Rambling, eggs, spiders and honey mushrooms

The trees are brilliant with fall colours and there has been a large stable high pressure dome parked over us for days. The weather is spectacular. Fall is here and what a fantastic presentation it's provided us this year.

Now back to our regular scheduled programming. Food.

The eggs will soon have pale yolks again as the birds lose access to the greenery. At least they are laying and don't seem to be diminishing in number as some predator or other takes their pound of flesh, literally. I've got 25 in the hen house and I hope most of them make the winter. I think there are enough cockerels to do the job for the girls in the spring. What a year it's been for the wild ones.



PU went picking with the neighbour last Sunday afternoon and came home with mountains of honey mushrooms (Armillaria mellea). I dried a lot of them last year. This year we've blanched them and put them in gravy quantities in the freezer. I hope that works out. It's brilliant to have a different spin on the mushroom flavour and texture once in a while.





On the critter front, I watched this tiny little jumping spider attack a fly on the window sill today. It didn't win the battle, but the fly was belly up inside of five minutes so I gather the war was won. Cool beans.