Muntjac buck browsing in the woods opposite our B&B

Interesting video of a Muntjac buck is 'in velvet' (the antlers are still covered with skin) - they are of an unusual shape for a Muntjac.

Green Tourism Award

Today we received the good news that we have been a 'Silver' in the Green Tourism Business Scheme.

Redwings spotted in our garden

This morning we spotted a large amount of Redwings on our lawn, we counted 50+.
One moment they were there, next moment they were gone. The Redwing is rarely seen in gardens as it is typical farmland and hedgerow bird. For more information: http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/r/redwing/index.aspx

We didn't manage to take any pictures - we found this picture on the Net.

(Photo by Mick Dryden)

Green Tourism Scheme (England)

We are now a member of the England Green Tourism Scheme and will soon be audited and graded.
Green Tourism Scheme

Muntjac deer in our garden, pictures taken at night

Infrared pictures of wildlife in our garden

Father Christmas left me a lovely present: A wildlife Cam.
This one is now set up to make pictures only when it is dark, triggered by PIR or Passive Infra Red.
When the camera senses an animal it quickly makes three pictures in three seconds. So far we have only managed dozens of pictures of our chickens, on those nights they're still out after 16.00 Hours. But finally....a fine Muntjac buck, and a Fox dog.

Sausage making!

Finally, we had some rain today...;) so a good day to make a fresh batch of sausages.
You may wonder what the relevance is to this Blog: Well, I believe using good, local and seasonal produce is relevant to your environmental credentials. More importantly, if the raw ingredients are of an excellent quality then the end result is likely to be pretty good. You know where it comes from, how far it traveled, and what's in it.
What's in it is of course important when making a sausage: Many butchers (but not all!) will use any old scraps to put through the mincer, add some bought-in ready mixed sausage flavouring powder, add salt (a lot of it), add rusk (even more, to keep the ingredients costs down) and ram it through a machine using collagen casing, made out any unspeakable part of animals.

Well...not here!

Today's batch of sausages is made out of the following list of ingredients:

• Gloucester Old Spot free range minced pork from the Sudeley Estate, Winchcombe (100%)
• Onions from our own garden (7% of the meat weight)
• Sage and Rosemary from our own garden
• Black pepper
• Breadcrumbs (7% of the meat weight)
• Water (7% of the meat weight)
• Virgin rape seed oil
• Curing Salt (0.75% of the total weight)
• Natural hog casings

The process is as follows:

1. Chop the onions, sweat  in a little rape seed oil, add chopped herbs and spices, add salt, add the water, bring to the boil to dissolve the salt, cool.
2. Mix this with the minced pork and bread-crumps.
3. Put in the sausage making machine and press the sausages into the casings to make one VERY LONG SAUSAGE.
4. Make a string of little sausages by squeezing and twisting
5. Leave to dry in a cool airy place overnight

Ready!

Putting the minced pork mixture in the sausage making machine

Turning out one large sausage, using a hand-cranked machine

Dividing the large sausage into individual linked sausages