Wordless Wednesday - PaparCatzi

This is a not-so-wordless-Wednesday to introduce you to the latest in the Blogging team. From now on our wordless Wednesday's will be brought to you by our very own team of Papar-CAT-zis. As you can see, expertly modelled by our own Monty, is the Cat Cam. This is a lightweight stills camera that our boys will take shots with around the farm. They will photograph where humans do not dare to tread, and perhaps we will see something we never knew existed.

Our first few Wednesdays will be mainly around the house and barns so I can ensure that the camera
a) works
and, most importantly,
b) the cats are happy and comfortable with the camera.

So far our little pap-cats have been perfectly happy with their equipment, they don't seem to notice it is there.

There is a nice handy banner now which you can click for the latest PaparCATzi photos if you miss our Wednesday posts! See the example below... now on with Wordless -ed Wednesday!!

So here is our Papar-CAT-zi first attempts. Please excuse the blurriness - they are still getting the hang of the camera settings and tripod!

The Plants of the Farm

There has be little blogging going on, as you know, due to our fascinating Broadband Extravaganza, but that doesn't mean life has stopped here at the farm. I have been planting seeds, only a few as we are trying to concentrate on the house not the garden, but I couldn't not resist having a few around the place. The living room window has become my little greenhouse and (as you can see) the little seedlings are doing well.

The big bruisers in the middle are my Peas, I will grow a few more of them so I get a bit of succession peas going on, but these grew SO fast I was unprepared!

Closest to us are Peppers. I am impressed that they grew at all as they sat there a long time and then proceeded to go mouldy! I tried a desperate attempt to dry them out by sitting them on the radiator then giving a little water and low and behold up they came! Three cheers for the Pepper plants!!

Right at the back, looking straggly are the Tomatoes. I have never tried growing tomatoes from seed so we will have to see what comes of that!

The other plants that deserve some recognition are the Fig Tree (which is on the left here) and the Kiwi Plant. These guys went through some hard times when we moved, Kiwi in particular got squished by a box. The pair of them decided the best thing to do was to shed all their leaves and look like sticks in pots for the past 3 months or so. But being left to their own devices (except the Kiwi seems to attract the cats who try to dig it up ??) they have both recovered and are trying their best.

The Kiwi was supposed to give fruit in its first year, but I am not sure if it will with all the drama it has had in its short little life. Again, another one to watch!!

Easter Weekend - Hot Cross Buns

INGREDIENTS

• 450g strong white flour , plus extra for dusting
• 2 x 7g sachets easy-blend yeast
• 50g caster sugar
• 150ml warm milk
• 1 , beaten
• 50g unsalted butter , melted, plus extra for greasing
• oil , for greasing
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp mixed spice
• ¼ tsp grated nutmeg
• 100g currants
• 4 tbsp plain flour
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar

INGREDIENTS

1. Put the flour, yeast, caster sugar and 1 tsp salt into a large mixing bowl with the spices and dried fruit and mix well. Make a well in the centre and pour in the warm milk, 50ml warm water, the beaten egg and the melted butter. Mix everything together to form a dough - start with a wooden spoon and finish with your hands. If the dough is too dry, add a little more warm water; if it's too wet, add more flour.
2. Knead in the bowl or on a floured surface until the dough becomes smooth and springy. Transfer to a clean, lightly greased bowl and cover loosely with a clean, damp tea towel. Leave in a warm place to rise until roughly doubled in size - this will take about 1 hr depending on how warm the room is.
3. Tip the risen dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for a few secs, then divide into 12 even portions - I roll my dough into a long sausage shape, then quarter and divide each quarter into 3 pieces. Shape each portion into a smooth round and place on a baking sheet greased with butter, leaving some room between each bun for it to rise.
4. Use a small, sharp knife to score a cross on the top of each bun, then cover with the damp tea towel again and leave in a warm place to prove for 20 mins until almost doubled in size again. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.
5. When the buns are ready to bake, mix the plain flour with just enough water to give you a thick paste. Spoon into a piping bag (or into a plastic food bag and snip the corner off) and pipe a white cross into the crosses you cut earlier. Bake for 12-15 mins until the buns are golden and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom. While still warm, melt the granulated sugar with 1 tbsp water in a small pan, then brush over the buns.

The Finishing of the Living Room Floor

With Christmas out of the way we decided that the time had come to get the living room floor finished. We had decided that to keep things simple, and because we liked the finish of the Dining Room, we were going to do the Living Room floor as treated boards.

First things first, we needed to do was to lift the old carpet. It was exceedingly grubby and smelled pretty bad. The only thing for it was to take it down to the skip. This proved a bit of a laugh as the gap in the top of the skip was smaller than the carpet was wide. We tried pushing folding and even tried Farm Dad in the skip pulling!! Eventually we tried jumping on it, that got it in... kind of.... just walk away.. act casual.... casual... now RUN!!

The floor underneath, as you can see, is two shades, the lighter stuff are the new boards that Farm Dad had to replace because of dry rot, wet rot, woodworm, you name it they had it. The darker boards are he old floor boards. We were seriously hoping that after Farm Guy got the floor sander on them they would come up the same.

PHEW!! They did! The floor looked pretty good after the sanding and so it was my turn to get in there with the varnish. We used the same stuff as in the Dining Room.


And I don't know what you think but I think it looks pretty good!!