Burra Maluca

I grind the flaxseed about a third of a cup at a time in the vitamix. Not too much otherwise the oil starts to come out and clags everything up. I usually keep going until I have a big glass jar full and use as needed until I run out.

I just took this photo in case it helps any...



I use golden linseed because the brown makes everything look just a bit too rustic and healthy, even for my taste!

Then for six biscuits I use a cup of linseed/flaxseed meal, a cup of self raising flour and about half a teaspoon of baking powder. I did experiment without the baking powder to see if the self-raising flour was strong enough to make the whole mixture rise, but it wasn't. I might add a pinch of salt and a few dried herbs if I think it will go well with whatever I intend to serve them with, then add milk bit by bit and stir until if forms a dough.

I cut the dough in half, then each half into three, roll each sixth into a rough biscuit or bread roll shape and put them in the stove top oven and cook them on a very low flame for thirty minutes.

We both have, um, 'healthy appetites' to put it mildly and three biscuits make with half flaxseed is quite enough as they are really filling.

This is rapidly becoming a cold-weather favourite - black eyed peas with smoked paprika, a good handful of mixed meaty and skinny bits, peppers, mushrooms, and fried onions. Served with biscuits made with half wheat flour and half flaxseed meal.



It's incredibly filling, and it helps me get through the enormous stash of flaxseed I laid in at the start of the pandemic. I have no idea how long that stuff lasts but it's doing well so far. I have a barrel full of whole golden linseed and grind up about a pound at a time as I figure it won't keep as well once it's ground up. The oil content in it means that I don't have to add fat to the biscuits, which keeps the cost down. Though we do tend to butter them unless we serve them with gravy.

Auto dubbed and translated, but very much worth a watch.

The author, Eugenio Monesma, writes -

In some Pyrenean villages, pack animals were still used for transport along the narrow, winding mountain paths. To secure the load properly, a harness was needed to fasten it against the animal's body without damaging its hide: the cinch or pack saddle. In 1997, José made me a pack saddle for pack animals in San Juan de Plan (Huesca).

Just for interest, my son dug these out of a rubble heap at a renovation site he was working at.



His workmate pounced on the old whisk and said it was just like the one his parents used when they had the bakery when he was a lad. So not stainless, but looks like it's already lasted one lifetime!

And no, I've not tested it.

Four dragons decided to go up to space this time - Índigo and Vermelha, obviously, because they wanted to practice their zooming and spinning. Iggy, because he wanted to study them while they were zooming and spinning. And Roxa, because she likes to help and finds it all rather fascinating.

Rosa refused to go as she said the place was a mess after everyone had been playing indoors for so long and she wanted to clean it up. Rubeus reluctantly agreed that the youngsters probably knew their way well enough now not to need supervision. They invited the new dragon too, who still hadn't told us his name but who Rosa had decided might be Awenydd, as it seemed he was a veteran space traveler but he had refused, very pointedly, and couldn't understand why any dragon would voluntarily go up there. Which was surprising but they didn't pressure him about it.

The place really had got into quite a state. There were springy things everywhere, and Mochyn's dirty plate, and the bed was a terrible mess so as soon as the adventurers had left for their journey to space, Rosa got on with her cleaning.



She wasn't quite sure where to put all the springs and things so she messaged Alan to ask if he had a suitable box she could use, and he promised to bring one over if he could find one. She put them to one side for now and wondered what to do about that disgusting plate.



Now it's a strange thing, because when Rosa looked at that plate all she could see was the mess. But I'm the sort of person who mostly sees what's underneath and tends to ignore the mess until it gets bad enough to become dysfunctional. Though to be fair, in this case Rosa was quite right and it did need a bit of a clean up.

She took it off to the kitchen, found her favourite crocheted dishcloth, put some warm, soapy water into a bowl and got busy cleaning.

After a bit of a soak, the mess came away quite easily. And that was when Rosa started to think about the pattern on the plate rather than just the mess that was on top.



"Mum, who are the dragons on the plate?"

"Oh they are Luz and Electra. They're forever chasing each other around the place."

"I think I've seen them before somewhere..." Rosa noted.

"Well yes, they do tend to get everywhere." I admitted.

Rosa spent all day cleaning and tidying, then at the end of the day Alan showed up on his way home after work with a lovely little treasure chest to lend to her.

Rosa was horrified at the state of his hands but I told her not to be rude as he'd been working hard on a renovation job all day, and in any case the worst of the gunge on his hands was terracotta coloured silicone stuff that was designed to hold its colour and not wash off so it wasn't as simple as just swirling his hands around in soapy water like she'd done with Mochyn's plate.



Rosa remembered her manners and thanked Alan very much. He told her he'd put a few treasures inside that he thought she'd like, and then he bravely ran away before anyone nagged him about hand washing or showers or laundry or anything.

