Despite the departure of the house martins a few weeks ago I still have a selection of fat sparrows sat on the balcony. Our sparrows are so fat and round that a guest thought they were a different species of bird altogether. They feed on the grain that we put out for chickens and ducks and live in abundance in the garden. They too nest in the roof and we will take measures to prevent that next year as they wiggle in through the smallest space right under the rafters. I love having them though, they chatter all day in the most cheerful manner.
We are still trying to reduce the amounts of bought feed that we put out for the poultry. They have a pretty big space to range in and we also have surplus veg in the veg garden it seems silly spending money where we don't have to, and no I don't want to introduce sparrow proof feeders that seems a bit mean. Really I want an environment where we can be if we need to be self- reliant we can be so inducing as much home grown food into the diet of the animals makes sense. They get any leftovers already of course although years of fairly frugal living mean that we have very little left over in terms of bought or cooked food.
The Autumn here means mushrooms, Frades the village where I live is famous for its mushrooms. This is both a blessing and a curse. We know that mushrooms grow here but so does everyone else so the lane is full of cars especially at weekend and basket toting mushroom hunters are in the fields and woods all around, city dwellers have now a renewed interest in foraging and restaurants love wild mushrooms and will pay especially for ceps. To make things worse the habitat is disappearing the last five years of economic depression mean that native woodland is losing ground to the more economically viable pine and eucalyptus
As the young people move away there are fewer animals to graze the fields and less need of pasture.
Still there is little need to worry yet a rather pleasant walk this morning means that we get mushroom stroganoff for lunch a treat at any time.
We are still trying to reduce the amounts of bought feed that we put out for the poultry. They have a pretty big space to range in and we also have surplus veg in the veg garden it seems silly spending money where we don't have to, and no I don't want to introduce sparrow proof feeders that seems a bit mean. Really I want an environment where we can be if we need to be self- reliant we can be so inducing as much home grown food into the diet of the animals makes sense. They get any leftovers already of course although years of fairly frugal living mean that we have very little left over in terms of bought or cooked food.
The Autumn here means mushrooms, Frades the village where I live is famous for its mushrooms. This is both a blessing and a curse. We know that mushrooms grow here but so does everyone else so the lane is full of cars especially at weekend and basket toting mushroom hunters are in the fields and woods all around, city dwellers have now a renewed interest in foraging and restaurants love wild mushrooms and will pay especially for ceps. To make things worse the habitat is disappearing the last five years of economic depression mean that native woodland is losing ground to the more economically viable pine and eucalyptus
As the young people move away there are fewer animals to graze the fields and less need of pasture.Still there is little need to worry yet a rather pleasant walk this morning means that we get mushroom stroganoff for lunch a treat at any time.
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