handsome as all get-out. He was pacing the perimeter fence dangerously.
Having lost one Chicken Licken to the chicken hawk the other day, I was glad to see Foxy Loxy off.
This time...
Image: The Fox of Highgate, linocut 38 x28 cm, Jazmin Velasco.
Monday, 19 April 2010
Monday morning
Sunny but breezy.
All's well in Carmine. Ezio's in his vegetable garden. The cockerel's crowing over the chicks. The cats are lounging outside my front door like a bunch of hoodies waiting to be fed. The dog is on guard on the terrace. There are windsurfers down on the lake and a professor of art history in the church.
And the great wild cherries are in bloom.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Tulipa turkestanica
This week of the Easter holidays has been beautiful, weather-wise. Warm - up to the mid-20s I guess - dry, and with warm, open-window nights. B, aged 3, has planted a round of lettuce. The baby chicks, aged now 3 weeks, have learned to fly enough to hop out of their box and explore the ins and outs of the bathroom. Jakob! Lord of Misrule, aged 3 months, has learned to chase sticks.
Best of all, the tulips, planted five months ago, have started to flower. Thanks again to our friends and neighbours, J & R for the exotic Asian Tulipa turkestanica, which the good weather has brought out of its buds.
For more beautiful flowers in and around Carmine Superiore, click here. To see some really astonishing flower images from all over the world, visit Macro Flower Shots.
Best of all, the tulips, planted five months ago, have started to flower. Thanks again to our friends and neighbours, J & R for the exotic Asian Tulipa turkestanica, which the good weather has brought out of its buds.
For more beautiful flowers in and around Carmine Superiore, click here. To see some really astonishing flower images from all over the world, visit Macro Flower Shots.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Easter in Carmine
Azure skies. Fast-flowing mountain streams. Blossom on the fruit trees. Camelias red, pink and white. Warm, wet, freshly-turned soil. Eggs under the broody hen. Chicks trying their wings. The Mama cat heavy with kittens. Children smeared with chocolate. The Carmenites in residence. Tourists in droves.
A belated happy Easter from a Carmine sprung to life.
A belated happy Easter from a Carmine sprung to life.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
In good hands
A bright, sunny spring day in Carmine Superiore, with a nice breeze zipping the windsurfers across the glittering lake below.
Hatching Day has brought us a couple more chicks...there are now a grand total of thirteen honey-coloured fluff-balls dozing under the warming lamp. A more than 50% return (on 21 eggs at the start), and the best we've done since our first year playing this game.
All mothers, I'm sure, understand that when the house falls eerily silent, there's trouble afoot. In the last 24 hours, though, when I've gone upstairs to investigate, I've found not a theft, some wanton destruction or other childish naughtiness, but two rapt faces bent over a tiny, warm life cradled carefully in tiny, cool hands.
Happy days.
Hatching Day has brought us a couple more chicks...there are now a grand total of thirteen honey-coloured fluff-balls dozing under the warming lamp. A more than 50% return (on 21 eggs at the start), and the best we've done since our first year playing this game.
All mothers, I'm sure, understand that when the house falls eerily silent, there's trouble afoot. In the last 24 hours, though, when I've gone upstairs to investigate, I've found not a theft, some wanton destruction or other childish naughtiness, but two rapt faces bent over a tiny, warm life cradled carefully in tiny, cool hands.
Happy days.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Spring : a progress report
After two days of fairly torrential rain, with a whacking storm yesterday afternoon timed precisely to coincide with the kindergarten run, today we have a cloudy day with a noisy wind.
Spring is coming along quite nicely. This week's morning temperatures have been in double digits all the way. The gardens of the Alto Verbano are crowded with shrubs and trees in bloom - mimosa, camelia, magnolia, apricot - underpinned with daffodils, narcisi, primulas, periwinkle and tulips in-the-making. And the gardeners of the Alto Verbano are busy making pretty pictures out of flat beds of brown soil with stripes of variegated green lettuces and other salads.
