WHAT A PHEASANT SIGHT

Or... white brace make a right pair

HARD TO BLEND IN when your snow white

SITTING ON THE FENCE: Cock pheasant

surveys his surroundings

EARLIER this year a close friend of mine bought me a pair of white pheasant at an auction after I'd expressed an interest in breeding unusual birds. Since I was limited on housing I put them in with my rare breed Scots Dumpys and hoped for the best. 

 No great friendships were formed, in fact my chooks seemed singularly unimpressed by the young arrivals and made clear, in the hen house pecking order, these two were way down the ladder of importance and privilege.

 Just recently, despite the occasional sighting of a young dog fox at night, I've taken to let the birds roam freely during the day as long as I'm around to supervise and ahead of dusk they usually return to the hen pen. I really thought the pheasant would do a runner as soon as the gates opened but they too return before dusk. 

 I'm not sure if the pheasant have become institutionalised or are aware that atleast the hen pen gives them cover ... after all when you are as white as the driven snow it's very difficult to blend in with the countryside, unless there are blizzard conditions! 

 Although the pheasant shooting season is well underway, I'm told white birds, which are extremely rare, are usually not targetted as on some shoots there's a £250 penalty for hitting one though I think the price and rules vary depending on the shoot.

 I've so far not named the pair - so any suggestions would be most welcome, but here's pictures I took of them today. The cock pheasant has a red mask forming across his face and, although a tad mucky, he is developing a striking set of tail feathers whereas the hen (above right) is rather dowdy by comparison.

SILO SNIPPET

 I've just taken charge of nine Norfolk Bronze turkey poults from Northumberland marking the start of an enterprise dedicated to good, quality stock which can grace any table and satisfy the most discerning taste buds. Watch this space.

GETTING IN A JAM

..Or how to go scrumping

 When I was knee high to a grasshopper I used to lark around with a group of kids who would get up to all sorts of mischief ... nothing major league in terms of crime but clambering over walls to retrieve fallen apples from trees heavy with the fruit.

TEMPTING: Wild apples picked by moonlight & spread on

toast by dawn

 Since none of us were really tall enough to pull them off the trees we would gather those that had fallen on to the ground. Occasionally the more acrobatic amongst us would clamber on someone's shoulders to try and pluck a nice looking apple but more often than not they would topple over and fall.
 Afterwards we would gorge ourselves on the forbidden fruit knowing that stomach pains would soon follow, so bitter tasting were the crab apples.
 Hardly the stuff of the Lavendar Hill mob but trying to take some of Mrs Brown's apples was our way of adding some exciting to the day. Kids now rely on something called an X Box for their kicks but I can't see how that gets the adrenalin going by sitting at home transfixed to a screen.
 The funny thing is, Mrs Brown was such a nice, sweet old lady that had we knocked on her door she probably would've invited us all in but where would have been the fun in that?

APPLE & GINGER jam treat

 I was reminded of this episode of misspent youth just the other day when me and my neighbour - I shall call him George for that is his name - went off to pick some apples from a nearby tree. We must have looked a highly suspicious pair clambering around a hedge, wading through mud and hidden dips into a field just as dusk was falling and the pair of us giggled away as we wondered if anyone would spot us.

 George is in his 80s and I am old enough to know better but there we were scrambling around the ground picking up apples and pulling down the low branches to relieve them of their burden of fruit. Before you dial 999 George is already known to the farmer and has permission to help himself; nevertheless our little escapade intoxicated us with merriment as we recalled our days as naughty nippers.

JAM TODAY: And tomorrow and for

the rest of 2014 as well

 However, having filled some bags with the fruit we then headed back to home base and set about making Wild Apple and Ginger Jam using an old Irish recipe by kitchen goddess Darina Allen. Mrs Allen has revived kitchen skills long forgotten by the microwave and cook-in-a-bag generation. Reading her book on these old methods so inspired me and that's how George and I came to go out foraging for apples at dusk instead of waiting for the morning. It was a seize the moment plan and there was no time to wait. It was also the first time I'd ever made jam and it has subsequently triggered a craze! By the end of the week alongside the apple jam was raspberry jam, plus jars of apple and plum jam followed by  an orange, lemon & grapefruit marmalade, a strawberry conserve and some lemon curd.

SHELVES STOCKED with Darina's

homemade jams 

 I only stopped because I'd ran out of jars but a new batch arrived today and so now I'm in peeling, pulping and boiling mode all over again. I've virtually exhausted Darina Allen's supply of recipes  in her book Forgotten Skills of Cooking so if you have any old family recipes you want to hand down I now have an embarrassment of riches in terms of apples plus I bought some additional fruit from the local shops including loads of oranges, persimmon, and tangerines.

THREE TYPES OF MARMALADE: Orange

grapefruit & lemon

 In fact I'll do a deal - share your most precious family recipe with me and if I make it I will send you a jar through the post, special delivery. Now there's an offer you can't refuse. Additionally, if you have any jam stories from your childhood days or special dos and don'ts you want to share please send them to the Soho 2 Silo blog. I look forward to hearing from you - and if the recipe turns out to be special please also give me permission to publish the details in this forum.

CHARLOTTE'S FIRST EGG

.. A small triumph

AS YOU ALL know, my Scots Dumpys hens are very precious to me, not just because they are an endangered species,  but because they are also great little characters which is why I write at length about their milestones large and small.

CHARLOTTE: Relaxing with her brothers and sisters recently

 One of my youngest is called Charlotte and she is a beautiful black hen with an amazing bottle green undertone shining through her ebony feathers. Her tragic mother Josephine is still missing, almost certainly the victim of a fox strike, but I'm happy to say her legacy lives on through the six eggs she hatched earlier this year.
 Charlotte emerged from one of the hen houses this morning looking mildly surprised and a little coy; the reason I noticed her is because all of the others had left the hen coop some minutes earlier for their morning stroll. There's usually a feathered stampede for the gate when it opens so I was surprised she had lagged behind.

SMALL but perfectly formed

 But when I went and checked her hen house there was a shiny, newly laid egg ... still beautifully warm. Furthermore it's the first egg I've had from the girls in the last three weeks as some are moulting while others are unhappy at the chilly weather conditions. And it is, without doubt, Charlotte's first.


 OK, so it might not quite fit into the egg cup pictured right, but the start of every journey begins with one step. Well done Charlotte, may this be the first of many and here's hoping you will go on to become a wonderful mother just like Josephine. If she was here today she would be so proud, I'm sure.