This is fairly predictable I suppose. After all, I do have three of them^.

Border Collies are brilliant. Sometimes, a little too brilliant…

Bramble, for example, is very excitable. And at the moment she’s excited because she heard about Mongo the Border Collie who saves (probably) the whole universe as we know it.

Miss Enthusiasm

(She’s pretty handy with the sheep too when she isn’t in the computer chair! I’m training her for her next sheepdog trial which, all going well, will be in March.)

Brighid, on the other hand, is a laid back kind of farm dog. She loves nothing better than being with you 110% of the day. A bit of work on the sheep, a bit of play with her sister and then just “hanging out”. Sometimes I stop to contemplate the view^^ and a few nano-seconds later there is a head under my hand, ready and waiting for the skritch!

"Where to now, Boss?"

Belle (their mother) is highly obsessed with the toy, ball, hens, horses, sheep – WHATEVER.  Obsession is definitely a Border Collie “thing”.  And they have FOCUS.

Belle bringing in the hens for the evening

Being stared at with a “Border Collie stare” tends to make you uncomfortable – Belle does it to me when she is in the passenger footwell of the car. She rests her head on the seat or whatever and then just stares, unblinking, as I’m driving. Arrrgggghhhh. No wonder sheep move away!!

Belle and Bramble are also “revheads”. They think nothing of going down the highway at 100km/hr like this:

The fangirl becomes a revhead

Idiots! Which is why I end up with putting them in the front with me when I need to go down the highway. (I’m quite certain Bramble would surf on top of the cab if I let her. Craaaazy dog. LOL )

And because I might be a little strange^^^, I get a kick out of having plants with the same names as my pets.  Which brings me to another favourite thing:

Roses

I don’t think I could have a garden without roses. (Note to self: never move anywhere where roses won’t grow!)

Here’s a little of my rose collection^§.

'St Brigid's Rose'

'Belle Story'

I haven’t managed to get the “bramble rose” yet (it’s a species rose). Of course I could use the feral briar rose growing on the side of the road. Prickly, all over the place and “sweet as”. That’s Bramble. LOL

I do have one that is all over the place though. Literally. I had ordered a nice, tame climber to grow up near the front porch and give some summer shade. I thought the location would be reasonably challenging for a rose so when it reached around 7’ high in only three months I became … nervous. Then it flowered and I had no doubt that it was not what was ordered. I had, in fact, received the very rose I had thought about and decided against because it was a house eater.

Meet ‘Wedding Day’ at 3 months:

Not a nice tame climber. 3 months growth from bare-rooted.

12 months later she looked like this:

'Wedding Day' aka "Bridezilla"

She hasn’t the biggest thorns in the world but she has plenty of prickles and a wicked sense of humour that sees her snagging the unwary passerby. We’ve nicknamed her “Bridezilla”! And she’s doing the job admirably so she gets to stay. And the bees adore her flowers. (Robin has now suggested to me that maybe it’s ‘Kiftsgate’. She likes to torment me. ‘Kiftsgate’ would swallow a whole block of houses.)

Now, back to some more lady-like roses…

‘Chateau de clos Vougeot’ (bush version)

‘French Lace’, which has been a real stunner this year and just bloomed and bloomed despite a lot of the others feeling the heat, or Black Spot, or whatever.

'French Lace'

‘Oklahoma’ is a big bush with big flowers that have a rich, heady scent.

'Oklahoma'

One of the best performing David Austin roses at my place is ‘Tess of the D’Ubervilles’.

'Tess of the D'Ubervilles'

And, just in case I’m putting everyone to sleep with so many roses, here’s one last one. This one was mentioned a few years ago by Robin in a blog entry and it took me ages to track it down and finally get one. The name alone is enough to love her for – she also has a pretty sweet scent. She does have a reputation for being problematic. So far, so good over here. (Robin may be using the bubblewrap on her flowers though….)

'Tipsy Imperial Concubine'

Of course, I do have lots of other photos of roses, sheep, castles and some of my other favourite things. Possibly enough for another guest blog if it is required. ;) *

———

^ In case anyone was wondering – my Border Collies are medium-short coated which is  better for working in hot weather.

^^ The view from the back paddock:

A spring morning in the lambing paddock

^^^Please don’t answer that..!

^§ Well over a hundred varieties at last count. I’ll end up having to plant them in the paddock next… haha

* Guest posts are ALWAYS required.  –ed.

My reading horizons were considerably broadened a few years ago when I picked up a new (to me) Robin McKinley book in the library. Dropped it in horror when I realised it was about vampires! But it’s by Robin McKinley, so picked it up again. But …. vampires! Put it down again. I stood there picking it up and putting it down several times before the McKinley aspect won out over the vampire aspect, and I took it home to read. The rest is history – ‘Sunshine’ has become a favourite book, and one I have loaned or given to several friends.