In the House on the Rock, Jakob!, Lord of Misrule is growing like topsy. After three weeks in our midst, he has turned our (my) world upside down and inside out. There seem to be no limits to his mischievousness and ingenuity, but also to his canine intelligence, and so despite the havoc he has wreaked, we are very pleased with his progress in terms of "sit", "come", "lie down" and "fetch that cat". The cats are not so happy. Their ordered lives, centred on our little terrace, have been invaded by the monster with floppy ears and a large nose, and they have been driven out. Still, after 21 days of confusion now even the outcasts - those who are not allowed to set foot inside the house (order of the Big Tabby) - have discovered where the soup kitchen and sun deck has moved to.
In the bathroom, out of bounds to cats and dog alike, two hours-old chicks are nestling together under the warming lamp. From the incubator we hear chirping, the eggs are shivering occasionally and once in a while new cracks appear, so we hope for at least a couple more as Hatching Day wears on.
For myself? I'm horrified that Easter-with-houseguests is only a week away, the house is a disaster zone, and I've done almost no planting whatsoever. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those years...
Spring is coming along quite nicely. This week's morning temperatures have been in double digits all the way. The gardens of the Alto Verbano are crowded with shrubs and trees in bloom - mimosa, camelia, magnolia, apricot - underpinned with daffodils, narcisi, primulas, periwinkle and tulips in-the-making. And the gardeners of the Alto Verbano are busy making pretty pictures out of flat beds of brown soil with stripes of variegated green lettuces and other salads.
In the House on the Rock, Jakob!, Lord of Misrule is growing like topsy. After three weeks in our midst, he has turned our (my) world upside down and inside out. There seem to be no limits to his mischievousness and ingenuity, but also to his canine intelligence, and so despite the havoc he has wreaked, we are very pleased with his progress in terms of "sit", "come", "lie down" and "fetch that cat". The cats are not so happy. Their ordered lives, centred on our little terrace, have been invaded by the monster with floppy ears and a large nose, and they have been driven out. Still, after 21 days of confusion now even the outcasts - those who are not allowed to set foot inside the house (order of the Big Tabby) - have discovered where the soup kitchen and sun deck has moved to.
In the bathroom, out of bounds to cats and dog alike, two hours-old chicks are nestling together under the warming lamp. From the incubator we hear chirping, the eggs are shivering occasionally and once in a while new cracks appear, so we hope for at least a couple more as Hatching Day wears on.
For myself? I'm horrified that Easter-with-houseguests is only a week away, the house is a disaster zone, and I've done almost no planting whatsoever. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those years...
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
La Cinciallegra
One degree at 8:30am and snowing wetly both in Carmine Superiore and Carmine Inferiore. So it wasn't just us after all...Bar Centro lore has the latest snow in this area falling on March 19th. Let's hope this doesn't turn out to be a record-breaking year - if only for the sake of the baby lettuces I planted in an excess of springtime jubilation last Friday.
To La Cinciallegra Agriturismo, a stone's throw from Torino and its shopping delights, in search of La Bionda Piemontese. No, not a latterday Italian screen goddess, but a breed of chicken raised only on a handful of farms in this region, and a breed that we abandoned last year in the search for new blood.
To La Cinciallegra Agriturismo, a stone's throw from Torino and its shopping delights, in search of La Bionda Piemontese. No, not a latterday Italian screen goddess, but a breed of chicken raised only on a handful of farms in this region, and a breed that we abandoned last year in the search for new blood.The journey brought us twenty-one hopeful eggs, now in the artificial hen, humming away at 37.5°C (would that I were so warm!).
We were treated to a tour of the agriturismo, which offers rigorously clean and modern facilities, delicious home cooking, great views of the flatlands southeast of Turin and an authentic farm experience. Click here for more.
