Get a grip woman!

foxgloves

I have a soft spot for corvids but agree they can be destructive, also woodpigeons. As a country, I think we should be eating more of those - they do seem to be proliferating at a huge rate.
The worst bird for inflicting damage in our garden, however, is sparrows. Once one of them starts shredding something, the others all join in. The worst thing is that they don't even eat what they've destroyed, just shred then spit the bits onto the ground. I have to net pretty much all peckable veg plants until they are big & strong enough to withstand an attack. Our local woodpigeons do chomp veg plants but not as destructive as the sparrows, who nest locally (which I like, as they are a declining species) & so a group of 10 to 20+ is not at all unusual. That's a lot of beaks!
My Great Great Aunt who was Suffolk-born & bred used to make sparrow pie. They had very little & there were 14 of them in a tiny house, so I suppose it was a cheap form of protein. I have her ancient salting crock & often wonder exactly what she had in it!
F x

Suffolk_lass

I have one of those - we had a lid made for ours and it is nominally a bread bin, although with two of us now it gets used for things like the bag of dry pet food. I always think I will try salting but I know it won't appeal once done - so bottling and freezing remain my choices.

BTW the bottles of stewed apple are a great success. They are keeping well and the small 250ml jars are perfect to split between us with a dollop of Greek Style yogurt, or to stir into a tin of rice pudding for a dessert after a supper that leaves too much of a savoury after-taste

foxgloves

Oooh, I hope mine have worked. I will defo do more bottling next year if this year's novice attempts have worked. I did 4 jars of chopped tomatoes, 2 of stewed apple & 2 of poached cinnamon pears. Going forward, it'd give me a lot more room in the freezer....though the pantry would be chocka.
I did have a book about salting hams & was so tempted to try but I was put off by the instruction that said "If you see areas of rotting meat or maggots, cut it out & rub in more fresh salt"........book duly went in charity shop bag!
F

badmemory

foxgloves said:

"If you see areas of rotting meat or maggots, cut it out & rub in more fresh salt"........book duly went in charity shop bag!
F

Ew - I think I may have been a litlle less careful with that book & it may well have landed up in landfill.  You don't know where it has been! Perhaps the writer had been used to dealing with roadkill meat.   Of course you could just curry it after all maggots must be protein.  I am laughing by the way.  It is a pity the tone doesn't carry over when you are typing.

foxgloves

@badmemory - Lol, it was a book about self-sufficiency & it did include other less hardcore projects, but the m-word put me off!
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Watty1

Just had a lovely rural catch up on here. Thank you all.  have left this thread smiling

MissRikkiC

Me too @Watty1

Suffolk_lass

Maggots! Good grief, the topics we cover on here (really chuckling here!). It's still fruit flies here (where do they come from?) and I believe I heard a rat in the void above my kitchen roof so I got DH to pull out all the plastic crates of glasses (nightmare! loads of them!). It's when meat starts to go green that you really need to worry! I once bought some well hung steak from the local farm shop butcher that was green when I got it home. It did not make it to plate and I now stick with my regular butcher in the next town, or Morries - because they, like Waitflower are using their own farms and all completely traceable. - I still recall vividly the horse-meat scandal. Not for me because it was horse-meat. For me it was indicative of not really caring about the traceability and provenance of suppliers and sourcing. Both Waitflower and Morries came through that without a blemish.

I was in the butchers yesterday. I went in to order a small piece of gammon. I was reading the game and poultry "Order for Christmas" wall of options on A3 posters and saw the Goose poster which I read as far as "Due to the ongoing supply issues with the prevalence of bird-flu in East Anglia, we are sorry..." so then one of the butchers asked if I wanted to place a Christmas order and I said we were thinking of goose as I was not in charge of turkeys this year. It turns out they have some 5-6kg birds that are currently frozen but they will defrost so they are ready to cook - so I did it. I ordered one!

It will likely be around £100 which is the going rate (I had looked at all the SM and both Waitflower & M&S have already sold out at the same price) - so we will have goose and a turkey crown. I also asked for a small (800g - 1kg) haunch of venison, which I will freeze I think. We are in a cottage in Scotland again in April and with the dog, unlikely to be able to eat with everyone else when they eat out. My Mum gave me £200 cash for our Christmas as she isn't joining us this year so that is what we will be using it for. I managed to bag a fillet tail while in the butcher's too!

badmemory

I was reading that a lot of birds will be pre-frozen then defrosted this year because of the bird flu.  As long as they tell you it has been frozen & then defrosted.  It is when they don't tell you it is a problem.  Years ago it used to happen quite a lot.  At least there are rules now, well for the present anyway.

Merlin's_Beard

At least if it's already frozen in a freezer you know it won't go down with bird flu between now and Christmas!