End of March already

I've been busy making lots of soup for the church coffee shop, acquiring wood for the woodburner for next winter, looking after grandchildren, visiting friends, knitting little chicks that will contain Cadbury's cream eggs for Easter, knitting little jumpers for "fish and chip" babies in Africa....  and there might have been a little bit of washing and cleaning and looking after animals as well.

I'm running out of ideas for different soups to ring the changes at the church coffee shop. So far I have made tomato, carrot and lentil three times, leek and potato, carrot and coriander, parsnip and ginger, tomato and basil, broccoli and stilton, vegetable (tomato based). I make two to three gallons each time and it gets divided up into boxes and frozen to provide a variety of flavours. It must be vegetarian and not too expensive to make (so I won't be making any asparagus soup even though I love it). If anybody has any bright ideas, then please do tell me. Thank you : )

We are giving little chicks with crème eggs to the children associated with the church during the Easter week. We need around 200 and I have produced 50ish. I've lost count at the moment. The knitting is very straightforward but then they need sewn up, a ball of polyester stuffing put in the head, a gathering thread run round the neck and fastened off to provide the shaping for the head, eyes glued on, a felt beak cut out and stitched on, a flat bow made and stitched on. The finishing takes as long as the knitting does! I am feeling that I am all chicked out now.

We have managed to acquire various bits of wood to squirrel away for next winter. Some of it came from a couple of skips near where we live and some is from a medium size tree that was taken down in my son's garden. It was old and leaning badly and looked like a gale would bring it down anyway. It is amazing how much bigger their garden looks without it. Had it been in good condition, we would not have taken it down but we have not only prevented a lot of fencing being broken (at the very least) but we have also got more wood for next winter. Considering that this winter was fairly mild, I am amazed at how much wood we have got through and so I am happy at having more for next winter.

The hens are laying very well at the moment. Old Hen died yesterday. I shall miss her because she was one of my "characters". She was just a little brown hybrid hen but she was over seven years old. I was chatting to her on Monday afternoon and she looked so old that I knew that I would not have her for much longer . I have another hen that is seven years old but she is a buff Orpington and they are usually longer lived. I've never had a little brown hen older than five years before.

I had a lovely mothers' day. I hope you did too. My son turned up at our church with his family. It was meant to be a surprise so I didn't let on that grandson had let the cat out of the bag during the week when he was talking to me. When the two year old spotted me at the front of church, she ran as fast as her little legs would let her and gave me a big hug and said "Happy mothers' day". Then she went to Grandad and wished him the same : )   In the afternoon, the girls came to call with their families and then my son popped in again too. One daughter had baked me a loaf of bread with sundried tomatoes and parmesan and it was lovely. I do like presents that people have made rather than just going to the shops.

I've been pleased with my perseverance at clearing things out. I do really find it very hard to part with things especially if there is a chance that they might come in useful in the future. A little bit of clearing out leaves me feeling quite stressed. My husband tells me not to be so daft but I don't find that very helpful as a coping strategy...  My total has risen quite a lot now so I am only a little bit behind my target.

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Books and soup

I've been making soup for our church coffee shop again today. I got leeks on offer in Aldi so today I made leek and potato soup. Three gallons of it. I was glad to sit down afterwards!

I've been sorting through another pile of our belongings so there is quite a pile waiting To Go. I've also put a number of things in the bin as they were not in good enough condition to pass on. I haven't made it to the charity shop yet but I'm hoping to get there soon because I'm tired of tripping over a growing mountain of carrier bags.

I'm recently joined Bookbub. They send a daily email of Kindle and Kobo e-books which are either cheap or, more interestingly, free. I've "bought" several of the free books and have finally read a couple of books on my tablet. I reckoned that if I decide that I don't like them, then I haven't wasted anything because the books were free in the first place. I don't think they will ever replace the comfortable feeling of reading a proper book, though.

I've been having trouble with the wires to charge my tablet. My husband sat down on my tablet by accident and bent the wire that came with the tablet - just at the connection into the tablet - so that stopped working. I bought a new one from Amazon and within a month, that stopped working as the connection was so loose that it would not stay connected. So I bought a much more expensive one and that has stopped working this weekend... That one came with a lifetime guarantee so I am waiting for them to get back to me on that one. Fortunately I bought a pair of wires last time so I can still charge my tablet or else I would have to wait a long time to find out whodunnit in my Bookbub bargain : )

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March musings

Well, March already now.  I've been trying to keep up with the decluttering and am going on alright. I've got a nice little pile waiting to go to the charity shop and another pile waiting to go to a contact who works in a homeless shelter.

And we've been given a tree that was blown down in the storm last week. We've given half to my friend down the road who also has a woodburner. It is ash so it will burn well next winter : )
We've got through a lot of wood this winter so it is lovely to have a bit extra arrive.  We've got plenty for next winter because of the wood we were given last year which was not dry enough to burn this year but will be great next year. There are lots of skips appearing in the streets so I need to keep a look out for any useful bits of wood in them. I would rather that I got it to burn than it go to landfill!

I was reading an article today that was flagged up by the Real Junk Food Project about bread being the number one food item that is thrown away today. They are saying that a recent study by The University of Sheffield shows that the fertiliser used to grow the grains produces 43% of all greeenhouse gas emissions! This is a link to the article on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/weneedtotalkaboutbread?source=feed_text&story_id=650639801793427

The hens are doing well and it is obvious that spring is on its way because the hens have started their spring mega-laying. At the end of January and early February they were hardly laying any and now they are laying loads. Even my oldest hen has laid four eggs in the last ten days. The middle aged ones haven't laid any and probably won't. they are your typical little brown hen and for them, middle age is the end of laying. My oldest is a Buff Orpington, a really big breed of hen, and they lay a lot fewer eggs each year but keep going for more years. She is my favourite and every time I set foot out of the back door, she hears and shouts to me to bring her a treat. It might only be a green leaf but she is happy with something extra. And she really shouts at me and tells me off if I don't arrive with the requested treat too : )  It never fails to make me smile.

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