Pickle, hornet and wasp nests and seven new ducks

Last Saturday afternoon I picked the first three cobs of sweetcorn from the raised beds.  The seeds had been given to me by one of my Writers’ Group members and I had never grown this crop before.  I planted out just twelve plants and, as you can see from the photo taken last week, they were not hugely tall.  I had heard that for the sweetest flavour the time between picking, cooking and eating should be as short as possible.  Mine were eaten within 30 minutes of harvesting and it paid off.  I picked three cobs – they were about two thirds the size of cobs I have seen in the shops.  I ate all three cobs, dripping with melted knobs of butter and they were absolutely delicious.  I have eaten more cobs during the week with the same lovely results - definitely a vegetable I shall grow every year now.

 

Last week I made Sweet Green Tomato Pickle.  I watched this being made in 1977 while staying in Bourneville with a friend, during the Queen's 25th Jubilee celebrations, but have never made it myself before.  This method of doing something with green tomatoes was forced on me by the blight which has hit my inside and outside tomatoes.  I have been lucky previously and never had tomatoes suffering from blight but this year it has struck.

 

 

 

I have been picking green tomatoes and allowing them to ripen in the kitchen.  About half have not ripened properly but have definitely shown blight on their skins.  They have been chopped up and served up to the hens who are not as fussy as I am.  I have pulled up a lot of plants and disposed of them but the least affected I am hanging on to in order to get the most tomatoes I can from them.  I still have tomato passata in store which I made from last year's glut so I shan't miss them too much.

While sanding off one of the windows on Monday, my worker noticed a hornet nest on the roofline near my spare bedroom window, so I drove off to the Mairie and asked if they had a number I could call for an exterminator.  In the evening I telephoned a company from near St Brieuc and yesterday afternoon their chap, Sebastian arrived. 

While he was setting up his ladder I used my telephoto lens to look at the nest and found four others under the roof joists by the eaves.  There had also been a loud buzzing sound in the frame of the velux bedroom window in Small Cottage and we found a wasp nest in there.  

The exterminator donned his protective gear and sorted the nests out and gave me a 100% verbal guarantee that they would not return.  He was very pleasant and I hope he was also correct in his certainty about them not coming back.  The velux window is now covered in dead wasps and hornets have been falling to the terrace of my house - so far so good.

 

Monday morning saw me setting out in the Land Rover complete with puppy crate in the back to collect ducks.  There were four Muscovy females, one Indian Runner female, one male Mallard and one gender unknown Appleyard.  

 

 

They're very naughty about going to bed and I spent nearly 45 minutes on Monday night trying to get them into their house and again this evening at least 20 minutes. 

 

The geese aren't mad about having new housemates, but they are getting better together and I think the three brown ones actually went into the pond today as they were all grooming when I went up to collect the hen eggs yesterday afternoon.  They didn't have a pond where they were before so aren't used to the idea.  When I had rescue Muscovies in Cornwall who hadn't seen water it took them at least 7-10 days for them to try swimming.                            

Above is a photograph of the seven new ducks, the two geese and my original duck, Domy.  I seem to have taken a lot of photographs in the last twenty-four hours.  It's very pleasant sitting up on the field in the sunshine watching their antics.

Latest photos, this morning of the three brown ducks already taking a dip before I got to their field.  I "encouraged" two of the Muscovies in but they were out immediately - they'll get used to it.  Here are the brown ones ducking and diving.

 

Three things I like:

1.   These lovely early September sunny days.
2.   Looking forward to home grown stuffed aubergines for lunch.
3.   Picking more runner beans in spite of it being a poor crop this year.