On the way home we, suprisingly for us, motored straight past Asti and Ghemme and all the delights of the Val Sesia. What! No barbera? No nebbiolo? No lip-smacking gorgonzola? Cellar full? Given it all up for Lent?
No. We had another appointment. An appointment that has turned out to be dramatically life-changing.
And when a brief moment of life-unchanging comes along, when the earth ceases to shift on its axis, when my world stops fluttering around my head in confetti-like shreds, I'll let you in on the secret...
Friday, 19 February 2010
The pros and cons of having a chickin in the kitchin...
Grey and raining. Visibility reduced to the nearest tree. Warmer, though.
The big white chuck with the bad leg is once again roaming about the Carmine Animal Hospital, having been brought once more from the chicken coop for her own protection. I've said before how much worse bullies hens are than English grammar-school girls, have I? I thought so.
I'm in two minds whether it's a good thing. So, as I often do when I'm in two minds, I've written a list of pros and cons, for and against having a chickin in the kitchin...
Pro : gives us something to talk about when dinner conversation flags.
Con : the pile of doo-doo on the flagstones.
Pro : gives the children something interesting to show their friends.
Con : the little something interesting on the doorstep.
Pro : gives the cats something terrifying-yet-fascinating to be curious about.
Con : the excited 'I'm-about-to-peck-that-cat' splat on the welcome doormat.
Pro : gives the children something with which to surprise an unsuspecting houseguest.
Con : the greeny-brown pancake on the bottom of the houseguest's slippers.
Pro : gives us a tongue-twister to try out on our Italian friends (chickeninthekitchenchickeninthekitchen - you try it!).
Con : the egg on the...wait a minute...egg?...
Oh! Clothilde, you clever girl!
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Four degrees at 8:30am and raining. And there's a chicken freaking out the kittens in the pantry (again).
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Sponge-cake, anyone?
A lonesome one degree at 8:30am. Starting bright and sunny. Ending overcast and damp.
But let's look on the bright side. After a moulting-season pausa and a looooooong cold-weather sciopero, the chickens (sadly depleted to only 14 following hawk strikes on two successive days) have started laying again. And Mama needs to get baking again.
[Click here for last year's sparrow-hawk drama, same month, same modus operandi, same perpetrator?...]
But let's look on the bright side. After a moulting-season pausa and a looooooong cold-weather sciopero, the chickens (sadly depleted to only 14 following hawk strikes on two successive days) have started laying again. And Mama needs to get baking again.
[Click here for last year's sparrow-hawk drama, same month, same modus operandi, same perpetrator?...]
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Showing posts with label Chickens 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chickens 2010. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Christmas eggs
Three degrees at 8am. Raining continuously.
But at least with the warmer weather, the hens have called off their strike and today produced their first eggs in what seems like months. Just in time to have decent eggs for Christmas!
But at least with the warmer weather, the hens have called off their strike and today produced their first eggs in what seems like months. Just in time to have decent eggs for Christmas!
Friday, 10 December 2010
Mea culpa
Bright sunshine, blue skies. Yesterday's gales have given up battering at Carmine Superiore's 1,000-year-old ramparts, and gone away, content with having knocked down a few trees.
I blame myself.
We arrive home from school, a snarling rabble, all hungry, all tired, all fractious. I hear above the din the clarion call from the chicken coop - danger! danger! help! help!
I put the dog in his stable, the kids in the kitchen and go outside once more. And listen.
Nothing.
And like the menfolk in the village of the boy who cried wolf, I recall the many times I have run 500m uphill to the coop to find nothing amiss. I turn back indoors to light a wood fire in Edna the stove and start cooking a much-needed evening meal.
This morning, daylight brings a grisly sight. A dead cockerel. Minus throat and face. The remaining 14 huddled in the coop or gingerly skirting his stretched-out, ravaged body to come greet me in what seems like bewilderment.
Two breaks in the wire. Way in. Way out. A hawk.
I move the corpse out of sight of the others.
