Travelling tails: The animals of Minneapolis

On paper, spending time in a new country should provide plenty of opportunities for spotting the local wildlife.  There are certainly enough wildlife ‘teasers’ around - the Minneapolis student American football team is known as ‘The Gophers’, the basketball team is ‘The Timberwolves’ (another name for the common grey wolf, thank you Wikipedia) and I’ve passed at least three different foot outlets whose logo features a moose (although possibly an elk).   Even lowering my expectations, which may be necessary given the (hopefully) tiny chance of a moose encounter in downtown Minneapolis,  then the intrusion of raccoons into American cities is complained about as much as foxes are back home.  Honestly, I'd leave a trail of rubbish leading to my door if it meant I could see a raccoon! Sadly, the only native wildlife I have seen near my flat so far are grey squirrels, a million of them filling the trees in my local park. 

Part of the problem is my lack of transport.  After several near-death experiences on my borrowed bike I’m refusing to drive over here until everyone agrees to join me on the correct, left, side of the road, something I inadvertently keep trying to revert to every time I turn a corner without concentrating.  Cycling is useful for shorter trips (including the 10 mile cycle to the office - distance has a different meaning here) but the sheer size of Minnesota means that I could cycle for hours are still not be in the countryside.

I’d noticed however, that the office which is kindly hosting me during my secondment to Minneapolis, and which is outside of the main city, albeit in an industrial wasteland between the Mall of America and the International Airport rather than in anything that could be classed as countryside, was next door to a ‘National Wildlife Refuge’.  Based on the abundant and typically enthusiastic signage (1km to Wildlife Refuge!’ ‘ Next Exit for Wildlife Refuge!’) I assumed the wildlife refuge must be a hotspot for wildlife, most likely teeming with small and furry creatures who arrive carrying their worldly possessions in red spotted handkerchief, assuming of course that they successfully avoid  the major eight-lane highway that runs past the entrance.  I decided to shift my running to lunchtime in order to check it out.  

Inside the wildlife refuge was extremely attractive, probably best described as a wetlands nature reserve which flanked the Minneapolis river.  The running track followed the treeline along the river, and the shade was extremely welcome given the 30^oC midday temperatures.   Possibly also because of the midday temperatures, I didn’t see much wildlife.  Although the long grass was buzzing with the sound of hundreds of grasshoppers (or possibly crickets) it was too hot for anything to show itself.  In fact the only animals I saw for 20 minutes were frogs, all exactly the same colour as the path and very disconcerting when they leapt out unexpectedly from beneath by descending feet.  Lucky for them I’m not very fast at the moment.  On the way back I saw – to great excitement!  Half a ribbon snake!  Or at least half a Google-says-it’s-a-ribbon-snake, snake.  Half a snake in this case because, alerted by the thud of my feet as I intermittently jumped over a frog, it was whipping off the path and into the grass.  Still, a definite tick in the eye-spy book of genuine American wildlife.  

Luckily I have also been able to satisfy my need to spend time with animals by wiling away several happy hours in the livestock barns at the State Fair.  I discovered an entirely new type of goat, the La Mancha.  An American dairy breed notable for its tiny ears, and another tick in my American wildlife book (OK, possibly a wildlife book that I’ve added additional pages to for farm animals).  Other than that I'll just have to make do with Skyping the guys at home.  Just over seven weeks to go!

Tiberius and Sibelius try out Skype

A LaMancha goat

 

Let there be light!

I recently fished out this rather tasteless lamp from the skips at the back of our local shopping centre, a source of many useful bits and pieces, including the glass drinks dispenser that we used for brewing in our dandelion and ginger ale, here.

Believe it or not, it's Ralph Lauren, and has a nice rectangular silk shade on top of a rather more ugly, heavy glass base with "Ralph Lauren Home" embossed on the front in gold.  Lovely.  The base had a large chip missing from the corner, which is presumably why it ended up in the skip.  Even more unbelievably the price tag proclaimed this lamp to be £99.99 (yes, that's ninety-nine pounds for a lamp!).  I can almost feel myself turning into my dad as I type that ("It's how much?!").



