On her way back home Ailsa had spotted a clump of field mushrooms - so as soon as she reported this I asked her to take me to where she saw them. Just up the road from our house, on the verge, she proudly showed me the mashed remains of a good few fine looking mushrooms. Why is it that kids can't resist kicking mushrooms? Anyway - there was one good one left and we proudly brought it home - "that'll do for tea".
Bad (or just plain confusing)
Ragwort thou humble flower with tattered leaves
I love to see thee come & litter gold...
Thy waste of shining blossoms richly shields
The sun tanned sward in splendid hues that burn
So bright & glaring that the very light
Of the rich sunshine doth to paleness turn
& seems but very shadows in thy sight. John Clare, 1831
Now then, like many I suspect, I think of Ragwort as a poisonous plant that must be rooted out at all costs. Our 'lower field' has some ragwort growing and yesterday Ailsa and I went out and uprooted the ten or so plants we could find and sealed them into plastic bags and popped them in the bin. Good deed for the day.
Then this morning, I interneted to find the truth about what I should do with ragwort. (I often work like this - I'll do something and then check if I've done the right thing afterwards. A cleverer person (like Jussi) checks how to do something and then does it).
Well it seems all is not quite so clear cut. For a kick off there are lots of plants that look like ragwort - and therefore a bit of careful identification would have been in order. Secondly, up rooting is suggested by many as actually helping to spread the plant - although Defra does have it as a recommended control method if there's only a few plants.
Oh well. I did my best. Next summer I'll identify before acting and take more care over the uprooting part. Both Ailsa and I are fine this morning so I suspect the advice to wear layers of protective gear when handling them is a bit over stated.
Good
For me, pancakes should be light, and if you're lucky, crispy round the edges and served with nothing more than sugar and freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice in the rough proportion - how many oranges you have:how many lemons you have.
Jussi has an altogether different notion. She adds things to the pancakes as they are cooking - anything from potatoes to bacon and usually with lots of onions. Her pancakes tend to be darker, thicker and stodgier than mine and many a pancake day has been ruined by me coming home from work - all exhausted and stressed - and complaining about her pancakes.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Jussi has been completely consumed by looking after our new goats and getting to grips with what to do with all that milk and cheese and I have been getting grumpy about doing all the cooking and cleaning. So last night Jussi offered to kill two birds with one stone and cook pancakes made from goats milk. My reservations about her pancake skills were totally subsumed by the luxury of having a day off from cooking. All I had to do was harvest the mushroom (see above) and pick some dill, parsley and chard for the fillings.
Cooking, and especially timing the cooking - allowing for two trips to the goats either side of eating - is difficult. Jussi, who is pretty tired anyway with the stresses of learning animal husbandry and the rest, found the cooking of the pancakes very stressful. They were plonked afront of us with the challenging words "Just try and be nice about them OK?"
Well.......they were fantastic. I don't know if it was the goats milk, the fresh garden ingredients or the computer game Jussi played each time she put a pancake in the pan, but they turned out a real treat.
I think I'll try goats milk yorkshire pudding for a toad in the hole tonight.Jussi's latest cheese offering, which will be ready later today is Coulommiere. That'll be a Scottish coulommiere like. Not the French one which takes much longer to make. I can't find a web reference for the Scottish one and Jussi wont tell me what it's going to be like. Not sure how it will go with toad in the hole.
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