It opened my eyes to the fact that vampire stories are just another form of fantasy, a genre I have always loved. They’re just more modern than the semi-feudal setting that is often the framework background of many fantasies. While I’ve never felt the urge to join the ‘Twilight’ army of followers, I have enjoyed books such as ‘Daylight’ by Elizabeth Knox (http://www.elizabethknox.com/daylight/) and have recently discovered the urban fantasies of Patricia Briggs.

Briggs was an established writer of fantasy of the traditional style (the Raven duology, the series of Masques, etc.) and was encouraged by her publisher to develop a new series of urban fantasy that featured vampires and a heroine who has a tricky love life.

She has taken the bit between her teeth, and developed the very engaging Mercedes (Mercy) Thompson who lives in the Colombia basin in Washington State. She’s a kick-ass kinda gal – runs her own garage specialising in VW and other European motors, studies martial arts, and, oh yes, she’s a Walker, a shape-shifter able to slip into coyote form at will. As you do.

In the first book in the series, ‘Moon Called’, we are introduced to Mercy’s story of being raised among werewolves in the Montana mountains, and now living nearby the Alpha of the local werewolf pack in the Tri-Cities. Mercy rescues a young, inexperienced werewolf from evil machinations and threat from within his own pack, tangles with the local vampire seethe, and in her role as Walker, identifies the magic used by Fae who were interfering on the wrong side.

It is lively, fast-paced writing, with robust characters and a strong sense of place in both Washington and Montana. Like all good fantasy, the world with an alternative reality is carefully constructed, but treated in such a matter-of-fact way that the reader willingly suspends disbelief and goes along for the headlong ride. This is a world where the Fae outed themselves to the human world some years ago with inevitable adjustments on both sides. The Fae, of course, have become ‘othered’ by modern America, and many now live in reservations. Over the subsequent books in the series, Briggs explores some of the issues associated with incorporating the ‘other’ into society, particularly as the werewolves also decide to out themselves.

Mercy is a determined young woman, fighting for her identity on several levels; firstly as a female mechanic in an environment usually seen as male; secondly as a coyote shape-changer associated with werewolves, as wolves generally hate coyotes and kill them on sight. She has powerful protection, but needs to use humour, negotiating skills, and when they fail, speed, to survive. The werewolf pack is inherently patriarchal and hierarchical which chafes Mercy’s free and independent spirit, and over the series, Mercy has to negotiate relationships with two dominant wolves. The vampires pose a particular challenge to Mercy throughout the series, because as a Walker, which is Native American magic, she is immune to much of the European-origin vampires’ power. Over the years, the vampires had killed off most of the Walkers, and this seethe sees Mercy as a real threat to them in the modern world. Briggs explores European and Native American magical traditions and in the series the Fae are based on well-established magical traditional tales.

I liked all the characters very much. I wanted them to succeed, to form relationships, to be happy, to solve the mysteries and challenges in each book. I liked seeing the development of fitting the Fae, the werewolves, the vampires into the modern world, and the challenges that posed. Yes, there is violence, and sometimes it’s a bit squicky, but it’s not gratuitous and the overall tone of the books has a lightness, rather than the darkness/heaviness associated with some violent books.

Briggs has written an off-shoot series, ‘Alpha and Omega’, which has a more romantic focus in the story of two werewolves. Characters and events overlap between the two series, but the Mercy Thompson series is more action-based across the various non-human types, while the Alpha and Omega series is more character and relationship-driven within the werewolf community.

I enjoyed both series so much, I am now working my way through Brigg’s backlist of more traditional fantasy books. I do love discovering a new author with a list to enjoy. http://www.patriciabriggs.com/books/

* * *

* Yaaaay!  ANOTHER GUEST POST!  YAAAAAAAY!  And yes, since you ask, I have spent all evening working on SHADOWS, and I’m so tired the hellhounds may have to drive home.  One of them can hold the steering wheel and the other one can push the pedals.  No, no, that’ll work!  It’s not far!  I’ll do the gear shift!

A while back I did a guest post for Robin about wolves—specifically, about Wolf Park, and MY wolf (Wolfgang) who I did not actually technically meet, but I met several of his friends instead and it was fabulous anyway.  In the interest of equal time, I figured I should also do a post for the cat people among us—myself included, of course!  So here you have it.

I used to work at my local zoo as a volunteer in animal care, and was lucky enough to spend a year or so assisting in the Lion/Baboon/Wild Dog area.  Let me tell you that nothing, but nothing, is comparable to standing in a kitchen in the pre-dawn light doing food prep, and suddenly hearing a full-on male lion’s roar from 15 feet away.  It was terrifying and thrilling and marvelous all at once, and I was completely smitten by these big cats.  Any chance I have for further encounters, I will happily take.

So this summer I had the pleasure of making a visit to the Exotic Feline Rescue Center in Center Point, Indiana. (Not to be confused with Crown Point, Indiana, where John Dillinger once broke out of prison and escaped in the sheriff’s personal car.  Crown Point is also exciting, but has fewer tigers.)  While Wolf Park is a research facility, breeding and managing a “working” pack of wolves, the EFRC is purely a rescue facility.  All the animals are sterilized, and most come to the center as adults under unfortunate circumstances.

