mushrooms – Page 4 – derrickjknight

What’s Eating The Bulbs?

This morning, I dug out 14 brick lengths of bramble and ivy roots from the back drive’s Northern border. We have had less rain the last couple of days, therefore I thought I would return to the task. Actually the soil remains rather heavy and cloying, so it was tough on the back, and I welcomed the drizzle that gave me an excuse to stop. On the Southern side, Jackie is probably going to be disappointed in her dream of a fine display of daffodils in the spring, because the bulbs she planted are being eaten. We haven’t seen any squirrels, but we do have mice, which, last night, Giles suggested might be the culprits.

It is probably slugs scissoring patterns into the iris petals.

One of the dead stumps has produced its own golden mushroom cluster.

This afternoon I scanned and identified a set of black and white negatives from the summer of 1982. A considerable amount of retouching was required. I will tell the story and feature a selection of the photographs tomorrow. That’s because we are due more heavy rain which probably won’t be conducive to a new set of images. After all, there are only so many ways one can depict raindrops falling into puddles.

This evening we dined on Jackie’s superb chilli con carne (recipe), savoury rice, and green beans, followed bu steamed ginger sponge and custard. She drank Hoegaarden and I began a new bottle of Castillo San Lorenzo rioja reserva 2009.

Yesterday’s Bread

This morning I took my usual walk to Milford on Sea and back. Above The Solent, a weak sun peeked through gaps in the clouds, while on the cliff top the ever-present hooded crows trotted about.
In the nature reserve squirrels avoided the muddy footpaths by leaping across them from tree to tree. Bracket fungus on a tree by the stream supplied a convenient stepladder for wild life, while orange mushrooms brightened the leafy carpet beneath.
As, at lunchtime, I tucked into lovely fresh bread, crusty on the outside, and soft on the inside, I marvelled at Jackie’s technique for keeping it in the condition in which it came off the supermarket shelf several days ago. She freezes it after each meal and defrosts it in readiness for the next. This is a method she learned as a carer of elderly women living alone in the 1970s. Most of her clients did have fridges and freezers, but they preferred their bread bins. The contents of these were invariably green with mould which was transferred to any new loaves that were added. Gradually, she managed to persuade some to use their modern technology.
Yesterday I wrote of the 1940s without washing machines. Life was hard for everyone in those post war days. Please do not imagine you can hear violins playing, that’s just how it was. Other white goods unavailable to the ordinary family at that time were fridges and freezers. My mother, however, had no need to preserve loaves that, with her growing family, stood no chance of surviving a day. In fact, she would send us to the baker’s to buy yesterday’s bread which was cheaper and, being less scrumptious, lasted longer. I seem to remember a figure of 4d. that we handed over for each purchase. That is four old pence, roughly equivalent, if my arithmetic is correct, to 2p. today.
The hot summer of 1947 was particularly problematic in keeping milk and butter from going off. Bottles of milk were kept in cold water in the kitchen sink. Butter simply became runny. I couldn’t bear that, so I would only eat Echo margarine, the single oily spread that was at all impervious to the heat. This, of course, is really only fit for cooking, and no way would I consider it today.
This evening Jackie drove us to The Red Lion at Milford on Sea where we dined with Giles and Jean. My meal was steak and ale pie followed by plum tart and custard. Jackie chose hunter’s chicken followed by treacle sponge and custard. She drank Peroni and I drank Spitfire. The food was good and the company easy and enjoyable.
It is still hit and miss whether or not we have internet access. Fortunately WordPress backs up and saves my work when the connection drops, otherwise I would be tearing my hair out when trying to produce and send my posts.

