Weekly Chat, 6th December 2009

Dibnlib, what a lovely picture. Dillon is a star:) So well behaved. Poor "Poo"!! Glad you had a nice day.

Lindybird, how did the carpet cleaning go?

Patriciat, sorry about the mud. Not nice at all

Carpets are now pristine, (except for a patch where I once burnt it in the dining room- don't ask!!) & we're very pleased with the result. Will get the outside Christmas lights out from under the stairs tomorrow, but not putting them up until it stops raining (when will that be??????).    : -{

Have now sent the funny  video of the various animals 'singing' for Christmas to at least 6 people, and most of them have said they are sending it on to various relations & friends...this could be an epidemic!

Have been enjoying the very busy webcam in Ecuador, but not seen any animals yet. Lots of little insects are also drinking there, I see.

ps....    My OH wants both Dillon and the lovely Nell to come & live here, he's smitten with them both..

Dibnlib

Dillon is such a handsome and dignified boy!  And he's obviously really well-behaved, as his teddy is all in one piece!

Hallo all: Back from family mission in POURING rain - Hurray! It's been raining since 2 a.m.; supposed to stop tonight; sunny next two days then more rain. Hurray again.  This morning I discovered my raincoat isn't rainproof though....

AQ: I figure if anything thrives in a garden, it gets to stay!  I have a Schefflera my Mom bought me - it was tiny and in a terarium, remember those? - when she was beginning to fail; she'd forgotten my birthday and then felt bad and rushed out to buy me something. I replanted it in ever-larger pots and now it's more than 7ft tall!  Won't part with it.  Sounds like a good grandkids' visit; but my sympathies with those fussy little window panes.

OG: Horse is coming along fine. Looks like daughter will have an operation ("sort of normal" female stuff) before Christmas; she wanted to wait until the New Year but is now fed up and wants to get it over and done with.

Alan: Shepherds pie a definite delicacy here since we typically have cattle ranchers and they can be very macho and difficult to get in pie!!  I'm going to have to Google coati image; as with haggi, wouldn't know one if it landed on my head!

Gary: Lovely shot! So, they're "tall" trees? That sounds about right!  :-)  And yes, I remember cheese on shepherd's pie!

Lindybird: Thanks for pretty tulip photo. Must be the time of year for cleaning carpets: We've just arranged to have someone come clean our three bedrooms, where the carpet got a tad tatty when we were living in them during the remodel.  What? No shepherds in your pie?

Margobird: Birds have been crowding our feeder all morning; also lots of hopping about in the soil.

dibnlib: Dillon seems happy to wait for Advent treats; perhaps he hasn't quite figured it out.  I like those chairs - are they the Danish (Elkorne??) ones? We've been admiring them in a local store.  Lunch sounds very cozy.

Just drizzling here now - but that drizzle that comes from all directions. Have to do a bit of running around. Back later!

Tues 8.05 am. Light rain falling. Another cool day. The last 2 weeks have been great with temps wandering between 23-28 C by day and down to 14-15 at night. Very pleasant for getting chores done. Great pics of "tall trees" and tulips and not forgetting the now world-famous Dillon. We had cottage pie last night! Noooo, don't take 4 cottages - this is the beef mince version of shepherds pie. Auntie, in my self-inflicted project to gather names of deserters, missing persons, absconders & bigamists from the police gazettes, I keep seeing "Russian Finns" who have deserted from ships to SA. Also one "Swedish Finn". They were probably on the sailing ships calling here to collect wheat. This is back in 1870s to early 1900s. By the way, the nationalities of ship deserters are a united nations - my geography is being revived as I transcribe! I'm off to archives today for more of these.

Evening all (she said, with a bend of the knees for those who remember Dixon..., I remember the toucan too, but I was very young...).

It's been rather wet today, good job we had our cycle ride yesterday. Here on the north coast of England, or the south edge of the Solway, we don't get much snow at all so it was lovely to see Nancy standing in her paddock, Gary, and the other pic looked great too, with the clear blue sky and frosted trees.

Thanks to Alan for the cloud forest cam, loads of birds and I don't know any of them, Auntie for the Swedish carcass, also lovely pics of Nell and Dillon. What a handsome lot of animals we have.

OH swears the secret to shepherds pie is to put mash under the meat as well as on top - the juice runs through and tastes delicious.

O my O my. I could sit here watching the Ecuadorian webcam all day

Lindybird, feel free to share the story of the burnt carpet. You are amongst friends here.........

Annettee, what a busy day. Hope it turns out Ok for your daughter (as a man, PLEASE don't tell me any more details!! LOL) Glad the horse is doing fine as well. Great job on the rain. You said you were expecting a "precipitation event"

AQ, great job about the rain:) Facinating the archives work you are doing.

TerryM, glad you liked the pictures. I used to live in Kent so when we moved over here the snow was a whole new experience. What a clever man your OH is. Never thought of having mash under the meat as well as on top. I will put that to the boss.

From a website called "The Cotswold Food Year"

<< Cottage pie or shepherds pie - which is which or are they the same thing?

Cottage pie was originally a dish made from left overs when potatoes had become the staple food (potatoes in the UK is the staple equivalent to rice in the far east).
In days gone by on Sunday you dressed in your Sunday best, went to church in the morning and had your Sunday roast in the afternoon. On Monday you had the roast cold, Tuesday it was minced into rissoles or cottage pie, and Wednesday it was made into soup. Thursday was cabbage broth made from the bones and Friday was Fish Friday.
Life moves on however, and with today's more affluent eating habits, shepherds pie or cottage is most often made specially, so we use raw minced meat, rather than the left over cooked roast. And 'cottage' pie has come to mean a pie made from beef mince, and 'shepherds' pie that made from minced lamb, or mutton.
Also these days they are minced lamb or beef with potato, rather than potato with minced lamb or beef. >>

My mother used to also put vegetables in her cottage pie made with minced leftover roast - I guess this was to eke out the little quantity of meat.  When our son was small, he would only eat it if there were tinned "baked beans" in the meat mixture!!  Also, there is "shepherdess pie" - a vegetarian version!