Thursday 18 December 2014

Cute Quotient for Today

Who needs kittens when you can post photos of cute squirrels at Chenonceau?
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Loire Valley Nature: A new entry has been added for the attractive stripey shield bug Odontotarsus purpureolineatus.
A photo of a track through arable land has been added to the Rural Tracks entry and the Butterfly Surveying in France page.
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Au jardin hier: I started the labourious process of grubbing up the volunteer cherry seedlings today. I worked at it for about an hour in the drizzling rain and decided that was enough for one day. I estimate it will take me 6 - 8 hours to get rid of them all, but it has to be done. They've been mowed over several times now and are forming trip hazards.
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A la cuisine hier: Spanakopita, using that brilliant product, brick. The filling was our homegrown chard and local fresh cheese from the laitière who delivers her dairy produce to the door.

21 comments:

Tim said...

Ahhhh!

Liselle said...

So do i have the day right? Should the cuisine ce soir be of a celebratory nature?

Susan said...

Liselle: something from the freezer tonight. Going out to lunch at l'Image. You have the right day :-)

Ken Broadhurst said...

Bon anniversaire, Susan. J'espère que le repas de midi a été excellent.

Susan said...

Ken: Merci, c'était très bon -- carottes rapées avec gésiers pour l'entrée, suivi par faux filet, puis une coupe d'automne (crême de châtaigne et compôte de pommes).

ladybird said...

Happy Birthday Susan! Hope you enjoyed the day and the meal. Many happy returns! Martine

Susan said...

Thanks Martine.

Colin and Elizabeth said...

Happy Birthday. Hope you had a good day. x

Susan said...

Thanks C&E.

Tim said...

Belated Hippo Birdy...
put you on the wall planner...
terrible on any anniversaries...
I blame it on me muvver, guv...
her b/d was either the 30th or 31st of May...
our first dog was the other...
she's six years away now and I still can't remember which it was!!

Betty Carlson said...

Your photo looks Christmasy with the evergreen tree in the background.

Liselle said...

A most fitting way to celebrate. Best birthday wishes with a hope to see you both befote the next one rolls around.

Susan said...

Tim: Our electronic calendar with alarms to warn us about birthdays died this year, so we are in the same boat.

Betty: It's yew, a wonderful tree.

Liselle: I certainly hope we see you too.

Aussie in France said...

Very cute! I love squirrels no matter what people say about them being "dirty".

Susan said...

Fraussie: I've never heard them described as 'dirty'. I think they are fairly flea ridden though -- but very few people get close enough to them to share.

Tim said...

The "dirty" ones are the Grey Squirrels...
they are basically"cute" tree rats!!

Tim said...

Some of those cherry seedlings may well be suckers, They're even more of a buggarroo to get up but ours would give us a nice crop of griottes from the rootstock if we could keep the birds off them! Joyeuse anniversaire, Pauline

Tim said...

Spanakopita reminds me of a wonderful botany and eating visit to Crete some years ago. We went for dinner to a local restaurant that specialised in pies. Pies appeared one after another: chicken, cheese and spinach. Strictly speaking spanakopita, tyropita, kreatopita etc is one big round pie and the little triangular ones are spanakopetes. In "cooking the Greek way" Anne Theoharous gives a recipe for phyllo, another for spanakopetes and tyropetes (serves 70 to 100) and Tiropita. For phyllo you dust a clean sheet (bed-, dust-) with flour to roll then pull out the dough on the biggest flat surface you can find in one enormous sheet. You're supposed to be able to see through the finished article but without making holes. So no fingernails... Pauline

Susan said...

Pauline: The secret to getting a crop is having lots of trees it seems to me -- the birds are welcome to the high up fruits, while I take the stuff reachable from the ground.

Many thanks for the Greek grammar. You don't happen to know the difference between dolmades and dolmas do you? Home made phyllo is like strudel pastry. Not something I've ever attempted.

Tim said...

I think they are the same thing, Dolmas in Turkish and Dolmades in Greek.

Susan said...

Tim: Aha! It never occurred to me that both words weren't Greek! How dim of me not to realise the Turks must have a word for them too. There must be a Lebanese word as well, now that I am thinking about it.

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