While I knew that some states in the US make it fairly easy to keep big cats as “pets,” I’d grossly underestimated the number of stupid people who actually attempt to do so.  EFRC exists to take care of animals who have been dumped, abused, or seized by law enforcement from people who thought it would be “cool” to own a couple tigers.

I’m going to refrain from ranting about that here, because I suspect you can all fill in the blank.  At any rate, the EFRC is pretty amazing.  They have over 200 big cats on the premises, which is a mostly wooded property way out in the middle of rural Indiana.  Since cats (unlike wolves) don’t generally form large social groups, they’re all caged separately, or in groups of 2-3 adults who get along well.  The center has lions…

…cougars…

…bobcats…

…leopards…

…and tigers!

Plus a few odds and ends like servals and ocelots, but I didn’t see any of those guys on my visit.  Mostly they have tigers—because, sadly, the exotic beauty of tigers means that they’re far more popular with exotic “pet” dealers, and there are a lot more of them needing rescuing.  This includes white tigers

and tabby tigers, who have lighter fur and dark orange stripes instead of brown or black.

Visting the Center is a great experience; for a low admission donation, you get a tour of the facility and one-on-one chat with one of their volunteers, who can tell you all kinds of fascinating stuff about these amazing animals.  There’s nothing fancy here, no state-of-the-art cages and holding pens; it’s all lumber and chain link fences and donated food, and nearly all their workers are volunteers.  The place is a labor of love by humans for big cats, and is absolutely worth a visit if you’re ever in west central Indiana.  But they’re hard-core about safety–lay one finger on the chain link of an enclosure, and you’ll be asked to leave. No ifs, ands, or buts, it’s a no-contact facility and they don’t mess around.  But it’s still a way of getting closer to these cats than you could almost anyplace else.

If you’d like to know more about them (or would like to look at some much better pictures of their cats) their website is here: Exotic Feline Rescue Center.

The Minnesota Opera has a history of performing new operas, and this year its New Works Initiative program premiered Silent Night, composed by Kevin Puts with a libretto by Mark Campbell.   The opera is based on the French film Joyeux Noel, which takes place during the Christmas truce of 1914, at the beginning of World War I.  MN Opera’s artistic director Dale Johnson commissioned the work after seeing the film.  The fact that two central characters are opera singers may have made the story seem even more suitable for an operatic setting.

I was entirely unfamiliar with Kevin Puts’s music*—a fairly substantial list of orchestral and chamber works; Silent Night is his first opera—and really didn’t know what to expect of this piece.  The last commissioned premiere by MN Opera was Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath in 2007**.  It was a good production and very well reviewed, but Gordon incorporated enough period popular styles in some scenes that it struck me as a mélange of The Met and Broadway***.  Given the potential for incorporating plucky WWI –era songs, never mind Christmas carols, into the Silent Night scenario, and given the often-loose meaning of “based upon” when applied to a source, it seemed to me that this opera could go off in any of several different directions.

As it turned out, Puts features neither Christmas carols nor patriotic songs in his opera.  The opera singers—a German tenor and his Danish soprano lover—are in the midst of a performance when war is declared, and the tenor is called into the army.  A young Scot and his brother enlist, under the then-prevailing common impression that the war will be short, exciting, and glorious; their priest follows them as an ambulance driver.  A French lieutenant is called up, leaving his pregnant wife on the verge of giving birth.  Months later, their respective companies are positioned across no-man’s land from each other, following a battle near a French city.  The rest of the work centers on the interaction between the three companies that leads to the Christmas truce, followed by the outraged reactions of each country’s military authorities when they learn about it later.

As one might expect, the cast is entirely male with the exception of the Danish soprano, who arranges to be with her lover for a Christmas Eve concert for the Army brass, and then accompanies him back to his company, where he has promised to sing for his fellow soldiers.  (The singing, of course, is what leads to the truce.)  There’s enough variation in the men’s voices, plus some good choral writing, to keep this interesting, and of course the soprano’s voice stands out entirely.  The libretto is written in English, French, and German, and Puts recognizes that different rhythms and, to some extent, styles, apply when setting each of the three languages.  The opera is sung through, with the relatively short arias incorporated into the dialog.  This is effective dramatically, although it doesn’t necessarily make for memorable tunes.  Puts and Campbell let the material speak for itself without sentimentalizing it, a plus in my book, although there’s an O. Henry twist at the end that struck me as being a little heavy-handed and that I could have done without.  The libretto is said to be very close to the screenplay of the film, which I have not seen, so I won’t blame it on the librettist.

All five performances of Silent Night were sold out, and the audience at the performance I attended (the last matinee) was very appreciative of the music, the singing, and the production.  Reviews have been good, and this combined with the warm reception by the audience must be encouraging to both the composer and the New Works Initiative.  Opera as an art form has a four-hundred-year history, and people who love it should not want that history to stop in the mid-twentieth century.

