The potential applications for this discovery are huge, not least being what it will do to the electric car’s future, imagine being able  to fill your car up with electricity as quickly as you now fill it with fuel.

The difference in the roots of perennials compared to annuals, staggering.

The other bit of hope comes from the National Geographic’s Big Idea article this month, in which they take a look back in time to ask why we chose annual rather than perennial grains for our crops and imagines a world  where we use our knowledge of annuals to develop perennials and how that could change the face of agriculture and our food supply. Well worth a read.

The day was spectacular, I was in two minds camera or shotgun, I can’t do both. I opted for the gun for an hour or so by which time we had five pheasant (one white), a good haul for our lunch, and some roe deer that Charlie had shot the day before and marinaded in salt. At this point it was decided that a “various” would just finish it off, started so Charlie, Charlie, John & Justin went to look for a snipe while I (the other Charlie) fired up Old smokie.

As ever the food was delicious, even old pheasants smoked for 20 minutes are delicious. there is no better way that I know of to eat this bird. And the Roe was sublime, Charlie had salted it for two hours, and we chopped it into medallions and served it on fresh bread with green tomato and onion chutney and a slice of red pepper, oh so so so so good.

As the afternoon wore on and the temperature dropped the wine got a bit chilly so we had a bit of fun improvising as you will see from the photos, as lads days go it doesn’t get much better than this.

The puppies are very now three and a half weeks old and beginning to explore their new world, huge fun.

Their grandmother Sprocket has always been there silent sort, infuriating if she is stuck somewhere and you can’t find her so I was always pleased that her daughters have a more vocal approach to life, it is so much easier to find a dog when there are audible clues along the way. However I am changing my views now as Gasket doesn’t give a moment’s thought to human sleep habits as she has no compunction about calling  for room service at three and five o’clock in the morning, and we can’t just yell at her to go back to bed for fear of waking our guests.

If the TV and radio are anything to go by you’d think that the world had changed overnight, however I was brought back to sanity when I went to feed the lambs, pigs and hens this morning. In the shed where we keep the feed life was going on as normal; no politics, no hung parliaments, no  just a Blackbird chick taking it’s first tentative steps from the nest. well done Mrs Blackbird, now I can get on and tidy the shed.

The title of this post “Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows” is infact the title of a very entertaining book by Harry Pearson and well worth a read to get you into the “show season” spirit.

It’s hard enough getting up to feed the animals in the middle of a freeze, without listening to am ill-informed zealot spouting about cows killing our planet by farting. What this person on breakfast TV (I didn’t pause to write her name down) was asking for is a “meat free Monday” an idea that I agree with, we eat more meat than we need to. A classic case of right message, wrong reason. Ed Hammer wrote a very interesting article on the matter in Septembers The Ecologist as I pointed out in my post “Can cows stop climate change” . Graham Harvey has written a very good article in The Times (04/01/10) headed “Belching cows can help to rescue our planet” in which he explains about “mob grazing” and how its aids carbon sequestration, locking carbon into the soil. So I recommend both articles to you if for no other reason than to bring a bit of balance to the hysteria….. that includes you too Macca.

Cartoon: http://www.squidoo.com/fartingcow

Roger at Housesteads

Roger Clegg and Andrew Whitaker are Northern Horizons Photography , Roger has taken many of the photos used to promote
Hadrian’s Wall while Andrew specialises in the coast and Tyneside.

Roger met  Hector and I this morning at Housesteads to show us how he takes spectacular sunrises. It was very cold and whilst I had a decent coat and some mitts on,  jeans were a mistake, but we did as we were told and then on the way home we stopped on the bridge at Chollerford to take some of the river, after which we went home to see what we could do with the images………………I soon realised that the taking of the pictures was just the beginning, as Roger showed us how to make the best of them, and I have to say I was both surprised and pleased with the results, it wasn’t the perfect dawn but we got a good result if you forgive the corny aboration from the sun. and the Tyne wasn’t bad either.

The morning was such a success that either Roger or Andrew would be happy to repeat the exercise with anyone who would be interested, you will find details on our “courses and activities” page: http://www.southlandsfarmcottages.co.uk/activities/courses-and-activities

Charles' first attempt.

The Tyne at Chollerford bridge

The thing they all have in common is that none of them know the answers, oh you can wax lyrically and spout your view and bang on that the argument hasn’t been had until everyone gets bored of you and goes home to bed, but when you get to bed you need to remember the Kenyan proverb, because it doesn’t matter if the climate change lobby are wrong, but our children will not forgive us if they are right.

Well done Jenson, some of us had faith in you, that drive really showed why you are the one to beat.

Photo: Mail online