Fig Jam.....but please don't call me "Fig Jam"

Yes, I know. I know. It's an acronym for "F*** I'm good. Just ask me" 
So I hesitated, for weeks, truly, before I posted this blog, because I don't think I'm good.....I just enjoy making and eating fig jam.
And  we have 10 fig trees here on the farm (yes, we love figs).

One of our fig trees, with figs in various stages of ripeness.

Two varieties of figs....on their trees ready to be picked.  I have to get them before the birds do!

There is no way that all the crop can be eaten...either as is, straight from the tree,  or roasted with sugar and then enjoyed with yoghurt, or ice cream.

One picking, and ready for jam OR drying OR chutney.

So what to do?
I dry some.   Great as snacks.

These have been halved, and dried...takes about 24 hours. Ready to be packed away.

Or I halve fresh figs & then grill them, with sugar , to make a delicious dessert...eaten with cream or ice cream or yoghurt. Whatever takes your fancy.

I have made fig chutney.  Lovely.

Fig chutney coming up! Ingredients assembled.

And bottles and bottles and bottles of fig jam.
(Is your mouth watering?   Maybe you don't like figs......???)

During the season, which is now, ripe figs are picked practically every day.

For jam, all I do is weigh them, then chop them up, and place in a saucepan.
I add about 75% of their weight in sugar...equal parts figs and sugar is too sweet for us.

Figs cut, sugar added.

Then cook.
I don't add water or any sort of liquid to the pot. The figs make their own juice with the sugar.

Cooking away.       Ready to start testing to see if it's done.

Easy.
Or as Jamie Oliver would say, "easy peasy"

We now have enough bottles of fig jam to keep us happy until this time next year when the figs crop again.

All done and dusted. Another few bottles of fig jam.

And don't you love the way home-made jams and chutneys are in such a variety of bottles and jars?  Can you pick the ex-Vegemite jars from the bottles in the photo?    Yes, the yellow lids are a give-a-way aren't they?.     Waste not, want not, as I was told as a child.

And that's just one session of jam making.....I have many many bottles stored in the wine cellar for use over the next 12 months.

But please DON'T call me Fig Jam will you?

Our three orphans.

Yes, we have three orphans.
What mental images are you conjuring up? 
Certainly not humans.  And grape vines don't produce orphans.
It refers to our last hatching of chickens. (see Blog 23.12.12)





 

When the chicks were ONE day old. The mother is a White Sussex breed of chook.

 
The mother died. We found her dead about 10 days ago.  The hen and chickens had been let out of their safe cage for a few days before this, and were always back in the cage for the night.   
The photo below shows the complete family, when the chicks were about a week old.

One of their early days of "free-ranging". The mother is trying to shield her three chicks from me.

At sunset, on this particular day, the chickens came back to their cage, but there was no sign of mum. We searched, and found her dead, lying in the grass.
What killed her? All we can think of is that she ate something which was toxic, or was bitten by a snake.  We eliminated the idea of a predator, such as a fox, because she wasn't mutilated in any way at all.

So what to do with the chicks?
We found an old soft jumper, and rubbed it over the dead chook's feathers, then put the jumper into the nesting box, inside the "safe cage".   The pheromones must have worked because the three chicks climbed into the box, and snuggled down among the folds of the jumper.

At that time our nights were still cool to cold, with minima hovering about 10 degrees.   How to keep them warm? The chicks were still quite small, and we doubted their feathers would be enough. My husband rigged up a lightbulb which gave radiant heat to the nesting box.
It worked because now the chicks are about 4 weeks old, and thriving.

The three orphan chicks!  Note the light bulb for radiant heat.

They are let out of their cage every morning.
They go straight out onto the grass, where they scratch, and fossick, and disturb lots of insects, which have, presumably, been there for the night. The insects are grabbed in their beaks, and then eaten.

They're also learning to fly.
They can flap their little wings and get up onto a nearby bench seat to snaffle any left-over bird seed, which has been put out for small birds such as finches.

Their mother was a White Sussex hen, but the chicks are showing quite a smattering of black on their feathers, so we are thinking that maybe the Black Australorpe rooster was the father???  As the "orphans" mature we should have a better idea of their genetic background.

Although it looks as if 2 of the chicks are camera-shy, you can still the black feathers appearing.

Summer, & an abundance of fruit, and vegetables..donated.

We are in a farming area.
We grow grapes, and make wine, on our boutique vineyard.
Some of our neighbours also grow grapes.
One nearby grows capsicums.
Another grows stone fruit.
During summer we receive many phone calls asking if we'd like some plums, or apricots, or peaches, or capsicums, or assorted vegetables.
It is the very rare occasion that I say "no thanks".
It is usually "Yes, please"

Early season nectarines from the Zambellis.