Overall, I think this is a good opera, but not a great one.  It seems to me that it works really well as staged music drama, but the music is tied closely enough to the action that it would be less rewarding as a purely listening experience.+  I hope it gets more productions, and I hope Kevin Puts sees his way to write more operas, as his first attempt came off so well.

A selection of brief scenes from Silent Night can be found here, on the Minnesota Opera web site.

**************************

* I’ve now heard a few snippets on YouTube.  Why don’t our orchestras program and our radio stations play more new classical music?  It’s out there and we rarely get to hear it.  Grrrr!

**  I dislike Steinbeck and think that Grapes received its only necessary musical treatment in Woody Guthrie’s Ballad of Tom Joad, but I was prepared to be open-minded about it.

***  In fact, I think Gordon’s opera is a good piece of work and deserves a place on stage.  I don’t know its performance history; it has a fairly large cast, which may make it less attractive to small companies.

+  I’ve noticed this about several of the new or new-ish productions I’ve seen.  I wonder if this is because we’ve become such a visual culture that some opera composers think in terms of stagings rather than recordings?  Opera was conceived as a form that would unify all the arts, but I think it’s fair to say that for most of its history, music was the dominant art and hearing the dominant sense in the mix.

We were looking for something we could do for a day, back last September at the time of our wedding anniversary. Something…interesting, not too strenuous, visually appealing; I’m sure you know the sort of thing. Eventually, we decided to be lazy tourists for a day on a trip to Brugge – often known as Bruges – in Belgium.

We’re lucky, living where we do in the south east tip of England, to have very easy access to mainland Europe. In fact, we can be in France or Belgium as quickly as London, sometimes, and that’s only 90 minutes away. When my brother was living and working in Belgium, near Antwerp, for six or seven years, it was relatively easy for us to visit and we took advantage of that – and the fact that he had learned to speak Flemish meant that we were given a greater appreciation for the culture in Flanders (the northern and Flemish-speaking half of Belgium) than may otherwise have been the case. However, there was so much to explore with him in and around Antwerp and Ghent that we’d not then gone as far as Brugge (Brugge being the name used for the city in its own area of Flanders, while Bruges is the name version used by the Francophone Belgians in the south of the country). The city is currently famous for its chocolate, and lace.

So, on a Sunday morning at the end of September we found ourselves on the outskirts of Brugge, walking down from the main parking area on a broad path through a park and approaching the city proper. Brugge is an ancient but relatively small city with a recently-built and modern port some miles away at Zeebrugge (Brugge-on-Sea) and is prospering. The day we were there (which was sunny and warm) it was very busy and bustling with tourists and locals alike. The scene below was one of the first we came upon as we approached the buildings near the centre.

On the walk into the city

Over the bridge and onto paved streets, we watched the horse-drawn carriages taking people for a tour of the city – and just past there, a refreshment pool for the horses.

Slightly gruesome image but I suppose the carriage horses don't mind it when drinking

The first street we wandered down had, on one side, four chocolate shops, in a row, and on the other a patisserie – with these delectable-looking objects in the window:

Drool, drool...

Life is very difficult, sometimes, the way eatables keep bringing themselves to one’s attention…

Leaving the Street of Too Many Temptations, we decided to take a boat tour of the city canals – not for nothing is Brugge one of the cities known as the ‘Venice of the North’. It was a delightful trip, lasting about 30 minutes, and with plenty to see as you can tell from the next few photos.

Blue sky, bridge, trees - a beautiful sight from the boat

Lovely brickwork and shapes

Watchdog, keeping an eye on the city's waterways

This dog was dreamily watching the water traffic, but not really bothered by anything.

Cormorant drying its wings - not a common sight in a city

'The Venice of the North'

After the boat trip had finished we wandered off to find some lunch and then went for a walk around the giant flea market in the centre, by one of the canals. Sadly, we couldn’t bring ourselves to remove any of these stunning treasures from their home to take back with us…

Stall in Sunday's flea market

And these figures were just a tad OTT – can you imagine trying to eat your way through one of these chocolate statues? We also felt that some of the models in these shops were a little lacking in another sort of taste. I was peering in the window of one shop when I suddenly noticed that I was only the other side of the glass from a realistically-modelled and almost full-sized female bosom, complete in all details. I recoiled, slightly, I must admit. I can’t imagine the occasion for which one would take such a thing home and present it for consumption! (And no, I didn’t take a photo of it.)

Chocolate models

Moving on again we found ourselves in the main square and stopped to admire some of the stunning architecture.

A city square to be proud of

Shortly after this we found ourselves lured by the window display into a wonderful cheese shop. One of the cheeses, made locally, was about the size and shape of a 10″ round fruit cake, it was mild-tasting and had the texture of solidified cream. We bought a slice – And I Have Since Forgotten Its Name (probably just as well, really).

The lace-making industry in the region is very famous and the items made are both beautiful and (to my eyes) extremely complicated in design. I cannot imagine how long it takes to learn to produce some of these things – a lifetime, I expect.

