Patron Saint of Mediocrity

Huzzah, I've managed to depress myself. Over the course of a weekend away I have read - no, devoured - The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger*. Unfortunately (for me) it blows a fiction concept I was considering out of the water because it is so similar to my storyline. There was no time travel in my version, but the emotional landscape was exactly the same. The depressing bit isn't the similarity, though; it's simply that she's done it so much better than I could have done it. I feel a bit like Antonio Salieri in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus, and it's not a feeling I care to dwell on.

I'm aching to write fiction. Thankfully that particular project was already on the back burner due to a rather more peculiar process that's been fighting for conscious space in the Pandora's Box that is my brain; elements of a story have been assembling themselves for several weeks, like reversed footage of someone dropping a teapot. It has mythical elements in it, and crows, and an elderly lady who pretends to read fortunes in Campden market. My job seems to be to try to keep the heart of it a human story while it assembles itself, instead of letting all the other elements become what it's actually about.

Regardless, today; today I write about cucumbers. For behold! I am the Harbinger of Salad.



*A real piece of work, even down to the wily choice of title. See what the author (or more likely her editor) did there? In four words, it says 'This is a book about time travel' (to males) and 'This is not really a book about time travel, it's a book for women pretending to be a book about time travel but really it's about one woman's love - probably doomed love, while I think about it - for a truly impossible man. Buy this, and two full boxes of tissues' (to women).

Dealing with Unwanted Roosters

A few weeks ago I agreed to take four cockerels off The Allotment Doctor's hands. He'd been sold ten day-old chicks by a local rogue who promised faithfully that they were all hens, and who was lying through his teeth; twelve weeks later these four were bouncing around, squaring up to each other and all but shouting 'cock-a-doodle-do'. They had to go, but there was one problem; Mrs Doctor wouldn't let hubby kill them. In the end he persuaded her that he knew a nice man in the country who would give them a good home. And I did.*

One of the four decided on first sight of me that I intended to kill him, and yesterday I proved him right. Three of the four were dispatched, processed and frozen in about forty minutes**. Now real smallholders may scorn at that amount of time for so simple a task, but it's a real turbo boost for me; it normally takes me about twenty minutes to pluck a single chicken and with gutting and all the rest of it I'd have been lucky to have anything left of the morning. This time, however, I knew there wouldn't be enough meat for roasting, and so no need for the skin; and if I didn't need the skin, I didn't need to pluck.

Instead, I skinned the chickens which is much, much faster. I bled out the birds all at once (no need to do them one at a time; they won't have time to get cold). Then the procedure was this;

• Remove the feet at the joint
• Remove the wings at the first joint out from the body***
• Put the chicken on its back, head away from you
• Pinch and lift the skin in the middle of the breast up, and make a cut through it big enough to put your fingers into
• Pull the skin open (like opening a small, feathery set of curtains)
• As if removing a jacket, pull the skin off one leg. Use one hand to hold the skin, the other to work between the meat and the skin.
• Continue to loosen the skin round the back of the bird.
• Take the skin off the wing on the same side.
• Do the same for the other side of the bird: leg, then wing.
• Cut the loose skin from one side to the other, just below the wings.
• Pull the upper section right up over the head, leaving the neck exposed.
• Pop your knife between the top neck vertibrae and twist; the head should then pull off easily.
• Find and loosen the windpipe, oesophagus and crop from the neck. Don't try to pull them out, just loosen them from the muscle.
• Pull the lower skin section down as far as it will go - to the tail and vent.
• Cut a little hole through the thin muscle just under the ribcage, and enlarge with your fingers to expose the entrails.
• Get your hand up over the entrails right to the top of the body cavity, and gently scoop out the whole mass.
• Carefully pull the windpipe and gizzard/crop/oesophagus down through the neck.
• The entrails are still attached to the vent, so all that remains is to cut the tail and vent free of the carcass. Fetch out the liver and heart, if you use them.
• Have a grub around in the body cavity to scoop out the spongy 'lights' (lungs), and rinse the carcass inside and out.

Job done. If there's enough meat to bother with, take off the breasts and leg portions; otherwise the whole thing is ready for the soup pot. Sorry for the lack of photos here, but I was on my own and not about to touch the camera!



*It's called 'the freezer'.

**The forth has bought a stay of execution because of excess cuteness. He's a bantam cream legbar (allegedly) no bigger than my hand, and with his peculiar topknot and beady eyes he strongly resembles a novelty slipper. We've called him Eric, and instead of the quiet chat round the back of the shed he's earned himself a stay with the Feathery Ladies until I'm ready to breed from the Lincolnshire Buffs, probably in the summer.

***You lose hardly anything, and it does make it much faster.

Product Review - Tom's of Maine Original Deodorant Stick

I first tried this product when I spent a few days helping at a friend's smallholding in Wales last year, and it kept this moderately large hairy man smelling sweet all weekend despite a fair amount of exertion. I was aware of the link between aluminium exposure and Alzheimer's, so when I got home I checked the Essential catalogue and was pleased to find it in there.

Tom's of Maine stick deodorant dries quite quickly, doesn't leave residues on clothing and is available in woodspice (my favourite), calendula, honeysuckle and unscented, and there's a roll-on option too although I've not tried it. Best of all the pack lasts a surprisingly long time.

My old Gillette clear gel (£2.63 in Boots) used to last about two months; my Tom's stick lasts almost four months – yes, really – and retails for £3.72 in a nearby healthfoods shop in Dorchester, but we're able to buy them through the food co-operative in packs of six for £2.65 each. Bargain!