Early season peaches.

A bowl of freshly picked apricots.

A bag of crisp beans, grown by our neighbours, the Winks.

Assorted vegetables from Mario.

...and rockmelons from Mario too.

Late season, Yellow-fleshed peaches from the Zambellis

Also from Zambellis...late season nectarines.

Some beautifully crisp capsicums from Sam.

Are you jealous? 
It really is fantastic to be on the receiving end of such wonderfully fresh produce.

What do I do with it?
vegetables are easy to use.....cook them, or use them in salads.
 
Sometimes I make jam from the fruit.
Other times I stew it, and freeze what we don't need immediately, so that we can have stewed fruit later in the year.
And of course, we eat heaps of fresh fruit , but there's no way we can eat our way through a whole box of it....hence the cooking.
 


And what do we give in return?
We can give bottles of wine OR grapes of the neighbour's choice OR eggs OR rhubarb....we have much rhubarb growing. 
It is a "swap system" rather than a barter system....and I love summer for this reason.

A bonus of rural life!

Summer at the farm.

Summer at the farm sees the grape vines growing apace, and the vineyard looking beautiful and green.
The bunches of grapes are growing too.

Visitors arrive for some R & R at the farm.

And what to do?

Ride the ag. bikes (agricultural bikes....used by farmers for quick and easy access to various parts of their farms)    An adult sized ag. bike for my husband is quickly snaffled by each of our sons for riding.
A smaller sized one is for the grandkids to use. So far only the grandsons have ventured on it, and each of them took to it like old. pro motorcyclists.

First time ever on the ag. bike. Receiving instructions from Poppa.

Even great-uncles and great-aunts want to ride the bikes.

Now it's the turn of Elliot's parents.

 

Elliot on small bike, Andrew and Renae on the larger one, heading up to the main house.

And sibling rivalry never ceases....two brothers ready to "burn rubber".    Daniel grabbed the large bike, so Andrew has to ride the "little" bike.

Yes, a family of 4 can get anywhere on two bikes!  Going off for a swim.

Mucking around outside, especially blowing bubbles if the breeze is right, is always fun.


 

Elliot and bubbles.

Swimming in the summer always rates highly, be it in the lap pool by the house, or, more often than not, down in the creek which forms the northern boundary of our farm.  Some summers the creek is dry, and we miss using it, but this summer it has been running well, so creek swims were daily affairs.

Mucking about in the lap pool.

 

The family in the creek....Andrew, Daniel and kids.

Charlotte and her mum in the creek.

And of course games. The kids persuaded various adults to play Junior Monopoly, Connect 4, or Junior Scrabble.

Being a good uncle and playing "Junior Monopoly"

Beating great-uncle Hugh at Connect 4.

 It would not be a farm visit for the adults without games of "Snatch"....a game of anagrams to which our family is addicted.  Fierce competition reigns, with doubtful words like refiltering being challenged, checked in The Chambers Dictionary, and either allowed of dropped. (Refiltering was NOT  in the Chambers) 

Out comes the dictionary during a game of "Snatch"

Drinking good wine, and eating delicious food is also on the farm holiday agenda.  What a life!

Relaxing on the front steps, with a glorious Verdelho in hand.

Andrew, Renae, me and Ade.

Renae's cherry torte.....delicious!

 

A pancake shaped like Mickey Mouse's head....courtesy of Uncle Dan....and a mould from Disneyland!

 
This summer followed that pattern, and a relaxing and fun time was had by all.

Another chicken saga.

You may remember that last year one of our hens hatched out 11 eggs. 10 reached maturity.  What a successful "mum"!   And also we think there was a great deal of luck as well.

2012 has NOT been as successful re chicken development.

Our first clucky hen started sitting in October.
She hatched 4 eggs, out of 7.
The chickens were,as usual, very cute.
The mother and her chicks were in the main chook pen....a large cage behind the barn. 

The mother is a White Sussex, and here she is with her 4 new chicks.

By day 3 of their lives we were minus one chicken.
By day 4 we were minus another.
And by day 6 they were all gone.
We have no idea what happened.
A predator of some ilk, definitely, but what?
A snake? Plenty of those on the farm.
A fox?  Plenty of those about. A feral cat? We have seen one.  A bird of prey? heaps of those.  A goanna? Yes, a large one has been sighted.

But something had chicken entree on four occasions.


Our 2nd clucky hen sat on her eggs in November.
Two chickens hatched.  Again, in the main chook pen.
I think you know what happens next? Yes. By day two of their existence they too were no more. Both eaten on the same day.

All our hens are White Sussex. So here is mother hen number two, with her 2 chickens.