Tiberius is unimpressed by the lamp.

What was interesting about this lamp was that all the electrical gubbins (another dad word there) including the flex for the plug, was attached to the metal frame that held the light bulb, rather than passing through the base of the lamp and trailing out from the back of the base.  This made me wonder whether I could prise the top of the lamp from the base and reattach it to something else.  Something nicer, which, let's face it, is pretty much anything. 

After checking that the lamp still worked(!), I had a rummage through the log pile and came up with this interesting piece of sycamore from one of the trees in our garden.  I stripped off the bark and lightly sanded it all over.

 

Next, I took a hammer and chisel to the lamp, and with one enthusiastic whack managed to cleanly separate the metal top from the glass base.  While this was surprisingly easy, the next step was more difficult.  The sycamore chunk was relatively flat on the base, but slightly angled at the top.  In order to make a level surface to attach the lamp to, I was going to have to chisel out a wedge from the top of the sycamore. 

Jeez, what a faff!  The sycamore had been weathering for over a year and had dried out, hardening in the process.  Furthermore, the grain of the wood meant that chips of wood splintered off with the chisel, rather than neat strips. 

 

This made it very hard to control the depth of the wedge.  In the end, I hacked out a large hole, that was the right shape to fit the lamp, although not the right depth.  Then I mixed up lots of the wood chippings with wood glue to make a wood 'cement' allowing me to level off the bottom of the hole.  Finally, I set the top of the lamp on the sycamore base with lots more glue and after checking it was (roughly) level, weighted it down until it was dry.

 

 



And here is the finished lamp in action!  I love it, and it's certainly not bad for a morning's work and free materials!



The Trouble With Sheep

The hot weather we've been having recently seems to have affected the sheep. 

No, not heatstroke, our flock decided it was high time they took a holiday.  This was instigated by the top ram, Kai, and his second-in-command, Flake, who decided that their field, well it was OK, but just look at the neighbouring wheat field!  And that vegetable patch!   There, it seems a sheep could be free to truly enjoy the summer.



Kai in the vegetable plot (hand-sheared by Ian!)

Time and time again we herded them back into their field - from the neighbour's fields, from the vegetable patch and from the back lawn of the farm, but each time the boys tested our workmanship, leaning on the fences until they found a new weak point, and then with a wriggle and a flick of a woolly tail it was over, out and off. 

An emergency workday was called.  For several hours we reinforced fences, added tension wires and knocked in extra posts, until the perimeter of the sheep field bristled like a wonky pincushion of wood and wire.

For the rest of the week the sheep watched balefully from the confines of their enclosure, but, happily for us, they remained enclosed.

Until Saturday.

It seems almost planned that the boys would wait until several farm members were around for a Saturday workday before staging their latest escape.  Like Steve McQueen before them, they knew that a watching audience (if not a video camera) was the essential ingredient for turning a regular escape into a great escape.

Just before elevenses (we model the frequency of our snack breaks on those expected by Winnie-the-Pooh), someone working on the vegetable plot shouted over that Kai had once again escaped.   By leaning his weight on the fence he had caused it to sag in the centre, leaving a gap between the fence and the new tension wires above which was just enough for him to wriggle his way through.  As we gathered to watch sheep after sheep followed Kai into the adjacent field (luckily, ours), bleating joyfully.

The breached defences.

After much joking about the consequences of us all counting sheep jumping over a fence, it was decided to leave the flock where they were.  While it may be true that the grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence, in this case the sheep had grazed their current field to the extent that the grass actually was greener in the next field and the sheep were due to be moved there in the next few days. By all squeezing through the fence, the sheep had saved us the trouble of herding them all through the gate.

All apart from one that is.  Little Lamb, the, ahem, littlest lamb of the flock, wasn't tall enough to hop over the fence and stood at the perimeter bleating pitifully.