Mea culpa.
I feed them generously and stroke their ruffled feathers.
Mea culpa.
I find some netting and close the gaps, all the time remembering the puffball chick I raised back in the spring, and the beautiful, lively young adult he had become.
Mea maxima culpa.
I blame myself.
We arrive home from school, a snarling rabble, all hungry, all tired, all fractious. I hear above the din the clarion call from the chicken coop - danger! danger! help! help!
I put the dog in his stable, the kids in the kitchen and go outside once more. And listen.
Nothing.
And like the menfolk in the village of the boy who cried wolf, I recall the many times I have run 500m uphill to the coop to find nothing amiss. I turn back indoors to light a wood fire in Edna the stove and start cooking a much-needed evening meal.
This morning, daylight brings a grisly sight. A dead cockerel. Minus throat and face. The remaining 14 huddled in the coop or gingerly skirting his stretched-out, ravaged body to come greet me in what seems like bewilderment.
Two breaks in the wire. Way in. Way out. A hawk.
I move the corpse out of sight of the others.
Mea culpa.
I feed them generously and stroke their ruffled feathers.
Mea culpa.
I find some netting and close the gaps, all the time remembering the puffball chick I raised back in the spring, and the beautiful, lively young adult he had become.
Mea maxima culpa.
Monday, 20 September 2010
One of those days
Monday. A wet-blanket day. A wrung-out-dish-rag day. A walk-in-the-woods drippy, damp, gloomy day.
In fact it's one of those days.
It's half past nine. There's a semi-bald, caked-in-blood juvenile cockerel cowering in the woodshed (I've mentioned before how nasty chickens can be). The wild boar have been at the garden again. Jakob! is lying panting in the doghouse, covered in wild-boar mud (read poo-poo) and licking off the yolks of nine (yes, NINE) stolen eggs. Mamma's also covered in mud, along with chicken poop, egg yolk and cockerel gore, and there's weasel poop on my walking boots.
Oh yes, and I have the first cold of the school year.
So.
Sod the washing up. I'm off to take a shower, throw everything in the laundry, and then retire to the sofa with a glass of hot Lemsip and the last two chapters of Wuthering Heights, which I hope will show me that it is possible to have worse days...
In fact it's one of those days.
It's half past nine. There's a semi-bald, caked-in-blood juvenile cockerel cowering in the woodshed (I've mentioned before how nasty chickens can be). The wild boar have been at the garden again. Jakob! is lying panting in the doghouse, covered in wild-boar mud (read poo-poo) and licking off the yolks of nine (yes, NINE) stolen eggs. Mamma's also covered in mud, along with chicken poop, egg yolk and cockerel gore, and there's weasel poop on my walking boots.
Oh yes, and I have the first cold of the school year.
So.
Sod the washing up. I'm off to take a shower, throw everything in the laundry, and then retire to the sofa with a glass of hot Lemsip and the last two chapters of Wuthering Heights, which I hope will show me that it is possible to have worse days...
Monday, 6 September 2010
Autumn term begins
Nineteen degrees at 8am. Overcast and sultry.
Trees all around are showing occasional glimpses of their new colours for autumn. The old chickens have started to moult and this years' junior hens have started to lay. After a week of trial-and-error, our new autumn-term routine is beginning to emerge, and Mama's days are now spent sparring with Jakob! trying to rub the rough edges off this ever-so-nearly-finished building project we call our home, and in the ongoing search for our garden, which has gotten lost under a summer's growth of grass and weeds.
Easy does it.
Trees all around are showing occasional glimpses of their new colours for autumn. The old chickens have started to moult and this years' junior hens have started to lay. After a week of trial-and-error, our new autumn-term routine is beginning to emerge, and Mama's days are now spent sparring with Jakob! trying to rub the rough edges off this ever-so-nearly-finished building project we call our home, and in the ongoing search for our garden, which has gotten lost under a summer's growth of grass and weeds.