Mind-boggling work

Lovely old photos of skilled workers in lace

Altogether it was a fascinating day and we’re going to go back in the Spring for a weekend, so that we can spend more time in the museums and exhibitions than was possible on the Sunday of this day visit. With some of the most notable collections of Flemish paintings in the world housed in the city, there’s a lot still to see.

No no—I’m not one of those folks who thinks wolves and dog-wolf hybrids make dandy pets.*  I didn’t go out and buy a black-market wolf and bring her home to live with me and the cats (for which I’m sure the cats are grateful.)  No—I went to Wolf Park, in Battle Ground, Indiana, and I adopted a wolf named Wolfgang.

Wolf Park is an amazing place.  They’ve been around since the early 1970′s; their founder, Dr. Erich Klinghammer (sadly recently deceased,) was a pioneering animal behaviorist and ethologist, specializing in canids. He published the first wolf ethogram—essentially a comprehensive dictionary of wolf behaviors and their meanings and contexts. Right now Wolf Park consists about 75 acres of land, including a small lake, and is home to 14 wolves, 2 coyotes, 2 foxes, and a herd of bison.  All the animals (except possibly the bison) are completely socialized to having humans around—it’s not like a zoo, where the rule is generally hands-off animals unless it’s necessary for vet care. At Wolf Park, the staff are constantly interacting with the wolves.  Wolves are social animals, after all, and the staff are well-versed in the social cues and signals they’re giving us with every turn of the head or flick of the ear.  And one of the privileges of being a wolf “adoptive parent” is that you also have an opportunity to interact with a wolf face to face, under the careful supervision of staff.  How could I pass that up?

Wolf Park - The Visitors' Center

When I called to schedule my visit, I was told that unfortunately Wolfgang (“my” wolf) is not currently receiving visitors.  He’s the alpha of the main pack, and his behavior has become a little unpredictable, so the staff are no longer letting him meet his adopters. He and the alpha female were removed from the main pack enclosure while we were there—we could hear him complaining up a storm!  But in the meantime, I learned that I would instead be meeting his brother Wotan, a low-status male named Ruedi, and a year old female named Dharma.  I didn’t mind a bit—meeting a wolf is meeting a wolf, after all!

There’s a lengthy training session for wolf visitors, which I found completely fascinating—it was basically an introduction to the basics of wolf behavior and body language, with a staff member talking us through slides showing various facial expressions, interactions between the wolves, and basic wolf etiquette.  When you pet them, don’t pet them too long.  Pause after a few seconds to let them decide if they want you to continue, or if they’re going to move off.  If they put their nose somewhere you don’t want it, gently push them aside while saying “MINE.”  Pet on the neck and around the ears, if they let you, but not down the back or along the flanks.  Watch their faces for changes in expression.  Above all, DO WHAT THE STAFF MEMBERS TELL YOU.

After the training, we got to go to the main pack enclosure; there were 5 of us adoptive parents there that day, 3 of whom had done this before.  I can’t imagine it gets old, though.  Wolves.  Come on, right?

Wolves. Wows.

It was amazing.  They’re big, of course, and gorgeous—all three were very distinctly different looking, and it took me no time at all to figure out who was who.  Ruedi’s got striking black markings and lovely blue eyes.

Ruedi, posing handsomely by the lake.

Wotan is a big fella, with more of a buff color around his shoulders and face.

Wotan would like you to admire his nose.

And Dharma?  Couldn’t mistake her for anyone else, could you?  She’s a black wolf—which of course doesn’t mean inky black, but more a soft dark charcoal color.  I was smitten.

She walks in beauty, like the night...

The wolves weren’t all over us—they have visitors and staff in there every day, so it wasn’t quite as exciting for them as it was for us.  We kind of hung out, and they came and investigated us, wandered off, came back.  I got in plenty of wolf-scratching time, and eventually got showered with kisses and wolf-breath from both Dharma and Ruedi.  We got to watch them go “fishing” for slices of pepperoni tossed into the water by staff. It was really pretty incredible.

I highly recommend a visit to Wolf Park if you happen to be passing near Lafayette, Indiana on Interstate 65. They’re open to the public; there’s a modest ticket fee, but with that you get a full tour of the park plus a lecture on wolf behavior.  If you’re lucky you’ll catch a feeding (they mostly eat roadkill deer from the abovementioned highway) and if you really want to go all out, come to one of their bison-wolf hunt displays or a “Howl Night.”  There’s nothing like it.

Satisfactory.

* I’m of the opinion that if you want an enormous wolf-like creature that will walk on a leash and cuddle with you on the couch, you can look up one of the many fine malamute rescue organizations around the country.  If I could have a dog, I’d have a malamute.  I’m sadly allergic to dogs though, so I’m forced to live vicariously through the dogs of others.

I’m cooking a batch of Secret Onion Relish.  It’s quite a time-consuming process, and I seem to get around to it only once or twice a year, usually when some friend who had a jar of the last batch tells me it was delicious and … hint, hint.  So here I am, with ten pounds of white onions in their third hour of simmering, nothing much left to do but to stir occasionally, await the Right Consistency, and write a word or two to an old friend.  

