A perfect evening for fishing, but not catching....

Sometimes it just doesn't matter; how can you complain when the company is good, the weather benign, the conditions perfect, but the fish absent?

It's Bewl; it's the way it is; the reservoir is a favourite venue, but, for Harry and I, it gives up its fish reluctantly.

Bewl has introduced an "Any Methods" policy. Why, I don't know, perhaps the season's dampness has caused a drought of hardy, all-weather anglers; perhaps the Bewl water powers that be have changed a decades long ethos in favour of an elite clientelle, to an all encompassing, catch-all product brought about by the contemporary fad to dumb down as much as possible as often as possible. Maybe.

Anyway, be that as it may, Harry and I couldn't shift a fish. They were rising later in the evening but neither he nor I had a single take on the fly. Now, we're not by any means experts here, but not to have even a touch is very, very strange. We tried up until 8.45 and we tried just about everything. But it was such a wonderful afternoon and evening that we couldn't complain too much.....could we....?

The Boletus Mushroom.....Bay Bolete

There are many Boletus type mushrooms and from this time of year through to late Autumn most of the species can be found at some stage or another. It's late July and already we've had a few mushrooms in our omlettes and risottos in the Kelly Kitchen, but I just wanted to mention the Bay Bolete as many people are put off by its unusual characteristic of turning a strange shade of blue when cut or bruised. Don't let this put you off, it's just a form of oxidisation and they are a tasty and abundant foraging item.

Generally, the Boletus type mushroom is easily identified by its spongy bottom! It does not have gills, but instead it has a sponge like underneath. There are a couple of nasty tasting boletes, but only a couple and they are red and easily identified. I will blog them as I locate them this year. So look out for the boletus family, especially as one of them - the Porcini, Penny Bun or Cep is one of the tastiest mushrooms the UK has to offer. I may show you some pictures and describe the mushroom to you, but you'll have to fight me for the location .....

These all cook well and can also be dried but keep them from getting damp and pick them in fine weather as they easily become water logged.

Chickens - The Serial: The Homecoming....

Well, they're in!

Having done all the necessary work for as little cost as possible - we now have hens! Everybody I talk to, every blog or article I read; all agree that keeping chickens is not economically sound - unless you are keeping dozens of hens, selling the eggs commercially or for breeding! Whilst I agree, at least I can say, hand on heart, that I have attempted to keep the cost as low as possible.

Asher stalked the hens until she realised how big they were, then she gave up in a huff.

 But of course, these hens are not being kept solely for the economic viability of the enterprise; we are learning and we have the added advantage of adding to the family here in the woods. And so we have the arrival of Charlie, (a boy) Mollie and Hilda, none of which are going to be adding to the household budget for the foreseeable future. But that's ok, they are certainly fun to watch and definitely settling in well.

Making themselves at home...

We are now considering adding to the family by obtaining a couple of rescue hens, ex-battery babes in need of a good home to at least have a handful of eggs each week to mitigate the outlay of keeping hens who can't lay eggs for a while....

A Little Bit of Everything.....

There's just so much going on at the moment that I thought I would publish a "catch-all" article to try and tie everything together.

Firstly, I managed to capture one of our glow -worms mating. It was a little difficult as I had a crap camera and it was necessarily dark! However, as you can see the male bug is a "click-beetle" and therefore flies. The female does not, hence her need to attract the flying males down to the ground with her glowing abdomen. The other evening we located eleven such females in our garden and anyone who saw us myopically peering into our lawn and chipping heap at 10.30 at night would have thought us mad. I'm not at all sure they would be wrong!

A Mating Glow Worm Couple...

Frankie has been sitting in the garden with her camcorder at hand in an attempt to capture some of the bird life we have here. She has fallen in love with the woodpeckers that visit our feeders especially as they have been feeding a youngster with the nuts we (expensively) provide for them. Also, the other day we had a rare visitor (for us) as we don't very often see the exotically coloured Goldfinch here in the woods. This bird is such a beauty and would be equally at home with any of the strikingly plumaged birds of jungle, bush or outback.

Finally, our chickens are home....but more of that in the next blog......