Eggs & Bacon

Today started with a whizz over to the Rugby club for 10 o'clock only to find that TP's team had an away match but we seemed to have been missed off the email advising us of the location and time of kick off. Having missed the match we left TP to his own devices in the car and took T&M for a walk over the fields behind the pitches. There seemed little point in simply turning round and going straight home as T&M seem to enjoy walks in pastures new.

The missed rugby match meant that I had regained an hour of my life and used this to start the curing of a large loin of pork that 30% had picked up in Tesco on Friday. The plan for this piece of meat is to produce some more Black Bacon following the success of our first attempt that was devoured over Christmas.

The Loin will be massaged in a dry cure daily for the next five or six days before being washed and soaked and then massaged in black treacle for a further week. The result should be a fine piece of Black Back Bacon ......

...... and perfect timing too as the first egg of the year was laid by one of the Minorca's this morning. About time too - those idle hens haven't laid an egg for the best part of 4 months as the moult and the diminishing day lengths inhibit their laying. I'm not expecting a glut anytime soon as it could be days before she lays again and weeks before her colleagues decide to pitch in. That's the thing with older hens, they lay lovely big eggs but not many of them.

This afternoon 30% has planned our US Road Trip and TP and I have pretended to help by nodding and saying yes at the appropriate points.This is not wholly true but apparently my tangential research in to how much a bison would cost* was "Not Helping".

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* a calf is in the region of $700 - $1200