Smoke me a salmon, I’ll be back for breakfast!

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

Get back any time you like. This one is going in the freezer 😀

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More dairy experimentation

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

Following the success of making my own butter, I decided that I might have a go at cheese. That’s more tricky and requires the purchase of suitable ingredients and equipment (particularly a large pan), but a soft cheese looked quite viable.

I found a book with instructions for making DIY halloumi so that’s what I tried first. Not 100% convinced by it appearance-wise, but it tastes ok 😀

Again however, it’s cheaper to buy the stuff from the supermarket. I really need to find a better (cheaper) source of milk.

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No dig diary, 20th January 2026

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

This made me happy today. A pleasant change from all the crap that’s going on in my life right now 🙁

Sown on 11th/12th January, so these have only taken eight or nine days to germinate and get their heads out of the compost.

So, so pleased. Also notable is the fact that I couldn’t see any where the leaves were trapped inside the seed coat. In previous years I think I’ve always had that happen with some.

Hopefully the grow light will encourage them to keep growing now even if the weather is poor. (Which it has been today. I don’t think the rain has stopped since dawn.)

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Peter piper picked a peck of purple peppers

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

Just like these ones (photographed with a few jalapenos and with a sweet pepper) 🙂 I think they look gorgeous and are very appealing in salads for example, but seeds seem very awkward to find. Real Seeds, where I buy most of my vegetable seeds, don’t carry them every year and suggested in response to a Facebook post that my enthusiasm isn’t shared that widely. I really don’t know why.

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A new cork pinboard

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

Made from, err, corks.

Obviously it was quite a tough job acquiring all the corks to start with. I’d not recommend it without having put in years of practice first, though you can cheat by just buying the bags of corks that are sold for wine-making.

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Cheap polytunnel problems

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

I posted ages ago about the issues with the cheap polytunnels available from the South American river place (amongst others). Here are a few more that affected me.

First the uprights either side of the door come in multiple pieces, which allows them to bend in the middle. Here I’ve temporarily added a piece of wood to force it back to the correct position.

This issue doesn’t help with the way the door handle works and neither does the “flap” of cover material on the opening side of the door which obstructs easy use of the handle.

Finally, there’s insufficient “skirt” on the cover to allow it to be buried, but even when weighted down it tends to get “sucked” off in high winds. I had this happen several times. Eventually I put these pieces of mesh over the top which helped quite significantly, but even with them the cover was eventually completely ripped off by a major storm when winds were gusting close to 60mph.

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No buts, it’s got to be butter

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

Obviously there’s some concern about ultra-processed food at the moment which would include margarine and similar products, so out of interest I thought I’d have a go at making butter myself, particularly as someone else I knew had managed to make some.

What I didn’t expect was quite how easy it could be done using a kitchen mixer. There’s little more work involved than beating cream until it clumps into butter, separating it from the buttermilk, adding a little salt (assuming you want any) and forming it into shape.

This one isn’t the neatest, but it tastes great. Proper butter pats might help.

Sadly in terms of cost it’s probably more expensive than buying butter from the supermarket. Ideally I’d like to find somewhere that I can buy milk or cream direct from the farm at a slightly lower price, but given how poorly farmers are paid for milk I’m not sure that’s actually feasible.

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Almost as handy as mole grips

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

Again, not sure how often they’ll get used, but at least I have them and can clean them up so they don’t deteriorate any further.

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The orange man-baby strikes again

Posted on January 20, 2026 by james

From a Marco Rubio press release eight months ago about the UK’s handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius:

Following a comprehensive interagency review, the Trump Administration determined that this agreement secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint U.S.-UK military facility at Diego Garcia. This is a critical asset for regional and global security. President Trump expressed his support for this monumental achievement during his meeting with Prime Minister Starmer at the White House.

And then yesterday, on “Truth” Social:

Shockingly, our “brilliant” NATO Ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.

There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness. These are International Powers who only recognize STRENGTH, which is why the United States of America, under my leadership, is now, after only one year, respected like never before.

The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired.

Denmark and its European Allies have to DO THE RIGHT THING. Thank you for your attention to this matter. PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”

To be fair, he has one thing right. The USA is now respected like never before. Just not remotely in the way he thinks.

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Foggiest day of Winter so far

Posted on January 19, 2026 by james

Almost the entire world disappeared. These days I’m not sure that isn’t a good thing, mind.

Oddly however, it was still possible to make out blue sky above us. I think we must have been right at the top of a cloud.

When darkness fell it was even possible to see stars in the sky even though a torch was almost useless because of the amount of light being reflected by the fog.

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