Since this Relish is a secret recipe, I am sure I will burn eternally for writing about it at all, let alone in a Blog.  I had it from a little old lady who had it from the even older and smaller lady who established the restaurant that made it a local legend.  She has long since gone to a better place, and would anyway be disinclined to sue someone who is old and destitute and far past his mental prime, for what would be the advantage? — at least, I hope so, for that’s my sole defense.  Anonymity would not avail me, because the little old lady I got it from would give me up in half a heartbeat.  There is scant honor among cooks here on the mountain. 

It’s Saturday night.  I couldn’t undertake this relish on a week night, because it simply takes too long.   As it is, if I run out of time tonight, I can cook it some more tomorrow morning. 

There’s a lot of molasses involved.  Five cups of it, to my ten pounds of onions.  Also two-thirds of a cup of cider vinegar, among other things. 

Last night a friend from work came to dine with me.  I had no Secret Onion Relish to share, hence my cooking binge today.  He told me a story.  A young warden accompanies an older and very experienced warden on a fishing trip.  They catch nothing for hours.  Eventually the old warden extracts a quarter-stick of dynamite from his vest, lights the fuse and tosses it in the stream.  The young warden is appalled:  “How can you do such a thing, having sworn an oath to uphold the law?”  The older warden produces another quarter-stick with an even shorter fuse, lights it, tosses it into the youngster’s lap, and says:  “Now, are you going to keep runnin’ your mouth, or are you going to fish?”  — So I’ll just keep running my mouth for a while, so to speak, and let the relish simmer down.  It’s important to be patient when you’re cooking Secret Onion Relish. 

I have not yet mentioned the brown sugar.  There are two pounds of it in the original recipe, but I often use somewhat less, because I prefer the relish not-so-sweet;  and I also furtively increase the cider vinegar to a whole cup, if no one’s watching.  But it’s all personal taste. 

 … And now it’s Sunday morning and the batch is once again on the burner after a few hours of rest.  It’s still possible to stir it fairly easily and plenty of liquid still to be simmered away, but the culinary outline is plain.  I have just sampled it (by the way, hot onion relish is absolutely delicious on cottage cheese) and I was wrong about the cayenne pepper.  I am going to add another half ounce, stir well, allow a few minutes, and re-sample. 

Um … the trick with this <gasp> extra half ounce of cayenne is to make very sure <gasp> that it is evenly distributed throughout the relish, by stirring even more than you think is enough.  <choke>  

I’m just saying. 

That distillate, like life itself, has quite a bite to it if you let it sit on your tongue a while. 

So here is the secret of Secret Onion Relish, spelled out: 

            10 lbs white onions

             5 C molasses

             2/3 C cider vinegar

             2 lbs dark brown sugar

            1 to 2 oz cayenne pepper, to taste

            4 or 5 apples, chopped fine

            …and perhaps 1/2 cup of tequila, if you like tequila!

Combine all ingredients except the onion.  Heat slowly in an 8-qt or larger pot while you skin and chop the onions, gradually adding them to the liquid mixture.  (If you do it this way, the early onions will cook down a bit and you’ll have room for the rest of them in the 8-qt pot;  if you start with the onions, the pot will likely overflow.)  Simmer the mixture for 3 to 6 hours until the liquid is reduced and the relish reaches an almost-jelly consistency.  Serve with meat dishes, or with cottage cheese, or anything else that appeals to you.  It’s nothing if not versatile.  

When I simmer this mix, I tip the pot lid a bit to let the steam out, and the pot invariably spits little bits of sugar all over my stove and my kitchen floor.  I learned, after my first few batches of relish, to put newspapers down on the floor in front of the stove before I start.  

In my experience the typical yield is about 4 qt of relish, which I divide among  several large and small canning jars while it is still boiling hot;  cover, cool, and store.  

Make sure to contribute some to any friends whose lives could use a bit of extra kick, because I can assure you that this relish will succeed where less stubborn relishes would fail.  If you enjoy it, remember me kindly. 

Love to all,

Hedgehog

Well, what would you think if you received a phone call out of the blue saying “Congratulations, you’ve won a safari to South Africa”? Probably the same as Paul thought – it’s a con, what’s the catch?

Fortunately he didn’t (as I am wont to do) hang up!

“Did you stay at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Birmingham in May”?

Mmm – yes …

“Do you remember completing a competition entry, when you checked out of the hotel”?

Mmmm – no not really ….

“Well, you’ve won first prize in the random draw – a five day safari trip to Kruger Park in South Africa. We’ll be sending you an email”.

Wow, ok!

And then came the email:

Which finally convinced him.

We’d won!

He then had the job of convincing me – and ten months later, we went on our safari!

We left it as late as possible, and chose the end of August. This is the end of the SA winter, the end of the dry season. With water supplies concentrated around fewer waterholes, and almost no foliage on the trees, conditions would be optimum for spotting wildlife.

