To make a Walking Stick

Plant Ash keys and grow to seedlings a few inches tall. Take them up and rebury them lengthways. The tree then grows in two directions – upwards from a bud of the buried sapling to form the stick itself and along, filling out the root, to form the handle. Take up when the Ash is long enough and trim the knots and cut the root to length. Round the end of the handle and taper the end of the shoot to take a ferrule.


Oops, left this one a bit too long!

A Proper Cow

 

White and black cows are usually Friesian or Holstein cows - what my elder daughter, Bryony, used to call a ‘proper’ cow.


Judging by the body shape this was some other breed until a bored graphic artist had a play with it!

Honey Content (and a warning)

 

Ever wondered what exactly is in honey? The answer is roughly as follows:-
Fruit sugar – 41%
Grape sugar – 34%
Water – 17%
Aromatic bodies, acids, pollens, etc. – 3%
Cane sugar – 2%
Dextrine, gums – 2%
Minerals – 0.2%
Vitamins – nil


Honey is significantly sweeter than table sugar and has attractive chemical properties for baking. Honey has a distinctive flavor which leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners. Most micro-organisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity of 0.6. However, it is important to note that honey frequently contains dormant endospores of the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to infants as the endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant's immature intestinal tract, leading to illness and, allegedly, even death.

The fantastic honey jar shown above is handmade by Mely Yancy in the USA.

Blockley

 

Recently I read a murder mystery set in a house in Blockley High Street (see my review) in the Cotswolds. This is a view of the High Street at the turn of the nineteenth / twentieth century.


This is the back of the postcard - the handwriting is my Great Grandma Spencer's. So the shop with a cross over the chimney is the one where Sarah Tidmarsh (Bryony. Helen and Richard’s great, great grandmother) had her wedding cake made in 1843. (There was once a "bakehouse" on the High Street run by Joe Powell (later Duggans) was this the cake shop?)


Sarah was married to Henry Warden Lane at Chipping Campden Church on May 18th.


The quality of the photo on this postcard is so good that at great magnification one can see a basket on the cart at the far end of the High Street.


The Royal Oak, next door to the cake shop, was a beer, cider & porter house - managed by Frederick Taylor 1870-1920 and four of his sons also held the same license in succession followed by William Hodgkins during the 1930s, it was closed in 1955 and became a greengrocer's run by the Worthington's, later became an Antique shop – now it is a private dwelling. Note: 1901 census shows the Royal Oak being run by George Allen.


Here is a more up-to-date view from the same spot.


Blockley has a great little website.

It's nearly Easter