Autumn Harvest

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I will be cooking for the kids today. Fortunately the garden has delivered all the favorites – broccolini, small zucchini, one teeny artichoke ( next year will be bigger and better) and pumpkin flowers. Two flowers will be stuffed with ricotta for the grownups and the rest crispy fried in flour and water batter. Broccoli probably just steamed and Zucchini in a little butter and sage.  Add leftover lamb and I should have a winner. Should, because one never knows with small kids, what they loved yesterday could horrify them today!

Guinea Fowls

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I got 12 guinea fowl eggs as a gift, and so far 2 have hatched. When the first one was dry and in it’s cage, I thought it was lonely and I put a 2 week old quail chick (the same size as the guinea fowl chick) with it for company and to teach it to eat. It chased the poor quail all over the cage. I swapped quails thinking it may be a personality clash – same thing happened, the quail had to run for its life. When the 2nd chick hatched I put the 2 guinea fowls together and they cuddled up and went to sleep. I don’t know what I should have learnt from this.

Vivid Cross Species Colour Matching

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I don’t know much about the beautiful rooster but the magnificent bull is a photograph of a wonderful painting by the South African artist Leigh Voigt from a book about the Zulu Nguni cattle, called The Abundant Herds . The book is the result of the collaboration of scholars, researchers and writers over an extended period of time. The many paintings reproduced in the book are accurate depictions of the colour patterns of the cattle. I  once saw a similar bull in a herd of cattle in the green hills of  Zululand. Would love to go back for another look!

Potential Beekeeper’s Lament

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Learning about bees wearing the most fetching bee suit ever! A beekeeper friend lent the suit to a grandchild so he could spend a day with him and his bees. Sadly, I think that I do not have the space for a hive in my garden, so I shall keep wishing and planning. In the meantime I will enjoy all the bumblebees and honeybees that visit my garden from elsewhere.