Hardened cynic that I am, I thought that this was going to be “safari for the masses”. I envisaged being packed in a safari jeep with loads of others, going out in convoys, and generally being herded around and not seeing very much. How pleasantly surprised I was to be proved so wrong!

Our prize itinerary included time at Elephant Whispers (a sanctuary with six tamed and trained elephants rescued from culling)

http://elephantwhispers.co.za

This was a really interesting morning. One of the guides gave a fascinating talk, with one of the elephants lying down so we could feel his ears and his skin, and look under his feet …

After the “Interaction”, we went on a short elephant ride (no dignity here, for us tourists, when it comes to being helped off the back of a very tall elephant)! Elephant Whispers was just on the other side of the Sabie River from our accommodation, the Hippo Hollow estate. We returned to Hippo Hollow and then, from their side of the river, came the elephants to have a good old wallow and scratch and play around in the mud and the dust and the grass and the water. What a treat that was, to sit in the sun and watch them for an hour and a half.

Tembo, the largest of the six elephants, wanting to come out of the river onto the hotel-side river bank, and having to be dissuaded!

Our safari “proper” with an early morning game drive. We also had as part of the prize a full day safari and two sundowner safaris, which left us with two mornings/early afternoons free. Concerned about the potential hordes of tourists, we booked ourselves on private early morning safari, to guarantee at least one trip with just us two and the guide. As it turned out, we were the only ones on the full day safari and one of the evening drives as well, so we had three private trips in all, which was just fantastic! ^^

For our second free morning, on our last day, Paul persuaded me to have a go on the Skyway Trail, Africa’s longest aerial cable trail comprising nine separate cable slides over – and through – 1.2km of forest. http://www.skywaytrails.com. To say I took a bit of persuading is putting it mildly. But the alternative was quadbiking, and I’d tried that before. Never again!! *

And it was fantastic!!  I loved it!! As soon as we’d finished, I wanted to do it all again.

Paul said smugly, “I knew you’d enjoy it”!

At the top of the first, high slide. This is SO not a good idea. There is NO WAY …

Wheeee!!!

Touchdown!

Through the woods

Fantastic! I want to do it all again!

* I do not do adrenalin at all. I don’t like fear! If you’d seen me having a go at quadbiking in Namibia three years ago, you’d have laughed! I was absolutely pathetic!  Two – very slow – circuits of the practice track and that was it – I was in the jeep with the driver following the others on their quadbikes over the dunes! Much more fun – and I could take pictures.

^^ Photos to follow in part 2.

It’s a beautiful fall afternoon so I decide to take a short break from counting horsehair and go wander the forest (conveniently located right across the street) searching for any wild mushrooms that may be lurking. There isn’t much but I do find some Coprinus comatus (also known as the shaggy mane) so that makes me happy. Then it’s time to do the chores.

This starts with milking the goats. Everything starts with milking the goats. First thing in the morning, I go out and milk the goats. First thing I do for evening chores is milk the goats. The horses are shouting, “ME! he he he he he!” but they know what comes first as well as I do: if you have dairy goats, they must be milked twice a day, and the goats get milked before the other chores are done. Despite the horses grumping about it, the chores finally get done.

Once inside I start eyeing my basket of mushrooms. What to do with them? As it happens, I also have several gallons of milk, as usual. Well, mozzarella would be nice – then I could have pizza. An hour later, I’m indulging in the pure yummy goodness of a pizza with fresh mozzarella and wild mushrooms. What would pizza, or life, be if there were no cheese? I can’t say. Luckily for me, I live life with cheese.

*****

When I tell people that I have goats and that I make cheese, they immediately assume that I only make a type of soft or cream cheese called chevre. This is French for “goat”. Well. There are more types of cheese than chevre, although I do make that too.

Cheese (“milk’s leap towards immortality”, Clifton Fadiman) describes a lot of different things. There are cheeses that are soaked in brine like feta, cheeses that are “stretched curd”  like mozzarella, cheeses that are made from whey like ricotta, cheeses that use a bacteria that likes lower temperatures like cheddar, cheeses that use a bacteria that likes higher temperatures like parmesan, cheeses that use a blue mold like Stilton and cheeses that use a white mold like brie.

I get hungry just thinking about it.

There are some really good points about making your own cheese. You can go from milk to mozzarella in 30 minutes – nice fresh warm mozzarella. There are also some bad points. For example, cheesecake. With blueberries. Anytime you want it. I have to work on not wanting it very often.

It all starts with milk, of course. You can make cheese from pretty much any milk you can get your hands on. It does not make much difference if it came from a yak or a ewe, milk is milk. Oh sure, there are some subtle differences in amounts of protein, butterfat, casein or lactose, but it’s all milk and it will all make cheese.

A lot of cheese-makers believe that the only good milk is raw milk, right from the animal. It’s hard for me to argue with this; I have goats, I’ve had goats for 35 years, so I’ve always made cheese from my own raw goat’s milk. There is currently a big debate in the USA about raw milk versus pasteurized, but frankly I don’t find that debate very interesting. I’m far more interested in goats.