Easy does it.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
Dawn raid
Sultry, about 20° with a sky loaded with layers of dirty wadded cotton-wool.
Woken this morning at dawn by a riot in the chicken coop. Not only the usual morning cacophany of seven juvenile cockerels and a big guy, but also the bell-like call of distress and the cackling of panic.
Jumped out of bed, sending a surprising number of cats skittering (can they all be mine?). Bleary-eyed, I belted down three flights of stairs, out of the front door, and sprinted through the sleeping village. Then came the 500m uphill hop-skip-and-jump across the cobbles and the stepping stones to the coop. In PJs and bare feet.
There, as my eyes finally focused, I saw a large fox, shining gold in the morning sunlight and looking handsome as all get-out. He was pacing the perimeter fence dangerously.
Having lost one Chicken Licken to the chicken hawk the other day, I was glad to see Foxy Loxy off.
This time...
Image: The Fox of Highgate, linocut 38 x28 cm, Jazmin Velasco.
Jumped out of bed, sending a surprising number of cats skittering (can they all be mine?). Bleary-eyed, I belted down three flights of stairs, out of the front door, and sprinted through the sleeping village. Then came the 500m uphill hop-skip-and-jump across the cobbles and the stepping stones to the coop. In PJs and bare feet.
There, as my eyes finally focused, I saw a large fox, shining gold in the morning sunlight and looking handsome as all get-out. He was pacing the perimeter fence dangerously.
Having lost one Chicken Licken to the chicken hawk the other day, I was glad to see Foxy Loxy off.
This time...
Image: The Fox of Highgate, linocut 38 x28 cm, Jazmin Velasco.
Monday, 19 April 2010
Monday morning
Sunny but breezy.
All's well in Carmine. Ezio's in his vegetable garden. The cockerel's crowing over the chicks. The cats are lounging outside my front door like a bunch of hoodies waiting to be fed. The dog is on guard on the terrace. There are windsurfers down on the lake and a professor of art history in the church.
And the great wild cherries are in bloom.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Tulipa turkestanica
This week of the Easter holidays has been beautiful, weather-wise. Warm - up to the mid-20s I guess - dry, and with warm, open-window nights. B, aged 3, has planted a round of lettuce. The baby chicks, aged now 3 weeks, have learned to fly enough to hop out of their box and explore the ins and outs of the bathroom. Jakob! Lord of Misrule, aged 3 months, has learned to chase sticks.
Best of all, the tulips, planted five months ago, have started to flower. Thanks again to our friends and neighbours, J & R for the exotic Asian Tulipa turkestanica, which the good weather has brought out of its buds.
For more beautiful flowers in and around Carmine Superiore, click here. To see some really astonishing flower images from all over the world, visit Macro Flower Shots.
Best of all, the tulips, planted five months ago, have started to flower. Thanks again to our friends and neighbours, J & R for the exotic Asian Tulipa turkestanica, which the good weather has brought out of its buds.
For more beautiful flowers in and around Carmine Superiore, click here. To see some really astonishing flower images from all over the world, visit Macro Flower Shots.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Easter in Carmine
Azure skies. Fast-flowing mountain streams. Blossom on the fruit trees. Camelias red, pink and white. Warm, wet, freshly-turned soil. Eggs under the broody hen. Chicks trying their wings. The Mama cat heavy with kittens. Children smeared with chocolate. The Carmenites in residence. Tourists in droves.
A belated happy Easter from a Carmine sprung to life.
A belated happy Easter from a Carmine sprung to life.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
In good hands
A bright, sunny spring day in Carmine Superiore, with a nice breeze zipping the windsurfers across the glittering lake below.
Hatching Day has brought us a couple more chicks...there are now a grand total of thirteen honey-coloured fluff-balls dozing under the warming lamp. A more than 50% return (on 21 eggs at the start), and the best we've done since our first year playing this game.
