Last week I waxed lyrical about the wonders of the cèpe mushroom, and we have been lucky to find a few over the last 10 days so that I have been able to dry a load in the desiccator for use over the coming months, as well as being able to eat rather a lot fresh. They make a lovely omelette and work well with garlic, and with garlic and herb butter - such a pity that most of the chickens are currently on strike (nothing to do with bird 'flu, more to do with shorter days, getting older and moulting). This panful was particularly tasty.
The challenge with collecting mushrooms from the wild, once you have correctly identified what is edible of course, is that humans are not the only beings to enjoy a good mushroom. There is a small insect, which I think of as the "expensive mushroom fly" which can get there first, and there is nothing you can do about it. Some people will eat fly damaged mushrooms, but I don't. I will share with a slug, although not at the same time, but i draw the line at flies. I found this fabulous cèpe yesterday afternoon, and from the condition of the underside of the cap, it was a very new growth one. I was so proud of it! Sadly, when I cut it open to prepare it, as you can see, it was riddled with the beastly fly. I have buried it in leaf litter in the hope that it will spread mycelium and start a new colony, but I'm not telling anyone where!
I have a nasty suspicion that this means the end of the mushroom season for this year.
There are other critters out and about that I wouldn't expect at this time of year - caterpillars! And not just any, but the dreaded scions of the Cabbage White Butterfly. I have spent hours with the Cats in the Country explaining the difference between a cabbage white and all other butterflies (cabbage whites are good cat food, all others are banned), but they just don't seem to listen and don't spend enough time on brassica patrol. I don't think this will utterly defeat my attempts at cauliflowers, but it won't do them any good either. I picked loads off by hand (and got very green fingers as a result) and threw them away to where I hoped they would attract robins and other birds but kept finding more! Ugh.
It has been unnaturally warm this weekend - even for northwest France, 18ºC is not normal for the middle of November - so I was finally spurred into digging up the last 9 potatoes. It didn't help that a lot were sprouting again, and I needed to get shot of all the foliage. It hasn't really been cold enough for storing potatoes out of the ground easily, but at the same time, frost isn't good either. They were nice and plump, and I knocked off a load of shoots, so hopefully they will be OK. They are now in a drying rack in a barn, hardening off, and letting the soil dry off them too. I guess that was another 15 kilos of spuds for the winter. I also made my first sowing of broad beans - 66 to be precise - in a bed beside leeks and cauliflowers - fingers crossed they all germinate. I am eyeing up another bed for a further double row as it was a good-sized packet of seed.
There has been no action on the trail camera this week, so it has come home for recharging of batteries and clearing the SD card. Next week there should be some video clips, when I have had a chance to look at what is there.
So rather than talk pigs and badgers, I will mention the one and only thing we miss from our old life in the UK - cricket. We left in early 2005, just as free to air cricket coverage was coming to an end. It did make the move that bit easier, as previous summers would be spent re-caning chair seats in front of the Test Matches, and occasional visits to local venues for Sunday League limited overs matches. It was a passion, sometimes an obsession even, but selling out to Sky broke my heart and my habit. There is a spot in the garden where I can pick up Radio 4 LW, and we still have a couple of radios that can pick that up, but any other form of radio gets nasty noises and licence restriction warnings. So it was a real pleasure to hear that Channel 4 were showing the final of the Twenty20 World Cup free to air this morning, and a nifty app gives us 1 hour of UK TV per day. Breakfast was taken watching a fine England bowling performance, and I gather they won in the end. While pyjama cricket isn't my favourite form of the game, it was still a real treat to watch!
Have a good week!
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