I just can not resist a goat’s nature. Goats are willful, playful, obstreperous, charming, obstinate, friendly and intelligent. I think they all secretly want to overthrow the government. I can sympathize. Mine are all purebred Nubians, a handsome breed with long pendulous ears and a sweet expression that makes up (somewhat) for their sometimes stubborn behavior.

A good dairy goat will produce up to two gallons/7.58 liters of milk a day for 10 months out of the year. Most goats love to be milked, mostly because there is a big bucket for grain on the milk stand. Every time I open the gate to the goat pen there is a mad rush to try and get past me and out, and if one manages it she will race over and jump on the milk stand and then turn to look at me in wonder. I know just what she’s thinking: “There’s supposed to be food in this bucket, you MORON”. Goats can never get over their astonishment at how incredibly dense I am.

*****

If you are going to make cheese, the first thing you must do is thoroughly and completely clean everything that will come in contact with your cheese. A lot of cheese making is about helping the good bacteria, which makes the cheese tasty, and stopping the activity of the bad bacteria which would cause spoilage. Like an old western, it’s about the good guys winning and the bad guys losing, so don’t let the bad guys win! Keep everything VERY clean. I use all stainless steel equipment, scrub it out completely, and use bleach (which is rinsed out very well). It’s also a good idea to really follow the directions; if it says, “stirring constantly for  2 hours” well by gum, you better stir constantly for 2 hours. I’m not just guessing here; my first cheddar was very nearly a disaster through not enough stirring.

Some cheese making takes a long time; some cheeses are aged for years. Some cheese making requires special equipment, like a cheese press, although I’ve done things like balance my jeweler’s anvil on a plate for weight. The anvil tends to crash over in the middle of the night just as you are falling asleep; cheese presses are a lot easier and quieter, so I go that route now. Sometimes you also need some special ingredients: lipase powder, for instance, or different types of bacteria or mold to inoculate your cheese. There are several places to get these various things but I like New England Cheese Supply and usually order from them. Here is their website: http://www.cheesemaking.com/

As it happens, the lady who runs New England Cheese Supply, Ricki Carroll, wrote a book about cheese making that includes something like 75 recipes for various cheeses. It’s called “Home Cheese Making”. I have this book and recommend it; you can get it on her site.

But how about YOU making cheese? Oh yes, you can. You CAN. I promise, this is really easy. You don’t even need anything special to do this.

Equipment:

pot that will hold a little over 1 gallon/3.78 liters

slotted spoon for stirring and scooping

either a piece of cheese cloth or a large cotton handkerchief

large bowl

colander

thermometer

Ingredients:

1 gallon/3.78 liters of milk (whole milk is best if you can get it)

¼ cup/59.15 ml of apple cider vinegar or some other type of vinegar

½ teaspoon/2.5 ml baking soda

non-iodized salt, if you like salt (about ½ teaspoon/2.5 ml should do it)

Method:

Put the milk in a big pot, preferably stainless steel or enamel but use what you have. Put the pot directly on the heat. Heat the milk to 195F/90.5C, stirring frequently to prevent scorching. When it reaches this temperature slowly pour in the vinegar while stirring… you are watching for the separation of the curd and the whey. The curd will look like tiny little white particles like miniature clouds and the whey will look clear. I keep the pot on the heat, because if you do not get this separation after a few minutes you can continue heating to 205F/96.1C but no higher, you do not want it to boil. Keep stirring! It should separate by now. Take it off the heat. Now get a slotted spoon and scoop the curds out onto a piece of cheesecloth (or a big cotton handkerchief, a very clean one of course) in a colander over a bowl. Scoop out all the curds from the whey, tie the 4 corners of your cloth in a knot and hang the curds in your cloth for a bit – anywhere from 5 minutes to maybe 20 minutes; I usually wait until they are not dripping very much. Place the curds in a bowl, and sprinkle on ½ teaspoon/2.5 ml baking soda and stir in well. Add in some salt if desired but taste your cheese first to see if you like it as is – and perhaps add some fresh herbs from your garden. Chives? Rosemary? Dill? Garlic? Well, I will leave that up to you.  It’s all a matter of taste and what you like.

Put your cheese in a covered bowl in the refrigerator. It will keep for one to two weeks. That is, if there is any left by then. The whey can be used to water the garden, or simply poured down the sink.

*****

I am quite childishly proud of my latest cheese. The recipe comes from the “Home Cheese Making” book and in there it’s called Guido’s cheese but since this man’s home region is Tuscany, I like to think of it as Tuscany cheese. It’s a hard cheese that is pressed, soaked in brine and then aged, but is extremely tasty after only two weeks. However, the truth is I’ve gone on a little long here, maybe even too long, so I’ll stop writing and just end with a picture of the cheese. Cheese, fresh focaccia bread and wine – a fine ending, in my opinion.