goodbye Ebby

Last night, whilst we were sat in front of the fire recovering from the feast we had made to celebrate Chinese New Year, Ebb, our cat, quietly took  himself upstairs to die.  We found him not long after, in one of his safe places, in our son’s room.

Not wholly unexpected, he was suffering from the same heart problem that took his sister Flo,  five years ago.  We had hoped that although he had a heart murmur, that he would be spared and get a nice long cat life, but this winter his breathing got worse, sometimes he couldn’t settle, finding lying down too much and he would sit up and drop off like that, or prowl around looking for a place to sit where he would not feel breathless.  Lately he had seemed a bit better, still breathing fast, but tucking into his normal food and doing his normal things.

Yesterday, whilst my son was at work, I decided to dedicate the whole day to making things and sorting supplies for my shop.  I still did the animal rounds, and it was a lovely day and I encountered Ebb out hunting in the sunshine, and later he settled happily on my lap, glad to find me in the living room in the afternoon, unusually, and we had a companionable few hours, whilst I knitted.

It often seems to happen that they get better just before things take a turn for the worse.

When my older cat Willow died, it took a while for her to actually leave – it seemed that for some weeks I saw her out of the corner of my eye, or heard her step, or felt the weight of her at the foot of the bed.  But Ebby is suddenly not here – and I miss him. I’m completely reconciled to the idea of him dying, in fact my first reaction was one of relief, we knew it was coming, we had been here before.  But we were spared having to decide it was time, we were spared wondering what, if anything, we should do, and thankfully, we were spared having to go looking for him, possibly never finding him.

A good life and a fairly good, if early, ending.  Oh yes, his death is easy to accept, but him not being here is a huge gap.  I keep looking for him, but unlike Willow, I don’t think he is hanging around, instead he left his useless body behind and tore off to other adventures.

And now, for the first time in 23 years, we don’t have a cat.  And it doesn’t feel right.

four trees

Four new trees planted: apple, plum, greengage and a fig in a pot.  First we had to clear some wood from our hedging activities, before we could plant in our orchard, but they are tucked in.

Planting trees is quite a good feeling, although it has to be said, regenerating a hedge is pretty good too.

 

squash and walnut ravioli

I’m on the lookout for great squash dishes.  Usually at this point someone tells me a variation on ‘roast squash’  - and whilst we like roast squash, I’m looking for star of the show recipes.

The reason is we had a great squash harvest, each one gives us several meals, and I plan to grow more varieties this year.

So, today we had squash and walnut ravioli.

I did think, that although it said it served 4, it looked a bit mean, not a lot of pasta and not a lot of squash, so I doubled it.  But really with all that parmesan and walnuts and breadcrumbs, it was plenty and we froze half the ravioli for another day.

Another one voted onto the ‘do again list’ by my carnivore men, so that’s a definite success.  I’m going to freeze batches of puréed roast squash in the correct proportions, for future ravioli.  Walnut and squash and sage are a perfect combination, and I shall have to experiment further.

hedging window closes

Since Autumn we have been hedging in earnest.  And we are not talking a bit of clipping here, but small tree felling.  The hedges had been let go for some years before we came here, and we are slowly working our way around, cutting out the overgrown trees, laying the smaller stuff, and trying to get the hedge back.

It’s quite encouraging, to see the work we did a few years ago, how much growth has appeared, although it looks like it needs redoing – and we haven’t had a first swipe at the rest of the hedges yet.

We have 2 acres here, but it is arranged long and thin, apparently because it was medieval strip fields, so there are a lot of hedges. And we only have hand tools.

And the mild winter means the window of opportunity is shorter than ever, and it is pretty short here in the westcountry anyway.  The elder is sprouting, honeysuckle is in leaf, and we have spotted birds flying about with nest material in their beaks.  So, that’s it. Time up.

Good job too, as the orchard and the top of the big field are strewn with branches and trees.  Time to start the clearing up, bean pole and pea stick harvesting, and the log pile grows.

They say it is better for wildlife, to only do a small proportion of the hedges at time, and this year we did more than ever, but probably only 25% of the lot.  Still, just think, we might be bored otherwise!

january picnic

Finally a lovely sunshiney winter’s day, and on a day off work too.    And by happy chance, last night I had cooked an egg and bacon pie, perfect picnic food.

Himself made some seedy flapjacks, and we took the pie, flapjacks and hot chocolate, had a lovely walk and stopped for lunch in Haytor quarry – where it was so sheltered we had to lose our hats, scarves, gloves and fleeces.

sowing, planting and harvesting w/e 13/1

harvesting:

leeks

savoy cabbage

PSB

weaving

Boxing day for us is a nice indulgent work free day, when you have time to play with your new toys, or start that craft project you have been meaning to do.  I took up my needles and started making some things for me, after a long stretch of present making or making products for my online shop and the gallery.

Himself got out the frame loom we ‘accidentally’ bought back in the summer.  He warped up and using some thrum ends of wool from Coldharbour Mill, started to weave.  What do make? he asked. Always good to have something in mind when making.  A peg bag says I – then he could try lots of different ideas out, and it will be useful too.
So he began and as life returned to normal the weaving was done in the evenings by the fireside, and by new year’s day, he had finished.  Not bad for a first go eh?

I’m now thinking of lots of projects I want to try out too, whilst himself is thinking of trying out the big floor loom we were gifted….

having an epiphany

On new year’s day (was that only less than a week away?)  We cooked a rib of beef  we had exchanged pork for, and the roast South Devon beef was absolutely delicious. and huge.  We had three meals off of it, plus a few beef sarnies, and still by now, at the end of the week, loads left and time running out.  It seemed a shame to make rissoles out of such a lovely tender cut of beef, so I  figured I could make steak picado from it.  I looked up the recipe on my blog.. and it turns out I made this exactly a year ago, to the day.  Spooky.

The problem with blogging for a few years, is after a while you forget what you have said, and risk the danger of repeating yourself.   Did I say that already?

The advantage to forgetting what you have written is you surprise yourself by reading back!  - on the same post, was mention of an epiphany cake.  Today is, it seems, epiphany.  I don’t actually mark these dates particularly…unless there is cake involved of course.  Well the whole steak picado coincidence/ deja vu/ it’s an epiphany thing… that’s a sign if ever I saw one.  and who am I to ignore a sign?

I made steak  left over beef picado and it was a huge success.  hurrah for rotten old left-overs!  And, of course, an epiphany cake.

The cake burst.. and most of the frangipane insides spewed out whilst it was baking.  Yay for silicon baking sheets.  Enough insides stayed in, and we had a dessert of ‘epiphany cake two ways’ – the baked frangipane made a lovely chewy crunchy biscuit.  Maybe I should make frangipane biscuits on purpose.  Maybe that’s a sign too….