The House(s) of Fran_mart

Lets start with a few images of the Autumnal leaves around our garden. We have had the first frost (although the readers in Ottawa and Oslo might not regard a brief whitening of the lawn as a frost) and it is time to get on to a different form of gardening. It is certainly a lot nicer working in the yard at 20 degrees C than 35! One of my small tasks was to pick the last of our grapes. I took a photo to celbrate the fact that we managed to get a fair crop this year, largely as a result of the good advice from (and work by) the Ey family, and Frances efforts in sewing up the netting to keep the birds out. Now that we know it can be done, next year we will do something about getting some water in there occasionally to boost production. The photo to the left is a fractal half-cabbage. A splendid vegetable by any standard, but especially so since it is the first time we have succesfully grown cabbage. It tasted nice also but the purple coloration gave rise to some interesting after eff

Since my last report on suds production ( I think in http://franmart.blogspot.com/2007/12/zymurgy-continued.html ) the only really interesting thing was the addition of a small amount of blackberry to a couple of samples of a brew of Coopers Draught I compiled in early March. The idea was to use it as the carbohydrate to stimulate secondary fermentation and give a lambic taste and feel. The two bottles in question have now been tasted and were definitely a bit different to the normal brew. In terms of taste I couldn't really say they had a blackberry flavour - but then I have trouble picking the chocolate, melon and guano (sic) tones identified by poncey wine writers. It was more that these bottles seemed to have a crisper taste than those with the standard sugar based secondary (of course they all used sugar of some form for the primary fermentation). in terms of 'feel' there were some chewy bits in the final glass out of the bottle, but they were big enough to remov

With apologies to Charles Schultz (and Linus). Unlike Godot, the (relatively) Great Pumpkin has arrived in Carwoola. It also brought some relatives of various sizes and complexions,with it. The images below show the assembled mass. We waited for the first frost before harvesting. This did not actually appear on our purchased thermometer, which is sheltered under the verandah, but was very evident from the reaction of our basil plants (RIP) . The sizes can be best ascertained from the one below in which my stomach is offered as a metric. Note also the nice Autumn colours (or indeed Fall colors) on the pin-oak!

The following are a bunch of images from the National Folk Festival, held over the Easter holiday weekend. They show, in order: Pacific Curls (excellent) Genticorum (i) flute player imitating Ian Anderson and (ii) all three members; Peggy Seeger (tended to preach too much); Rory McLeod (good singer, basically a comedian); Mike Compton (excellent mandolin player from Nashville)