Little lamb was born unexpectedly a few weeks ago to a yearling mother who wasn't supposed to be pregnant. As the flock was newly-bought earlier this year, it seems that Kai must have snuck into her field, or perhaps she into his, for a fleeting night of sheep loving before the flock arrived on the farm. 

If Little lamb's arrival into the world was unexpected for us, it was downright alarming to her mother, who is no more than a teenager in sheep years and who initially dealt with the situation by denying all responsibility towards her tiny runt of a lamb, headbutting her viciously when she wobbled over to feed.  This behaviour earned her mother some time in a head restraint, to prevent her from taking a sufficient run up to do real damage to her baby.

Several hours after her birth the mother was still keeping her distance from the newborn and Little Lamb was beginning to flag. If she was to survive the night it was vitally important that little lamb took on some colostorum substitute.  Ian and I took a bottle and sat with her.  It was an agonisingly slow process as the exhausted lamb sucked weakly at the bottle. Happily, Little Lamb showed a surprising amount of resilience for such a tiny creature and after a sleepless night for Ben, who stayed up to continue the bottle feeding, the mother sheep decided that she did want to get to know her baby after all.



A scale shot- Little Lamb and Ian's legs

Ian as 'Mummy Sheep'





Unfortunately, it seemed that motherhood was an easily forgotten role for this particular sheep, because once in the new field on Saturday she studiously ignored Little Lamb's bleats in favour of stuffing her face with fresh grass.

Alone in the field, Little lamb began to panic, running frantically up and down along the fence line. 
It was clear that we were going to have to move her ourselves.

Three of us slowly approached Little Lamb, smiling reassuringly.  She tensed, her whole body moving in time with the rapid pattering of her heart.  We reached for her, friendly arms trying to lift her over to join her mum.


Little lamb on the run

Unfortunately from her point of view I suspect we were a terrifying group of two-leggers trying to back her into a corner while showing their scary omnivorous teeth. 

She ran for her life to the opposite end of the field. 



We gathered reinforcements.  Six people were now spread across the field, three carrying hurdles to make a temporary pen around Little Lamb.  Or that was the plan anyway.  What actually ensured was 45 minutes of hot, bruise-inducing charging around the field, each time cornering Little Lamb only to have her spring away from us at the last second and race away at top speed.  Finally, in what I can only image will go down as the worst rugby tackle in history, I managed a slow motion dive between some thistles to grab hold of Little Lamb. Seconds later and she was into the next field and trotting happily towards mum, leaving a team of sweaty farm members stood in the empty field. 

Elevenses had most definitely been earned.


And she definitely didn't say thank you.

"D" day for the chickens

A while ago we inherited seven young cockerels (see Hatching our Dinner).  They were part of a home-hatch by a work colleague who wanted to expand her flock of layers.  Rather than her dispatching the boys as soon as they could be sexed accurately, we moved them to our garden with the aim of raising them for meat. 

We always try to buy local meat that's had a good life and we're very lucky to have a source of beef in the 'Cam Cattle' cows that graze Midsummer common in the centre of Cambridge.  I cycle past these on my way to work and they always seem blissfully content, taking no notice of my bike rattling past and their mini celebrity status with tourists.

Raising our own chickens seemed like a logical step.  We could learn how to kill, pluck and dress the chickens, all important in increasing our awareness of the process from field to plate, while knowing that these particular birds had enjoyed a longer life than would otherwise have been the case.

Recently the chickens, or more specifically dispatching the chickens, has been on both our minds.  How do you take the decision that any particular day will be their last? Particularly if the weather forecast for the following day is glorious and you know how much they enjoy their sunbathing.  We had become quite attached to our magnificent chaps, with their daily displays of neck ruffling, and were unlikely to wake up one day with a burning desire to put someone in the pot.

Luckily, as it turned out the boys made the decision for us via a strangled attempt at crowing at 5am.  This wasn't a full blown 'Cock-A-Doodle-DOO!' more of a trial run, testing out variations on the theme without ever hitting the correct sequence.

I like to think that the other cockerels were gathered around watching and taking notes from the morning's performance:

'COCK-a-COCK- a- DOO!'

Dammit, that's not right.