Chips And Gravy

Vine weevil larvae have been feeding on the roots of Jackie’s prized heucheras. Our eagle-eyed head gardener spotted the wilting plants yesterday afternoon, lifted what was left of them, scraped off the infestation, and placed them in water to encourage new growth. The rubber duck is keeping its eye on them.
Favouring those in pots, these voracious intruders, less than the size of a little finger nail, destroy the roots of plants, requiring a painstaking process of filtering the soil to eradicate them. This is made more difficult by white material often found in compost. Jackie dons rubber gloves and weeds them out, repotting the affected plants. This is the damage that they do:
She continued the task this morning.
Not being tempted to repeat yesterday’s trek, I took my normal walk to Hordle Cliff top and back. Friesan cattle occasionally amorous, clustered on the slopes at the bottom of Downton Lane, created fascinating random black and white patterns as they huddled together. When any one was subjected to an attempt at mounting she simply walked away, leaving her suitor with no alternative but to flop back in embarrassment onto all fours.
Along the coast road, a tidy up crew were clearing away the barriers and filling in the holes left during the replacement of the street lighting. Interestingly, there is no street lighting on our stretch of Christchurch Road, with its 60 mph speed limit, approaching a crossroads, although there are three or four lamps on Downton Lane, each one placed on a bend.
Possibly flourishing in the sea air, the mushroom crop, producing its own intriguing symmetrical patterns, increases daily.
On an early morning shopping trip, Jackie had noticed Lidl were selling oil filled radiators. You never know when you might need one, and with this store’s surprises you have to be quick to catch them before they disappear, so we went back this afternoon and bought one.
Afterwards we put in a good stint on the back drive. Jackie continued the creation of her lengthy flowerbed on one side, and I dug up more bramble and ivy roots.
A mixed grill to rival that of The Plough at Tiptoe was produced by Jackie for our evening meal. With the addition of peppers and onions hers was rather less dry than that of the pub. She included neither beef steak nor lamb chop, but the large gammon steak made up for that. I could just about manage to eat a tiramisu afterwards. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, and I finished the Lion’s Gate wine.
One of the attractions for me of The Crown Inn at Everton is that chips and gravy comes as standard with their steak and kidney pudding. It is otherwise infra dig to pour gravy over chips. Chips must be dry, and it is mash that must be dowsed in gravy. Having witnessed me betraying my penchant for this culinary crime at The Crown, Jackie provided gravy for my meal tonight. She didn’t think it really appropriate for a fried egg, and therefore didn’t partake, but for me it was perfection.

Charge The Battery

Taking my normal route this morning to Hordle Cliff, I then turned right and walked to Barton on Sea. From there I took a steeply undulating footpath, initially gravelled then turning to mud. Emerging at Barton Lodge Care Home I took another two right turns into Milford Road, passing Taddiford Farm and picking up the footpath across a fallow field, alongside the wood, through Roger’s fields, into Downton Lane, and home.
The path to Barton comes close enough to the crumbling cliff edge to remind me of my frightening walk with Paul. At one point I stepped aside for a cyclist wobbling towards me. She continued towards the safety of the made up path to Milford.
A courageous runner was unperturbed by the proximity of the drop into the ocean.
A variety of mushrooms had pushed their way up through the undergrowth on the borders of the track.
Unfortunately I missed a number of good shots on this walk because my camera battery ran out of juice. There was just enough to fuel a message that read ‘charge the battery’. Barton on Sea Golf Club was having some new landscaping undertaken, and figures were happily silhouetted on the hilly slopes. The gravelled path ran alongside this course, and walkers were warned that on rare occasions miss-hit balls could possibly come whanging their way. As a muddy track took over, and ran through bracken and gorse, we were asked to keep to the footpath and not feed the animals. The only sign of such creatures were what looked like pony droppings and hoof prints on the path. There were some picturesque views out to sea from a number of memorial seats nestling in appropriate vantage points.
On Milford Road I found a small purple rubber duck with a spiky hair-do, that I thought our
water boy might like to play with. This unstable little creature tipped upside down, so Jackie sat it on the side of the water feature’s shell. Once the battery was charged, I could photograph the toy.
If I can summon up the courage to hug the cliff top, to run the gauntlet of golf balls, and to tackle the speeding traffic on Milford Road, I must take that route again, in similarly enticing light, when I have a fully charged battery.
Dinner this evening consisted of chicken breasts marinaded in piri-piri sauce, roast potatoes and other vegetables, and boiled peas and carrots. For afters we enjoyed egg custards. Jackie drank Hoegaarden from what she said was a good year. My wine was Lion’s Gate cabernet sauvigon shiraz 2013.

