An Unavoidable Conclusion - Saturday 12/02/11

Have spent a fair few idle moments pondering the facts over and over in my head. The wind was strong so I adjusted my position. Once fully satisfied I was safe I proceeded to relieve myself against the earth bank. My LED head torch illuminated the droplets of rain that missed the back of my head. A strong lengthy gust forced me to lean back into the wind to regain my balance. At the same time the flurry of droplets increased, and started hitting my face. This was most strange being that the wind direction had remained unchanged. A dreadful thought occurred to me so I stopped mid flow. The 'rain' slackened off. I resumed the flow, the rain increased.
Try as I might to dissuade myself from the truth, the only conclusion I can unavoidably draw, is that for the first time in my life, thanks to the gradient of the earth bank and the high winds, I do believe that I did piss in my own face.

In other less disturbing news my new book and purchase Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game arrived and has been a fantastic resource. Accurately describing and illustrating not only how to dress a carcass, but best procedures to humanely despatch the animal. Also followed by some really intriguing recipes.
Aside from brewing some beer yesterday and gaining permission to hunt across the one thousand acre farm next door. This week has been mostly similar to the one before. Bricklaying predominantly. Nick planted some broad beans, erected his awning with my help (I identified the reason he was having difficulties attaching it to his caravan, was the fact he'd failed to read step 1 of the instructions), helped plant the orchard, then, possibly due to a late last night, Kit reached his limit for the day. Early to bed tonight however, we're hoping to make the 08:00 low tide tomorrow and go foraging for razor clams.

A fair sized trout fished from the leat.

Half expected him to start singing...

M Jones

Puns a Plenty - Monday 07/02/11

For the past week we have been bombarded and buffeted by relentless high winds and intermittent rain. But just after midday today, as I was bricklaying, I photographed the moment the winds abated, the grey grumpy clouds moved on and the sun emerged.

I would like to think that the turbulent weather was part of natures process of ridding itself of the old season, and welcoming the new.
This afternoon, as I was demonstrating to a hapless piece of slabwood how easily my sharpened machete could hew large chunks out of it, I saw Kit and Cassie having what looked like a very serious discussion. She appeared to be in a 'fowl' mood, her husband had made a 'cock up' and we'd eaten the wrong bird. She wanted £10 in compensation, hardly a 'poultry' sum. Thankfully we hadn't executed an innocent bird. The delicious and full flavoured cockerel in question was indeed on Death Row, but meant for another table. Along with issues pertaining to the layering of a shared hedge bank, and accusations of responsibility for a new resident rat in their roof, I kept my beak out of it... Puns are fun.

M Jones