All mothers, I'm sure, understand that when the house falls eerily silent, there's trouble afoot. In the last 24 hours, though, when I've gone upstairs to investigate, I've found not a theft, some wanton destruction or other childish naughtiness, but two rapt faces bent over a tiny, warm life cradled carefully in tiny, cool hands.
Happy days.
Hatching Day has brought us a couple more chicks...there are now a grand total of thirteen honey-coloured fluff-balls dozing under the warming lamp. A more than 50% return (on 21 eggs at the start), and the best we've done since our first year playing this game.
All mothers, I'm sure, understand that when the house falls eerily silent, there's trouble afoot. In the last 24 hours, though, when I've gone upstairs to investigate, I've found not a theft, some wanton destruction or other childish naughtiness, but two rapt faces bent over a tiny, warm life cradled carefully in tiny, cool hands.
Happy days.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Spring : a progress report
After two days of fairly torrential rain, with a whacking storm yesterday afternoon timed precisely to coincide with the kindergarten run, today we have a cloudy day with a noisy wind.
Spring is coming along quite nicely. This week's morning temperatures have been in double digits all the way. The gardens of the Alto Verbano are crowded with shrubs and trees in bloom - mimosa, camelia, magnolia, apricot - underpinned with daffodils, narcisi, primulas, periwinkle and tulips in-the-making. And the gardeners of the Alto Verbano are busy making pretty pictures out of flat beds of brown soil with stripes of variegated green lettuces and other salads.
In the House on the Rock, Jakob!, Lord of Misrule is growing like topsy. After three weeks in our midst, he has turned our (my) world upside down and inside out. There seem to be no limits to his mischievousness and ingenuity, but also to his canine intelligence, and so despite the havoc he has wreaked, we are very pleased with his progress in terms of "sit", "come", "lie down" and "fetch that cat". The cats are not so happy. Their ordered lives, centred on our little terrace, have been invaded by the monster with floppy ears and a large nose, and they have been driven out. Still, after 21 days of confusion now even the outcasts - those who are not allowed to set foot inside the house (order of the Big Tabby) - have discovered where the soup kitchen and sun deck has moved to.
In the bathroom, out of bounds to cats and dog alike, two hours-old chicks are nestling together under the warming lamp. From the incubator we hear chirping, the eggs are shivering occasionally and once in a while new cracks appear, so we hope for at least a couple more as Hatching Day wears on.
For myself? I'm horrified that Easter-with-houseguests is only a week away, the house is a disaster zone, and I've done almost no planting whatsoever. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those years...
Spring is coming along quite nicely. This week's morning temperatures have been in double digits all the way. The gardens of the Alto Verbano are crowded with shrubs and trees in bloom - mimosa, camelia, magnolia, apricot - underpinned with daffodils, narcisi, primulas, periwinkle and tulips in-the-making. And the gardeners of the Alto Verbano are busy making pretty pictures out of flat beds of brown soil with stripes of variegated green lettuces and other salads.
In the House on the Rock, Jakob!, Lord of Misrule is growing like topsy. After three weeks in our midst, he has turned our (my) world upside down and inside out. There seem to be no limits to his mischievousness and ingenuity, but also to his canine intelligence, and so despite the havoc he has wreaked, we are very pleased with his progress in terms of "sit", "come", "lie down" and "fetch that cat". The cats are not so happy. Their ordered lives, centred on our little terrace, have been invaded by the monster with floppy ears and a large nose, and they have been driven out. Still, after 21 days of confusion now even the outcasts - those who are not allowed to set foot inside the house (order of the Big Tabby) - have discovered where the soup kitchen and sun deck has moved to.
In the bathroom, out of bounds to cats and dog alike, two hours-old chicks are nestling together under the warming lamp. From the incubator we hear chirping, the eggs are shivering occasionally and once in a while new cracks appear, so we hope for at least a couple more as Hatching Day wears on.