'A-Doodle-Doodle-DOO!'

No, still not got it.

etc.

Anyway, even a trainee crower is not appreciated in central Cambridge.  Still less now as we experience an intermittent summer and of neighbours have their windows open.

As the advice was to deprive the chicken for food for 24 hours prior to killing, so that the crop and digestive system wasn't full of semi-digested grain, we decided to do the birds in pairs and a three.  This meant that our 5am singer would have company in his penned-off section of the chicken run, something that we felt was important for his welfare.  It was also for welfare reasons that we decided to kill our first chickens at Hempsal's Community farm, because although a drive in the car wasn't necessarily in the chicken welfare handbook it seemed to us that the consequences of trying and failing to kill a chicken, and the associated needless suffering that would entail, tipped the balance firmly in favour of taking them with us.

Over the past weeks as people have learnt that we are raising chickens for meat, we have been on the receiving end of many horror stories.  It seems that everyone knows someone whose neighbour's friend's father tried to kill a chicken and ended up chasing it around the garden with an axe, merely giving it a crick in the neck or pulling the head off. 

This did not inspire confidence in taking a self-taught 'You-Tube' approach. 

At Hempsal's farm we were able to kill the chickens calmly and quickly under the supervision of Ben the head farmer (we used the broom handle technique).  He also taught us how to pluck the birds (when warm), hang them so that all the blood gathers in the head, and prepare the carcass for cooking.  (Ben then confessed his ulterior motive which was to give us the skills to join the goose plucking and dressing team at Christmas! Which of course we will do.)

What better end for our first bird, than a really slow, considered, recipe carried out over a whole of a day (Moroccan chicken pie from The Guardian, here), which included cabbage grown by us at the farm and was served with home-grown broad beans.

 

It was a thoughtful meal, but I'm no vegetarian, and I can honestly say I'm happy to know this chicken had a good life.

 

 

 

 

 

Foraging - lavender and garlic soda bread

Is it 'foraging' when actually you’re walking round the neighbourhood with a pair of scissors and snipping lavender heads from neighbouring front gardens?

Let’s say yes. 

This is Ian’s made-up recipe for garlic and lavender soda bread. 

At some point it started life as a 'real' soda bread recipe, but over time it's been fiddled with and fussy ingredients such as buttermilk have been jettisoned in favour of simplicity and speed.  We've played with lots of additions, but lavender and garlic is the current winner (try also, cumin seeds, toasted sunflower seeds or crumbled goat's cheese)

All amounts are approximate, what you are aiming for is the consistency.  You will need a cast-iron griddle pan and this takes around 5 mins to prepare and 15-20 mins to cook.

Makes a dinner plate-sized flatbread, around 2cm thick, serves 2 hungry hippo's or 4 nibblers.

Approximately 200g flour,
A flat teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
Approximately 200mls milk and 1/2 a lemon's worth of lemon juice (this is important as it acidifies the milk which makes it substitutable for buttermilk - vinegar also works, but use less), or 200ml buttermilk
About 10 heads of lavender with the flowers scraped from the stalk (pick highly scented ones with open flowers).
Three gloves of garlic, finely chopped (this is medium-garlicky, add more, add less, or roast for a totally different taste!).

First mix together the flour with the milk and lemon.  You want to add enough milk/lemon to make a good sticky dough - this will be way stickier than you would expect from a 'proper' leavened bread recipe. 

Add the garlic and lavender.  Once the ingredients are mixed, STOP.  Don't overwork it or it will become stodgy.

Generously pat the mixture with flour so you can handle it and press/roll it out to a thickness of around 1.5 cm. 

Drop in heavy-bottomed griddle pan which has been pre-heated on a medium flame.  Turn after 5-10 mins, depending on thickness.

 

I should point out that no lavender plants were decimated in the making of this bread; we took the 10 or so heads from 5 or 6 plants.  However, if you’ve seen a couple walking around Cambridge making an exaggerated show of sniffing the lavender in your front garden.  Apologies, we stole a bit. 

But it was amazing.