Our 3rd clucky hen started sitting on her eggs in late November.
We had to decide where to move the hen because leaving her, and her resulting brood in the main chook pen would surely result in whatever predator had enjoyed the previous 6 chickens, having more tender chicken for a meal.

And here is clucky hen numer three, sitting on her eggs in the main chook pen.

A neighbour had a mobile, predator proof chook pen. I asked if we could borrow it. The answer was "yes"...as you'd expect from country folk.
It is a large rectangular cage, with fine mesh for walls and roof, and a larger mesh floor.
Nothing would be able to get in from above, or from the side, nor even burrow into it.
(You can see it, and get an idea of its size and structure from the photos below.)

So the neighbour, Cal, his wife, Elaine, and I manhandled the aforesaid cage onto our ute., and we moved the cage from his property to ours.

We waited until late one afternoon to move the hen, sitting on her eggs in a laying box.  We covered the box with cardboard so that the hen would not be stressed during the transfer. 

The transfer in progress....hen and nesting box are covered by cardboard.

Now to get in, and push the box plus hen right down to the back of this safe cage.

The mesh floor is hard on the knees, but we are nearly there!

And it was just in time.
The next morning there was the hen, and THREE chicks in the cage. Very cute.

Day one of their lives. Two chicks under her beak, the other at her side. But safe!

It is now day 4 of their lives, and they are still alive.

Four days old.

Wonderful.
Whatever ate the others has no chance of eating these.

When they are large enough to not be eaten by whatever, we will put them back into the large chook pen.....from which ALL the hens and rooster are released every afternoon. They all have the afternoon to "free range" about the farm.....putting themselves back into the main cage at dusk.

Please keep your fingers crossed for our chickens.
With grandchildren arriving at the farm over the Xmas break it will be lovely to have some chickens for them to see.

An example of Shanghai Street Food.

Away from my last Blog on the Ballandean Dump, and back to Shanghai, for a moment or two.
My son and daughter-in-law in Shanghai introduced me to street food, and 99% of the time, it is delicious.

Looking from the laneway out onto Nanchang Lu.

Walking along Nanchang Lu...which I do many many times each visit....I would pass a long queue of locals in the street.
My Shanghai-based daughter-in-law told me that the queue was always long because the people were waiting to buy scallion oil pancakes (or cong you bing ) from, reputedly, the best maker of them in Shanghai.

The address of the pancake maker.

One March day this year, when I walked past, the queue was almost non-existent. 
I had never seen such a short queue before.
There were only 5 people lined up at the doorway to the small room where the pancakes were cooked.
This was an opportunity not to be missed, so I queued as well.
I felt very lucky. Three years after first seeing the queues here, I looked as if I would be able to taste the pancakes at last.

Yes, there are 5 people in this queue.

I was optimistic...mistakenly so. Each of the people above had HUGE orders, so it was 45 minutes before I could order my lowly TWO pancakes.

But in that time I could watch the Chinese cook at work. And work he did. Never stopped.
My DIL (Daughter-in-law) told me that he starts work early  every morning, and works practically non-stop until late afternoon. Talk about a work ethic!

The cooking takes place on a steel plate which is placed over a 44 gallon drum. This is at the front of the alcove where he works.
Behind that is a small bench where he shapes the pancakes. Here he has a roll of unleavened dough, a bowl of sliced scallions/shallots, and a small bowl of oil.

This is the workbench.  Unleavened dough, bowls of oil, pancakes ready for next batch of cooking. (Cooked ones at front of photo) The shallots are in the green bowl....you can see just a bit of it in the background.

He takes a dollop of dough, glazes it with oil, adds the scallions, rolls it up ready for cooking.

A batch just placed on the hot plate.

...and flattened with hands.

and then with a metal hand-held press. (and another customer's shoulder is in the corner of this photo...oops!)

The pancakes have been flattened, and now brushed with oil.

Probably my favourite photo of the day...why?

What do you think about that? No WPHS rules here. Cigarette in hand, mind on job. And I did not notice any ash falling on the pancakes.
You can see that the two middle rows of pancakes are almost done, the outer rows waiting their turn.

Yes, after 45 minutes I left with two pancakes. I felt a little embarrassed ordering two only, especially after the large orders requested by my fellow buyers, but the cook didn't turn a hair. Just collected two pancakes, and placed them in a brown paper bag, and charged me my 6 yuan (about $1 Aust)  

So I was a happy person, strolling along Nanchang Lu, munching on my food. Crisp. A little salty. Fresh scallion/shallot taste.  Great street food, made all the more tasty because of my 3 year wait! (and my mouth is watering just writing about them.)
If ever you are in Shanghai, go to the Former French Concession, and stroll down Nanchang Lu, and queue. But have a heap of time to do it! It's worth it.