For myself? I'm horrified that Easter-with-houseguests is only a week away, the house is a disaster zone, and I've done almost no planting whatsoever. I have a feeling it's going to be one of those years...
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
La Cinciallegra
One degree at 8:30am and snowing wetly both in Carmine Superiore and Carmine Inferiore. So it wasn't just us after all...Bar Centro lore has the latest snow in this area falling on March 19th. Let's hope this doesn't turn out to be a record-breaking year - if only for the sake of the baby lettuces I planted in an excess of springtime jubilation last Friday.
To La Cinciallegra Agriturismo, a stone's throw from Torino and its shopping delights, in search of La Bionda Piemontese. No, not a latterday Italian screen goddess, but a breed of chicken raised only on a handful of farms in this region, and a breed that we abandoned last year in the search for new blood.
To La Cinciallegra Agriturismo, a stone's throw from Torino and its shopping delights, in search of La Bionda Piemontese. No, not a latterday Italian screen goddess, but a breed of chicken raised only on a handful of farms in this region, and a breed that we abandoned last year in the search for new blood.The journey brought us twenty-one hopeful eggs, now in the artificial hen, humming away at 37.5°C (would that I were so warm!).
We were treated to a tour of the agriturismo, which offers rigorously clean and modern facilities, delicious home cooking, great views of the flatlands southeast of Turin and an authentic farm experience. Click here for more.
On the way home we, suprisingly for us, motored straight past Asti and Ghemme and all the delights of the Val Sesia. What! No barbera? No nebbiolo? No lip-smacking gorgonzola? Cellar full? Given it all up for Lent?
No. We had another appointment. An appointment that has turned out to be dramatically life-changing.
And when a brief moment of life-unchanging comes along, when the earth ceases to shift on its axis, when my world stops fluttering around my head in confetti-like shreds, I'll let you in on the secret...
Friday, 19 February 2010
The pros and cons of having a chickin in the kitchin...
Grey and raining. Visibility reduced to the nearest tree. Warmer, though.
The big white chuck with the bad leg is once again roaming about the Carmine Animal Hospital, having been brought once more from the chicken coop for her own protection. I've said before how much worse bullies hens are than English grammar-school girls, have I? I thought so.
I'm in two minds whether it's a good thing. So, as I often do when I'm in two minds, I've written a list of pros and cons, for and against having a chickin in the kitchin...
Pro : gives us something to talk about when dinner conversation flags.
Con : the pile of doo-doo on the flagstones.
Pro : gives the children something interesting to show their friends.
Con : the little something interesting on the doorstep.
Pro : gives the cats something terrifying-yet-fascinating to be curious about.
Con : the excited 'I'm-about-to-peck-that-cat' splat on the welcome doormat.
Pro : gives the children something with which to surprise an unsuspecting houseguest.
Con : the greeny-brown pancake on the bottom of the houseguest's slippers.
Pro : gives us a tongue-twister to try out on our Italian friends (chickeninthekitchenchickeninthekitchen - you try it!).
Con : the egg on the...wait a minute...egg?...
Oh! Clothilde, you clever girl!
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Four degrees at 8:30am and raining. And there's a chicken freaking out the kittens in the pantry (again).
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Sponge-cake, anyone?
A lonesome one degree at 8:30am. Starting bright and sunny. Ending overcast and damp.
But let's look on the bright side. After a moulting-season pausa and a looooooong cold-weather sciopero, the chickens (sadly depleted to only 14 following hawk strikes on two successive days) have started laying again. And Mama needs to get baking again.
[Click here for last year's sparrow-hawk drama, same month, same modus operandi, same perpetrator?...]
But let's look on the bright side. After a moulting-season pausa and a looooooong cold-weather sciopero, the chickens (sadly depleted to only 14 following hawk strikes on two successive days) have started laying again. And Mama needs to get baking again.
[Click here for last year's sparrow-hawk drama, same month, same modus operandi, same perpetrator?...]
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