Had I Been Wearing A Hat………

On the way down the garden for my circular walk to Hordle Cliff and back I passed several naked ladies bearing no hint of goose pimples. These nerines are so called because they appear before their leaves.
Not having Jessica’s confident fungal knowledge I could not identify the mushrooms now growing on the verge of the coast road. I stick to what you can buy in the shops. It’s safer that way.
Visible from the cliff top, a layer of lit cloud contrasted with the streak of blue sky on the horizon. There Bob, having cycled to the spot, was preparing his psyche for running up and down the steps. This tough gentleman, suffering from Parkinson’s disease and having had an operation for a fused back, took this exercise, which I would no longer attempt, because ‘you have to keep going’. Had I been wearing a hat, I would have taken it off to him.
Our sister in law, Frances, had sent me some photographs from her mobile phone, asking me if I could do anything with them. She needn’t have worried. They were excellent shots of a male muntjac deer. And I don’t even know how to use the camera on my Samsung Galaxy. I just lightened them up a bit and also produced some crops. Here are a couple:
The mushroom season is also the time for lunches of Jackie’s soups. Today’s was spinach. Her method is as follows:
For two pints of soup:
Make a roux using 1 1/2 ounces each of butter and flour. Add 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg.
Keep adding milk until you have a rich creamy sauce. Put to one side.
In another ounce of butter fry a finely chopped onion. Then add a 200g bag of spinach (unless you grow your own) and fry until it reduces down.
Add a pint of chicken stock.
When cooked thoroughly ‘stick it through a blender’. Reheat the roux, gradually add the puree to it and cook a little while longer.
Try it. It is delicious.
This afternoon we continued our work on the back drive. I removed and piled up more cuttings on the November bonfire pile, and Jackie spent time clearing soil from the gravel.
This evening we dined on smoked haddock fish cakes, chips, cauliflower cheese (recipe), carrots and runner beans. I drank Marston’s Premium, exceptional premium Pale Ale, and Jackie finished the chenin blanc.

Anansi

This afternoon I walked the two underpasses route via the Sir Walter Tyrrell.

The wall of Yew Tree Cottage at Stoney Cross bore evidence of the season on which I had focussed last week in France, as did the row of logs laid out to keep cars at their distance.

I was to see many more mushrooms on my walk across the North side of the A31. The heathland felt and sounded as if I were walking across a thick-piled Wilton carpet.

Although still warm, it was a dull day on which holly and rowan berries provided the occasional welcome gleam.

As I tramped downhill towards the above-mentioned pub, I encountered two Eastern European gentlemen who didn’t have much English, but did know their mushrooms.

I think at least the man with the basket did understand when I told them about Jessica’s avid interest in the foraging that they were undertaking.

This meeting reminded me of Anansi. Sometime in the late 1980s I was facilitating a series of team building days with a staff group of residential social workers at varying levels in the hierarchy. I very soon realised I had my work cut out because most of these people only met during handover periods; no two individuals shared the same nationality, gender, racial characteristics or sexual orientation; and there were 17 of them.

By the end of the first day it was all in danger of going horribly wrong. Racking my brains overnight, I came up with the idea of the West African mythical storyteller, and Little Miss Muffet.

Abandoning the programme I had prepared earlier, I took a flip-chart and drew a spider hanging from a web on the large sheet of paper. I asked the group members to tell us what they thought and felt when seeing this drawing. As always, it took a minute or two for the first volunteer to tell us about her thoughts. Slowly, people began to rush to tell theirs. And eventually fear or reverence could be expressed. Anansi, the spider, is loved for his storytelling; whereas it was a spider who ‘frightened Miss Muffet away’.

On another sheet of paper I portrayed a set of cricket stumps with a West Indian male wicket-keeper crouching behind them. I went on to tell of Tony Pinder, the best keeper who ever received my bowling, and how he and his brother Winston, who, when I began playing club cricket in 1957 had been the first black people I had ever met. I spoke of their influence on me, and, in particular, the father figure that Winston, known as Bunny, had struck.

I had their interest. This waned momentarily when I invited them to take their turns at drawing anything relevant to their culture or history that they would like to tell us about. That was scary. However, the floodgates soon opened. At the end of the day many people had not had time for a turn, but all wanted to spend the following, last, day finishing the task. Many brought their own art materials.

Then came what, to me, was the greatest, and most satisfying, surprise. A white Central European woman and a black African man both described mushroom gathering from their childhoods. They realised that they had, after all, something in common. I have always hoped that the team continued to build on the discoveries that emerged from these exercises. Once we accept our differences and look beyond them, we are quite similar, really.

Helen sent me her pig pictures, one of which I inserted into yesterday’s post.

This evening Jackie fed us on her classic chicken jalfrezi with mushroom rice and Kingfisher beer.