Well, that really did it. The dear old Ossies are now completely and unanimously of the opinion that the Englishman has a total absence of marbles.
They have spent the last week shutting down for the winter. It’s incredible how they all act in unison – tomatoes all went in on the same day, potatoes all came out this week.
Oh my, has it really been almost a month since the last post?
This is shockingly remiss of me, dear readers, please see the title and url of this post for my stuttering, stunted attempt at an excuse.
I shouldn’t even bother. Excuses are wotheless. Please accept instead my apologies.
A good blog post title should cryptically hint at the contents of that post, mysteriously and with sleight of hand. But when an entire day is given over to digging out an old cess pit in 30° heat, there remains neither the desire nor the ability to be clever.
I have never grown a cranberry, have rarely eaten them and can’t think of any dish I have ever made with them. In fact, I am struggling to think of anything interesting you could do with them.
Cranberry juice is an undrinkable, unsophisticated drink barely improved by mixing it half and half with vodka. If you are after a sharp, bitter hit, try a rhubarb and tonic. Now that’s a drink to get your tongue in a twist about.
A backbreaking weekend and time for a bit of a stock take.
So far down on the farm we have…
Asparagus
Potatoes – many many varieties. Well. 9
There is no horsetail in the hedges surrounding the allottment. There is none in the paths between the plots. I haven’t seen any on the way here, or in the meadows surrounding us.
So how come there is so much of the dirty pernicious crap in my plot farm? There is only one reasonable explanation, and it’s so unreasonable a conclusion that I have been avoiding coming to it.
As of writing, at least ten people have died in Germany from eating cucumbers which somehow have been infected with e.coli.
The reaction has been a deal of understandable anger, a dose of healthy European racism and a something of a rebellion against cucumbers. And tomatoes and lettuce. The supermarkets can’t give them away. And with echoes of the BSE shenanigans of 20 years ago, the farmers are complaining that banning their products will be, like, really bad for business.
The farm and the German Girl are both Ossies. Created in the DDR – a land which no longer exists.
If history is a foreign country in which they do things differently, then how different is it to consider the history of a foreign country no longer found in the Atlas?
There was a hard ground frost last night and the beans didn’t quite have the roots to stand it.
<sad face>
Whoever said “there’s no such things as a free lunch” lied.
I know these things shouldn’t trouble me, but the meaning of this particular lie is precisely the sort of thing that keeps me awake at night. Is the intent to ready children for a selfish world? Or to perpetuate a capitalist society with the message that you mustn’t give anything away for free. .
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