Rosa opened up the treasure chest to see what was inside.



There was another slinky, two very excited dragons who immediately escaped and started to explore everywhere, and a few other interesting looking things at the very bottom of the box.

Rosa was fascinated with the little dragons.

"Who are they, mum?"

"Oh, they are Luz and Electra. Getting everywhere, as per usual..."

Rosa was a bit puzzled by this and had a bit of a déjà vu moment, but she had to admit they were very pretty. And not as noisy as Ìndigo and Vermelha.

"Have you seen this one?" I asked, lifting yet another dragon out of the box.



"Why is she biting her tail?"

"Oh it's Electra. She does that." I explained.

Rosa frowned slightly as she wasn't quite sure if she understood what was going on any more. But then she looked to see if there was anything left in the box and saw something that made her squeal with excitement - a teeny tiny silver hair-dressing set!



Just then Mochyn turned up, to see if there was anything edible in the box. Rosa assured him there wasn't and tidied all the things back into the box, along with all the stray springy things that up until then didn't have a home.  She was going to shut everything in, but at the last minute she couldn't resist taking her little hairdressing kit out to see if she could use it to tidy Mochyn's hair up a bit.



She tried to be nice. And she did mean well. And it was true that Mochyn's hair was well overdue for a comb. But he really didn't enjoy it and the comb kept tugging at him and making him squeal in discomfort and annoyance.



So then Rosa changed tactics and thought maybe a bit of a trim with the razor would help by removing the most tangled bit of hair so that the comb wouldn't pull as much.



But Mochyn liked that even less and and began to squeal even more and toss his head in indignation.  

Very soon, the comb, the razor and the scissors were all hopelessly tangled up in his hair and Mochyn was getting grumpier and grumpier by the minute. Poor Rosa didn't know what to do and apologised profusely but she just couldn't seem to untangle them.



And then it happened. Actually, everything happened at once! There was a horrendous crash on the door, which burst open and a heap of exhausted but very excited dragons crash landed on the bed, all talking at once and over each other trying to be the first to tell everyone about their adventures. And while Rosa was distracted and the door was open, Mochyn took a leaf out of Alan's book and fled headlong out of the open door, squealing something about going back to Ireland. Or Wales. Or anywhere he could get away from people who tried to comb his hair!



Rosa was devastated. Not only because she'd now lost her lovely little silver hairdressing set, but also because she'd upset her friend as she really never wanted to hurt his feelings. I do hope he comes back soon.

But for now I think we just have to close the door, let Mochyn do whatever he wants to do, and see what our little space dragons have been up to.

Here are some photos I took in 2019 of an abandoned building a few miles away.

Clay tiles, wattle and daub, stone walls and lintels, and one of those little alcoves for standing a lamp.

I should try to get an update photo sometime as I think it's collapsed a bit more now.

I just remembered I had these two photos of the door to an abandoned pub in the next town.

Rock wasn't with us so I persuaded my son to do the for scale thing...

Martin Mikulcik wrote:Has anyone any experience with Portuguese cabbage/kale tronchuda? Some say it's an annual but nobody with real experience and i suspect it's a mistake

Tronchuda is annual according to every portuguesa I've asked about it but I suspect they just mean they grow it as an annual and harvest them as a complete unit instead of leaf by leaf like they do with galega. I think it needs to overwinter to actually produce seed.

It looks like this and is the one that people will grow as a bulk crop to feed themselves and their animals.



The perennial one is couve galega which is a tall kale-like cabbage with leaves like collard greens. This is the one I grow.



It will live for several years if you keep taking the buds off, but I've been working on a truly perennial strain that will survive several years of flowering. It's grown near the back door of every rural household for picking at any time there's nothing else to eat, all year round, or when the weather is bad and you don't want to venture out too far, or when you need a couple of leaves to take to the outhouse with you.

However, I've seen seeds being sold by people who obviously don't realise they are very different plants and have muddled the names up, and I've seen permaculture books by quite respected authors also muddling them up.

The old sheds here are mostly made of stone, so they crumble more gently.

Our shed is actually the original house, and whilst it's still in reasonable condition and not abandoned I thought you might like to see it.

Here it is gleaming in the sunlight early one morning. Rock for scale, because he likes posing by things for me.



Originally the roof would have been thatch, which would be replaced every twenty years or so. Gradually the thatch roofs have been replaced with tiles, slate, or in this case corrugated iron.

There are grape vines growing near the door.



With some very nice grapes...



Outside there was a bench, which we need to rescue. The seat was made from a rescued drain cover from the railway which runs just the other side of the track.



The very flat faced stone to the left of the door has a date carved into it. I think it says 'anno 1858'.



Close up of the door handle and latch. The handle broke in half and Austin has just fixed it by wrapping wire round and round it. Seems to work...



The far wall is bulging rather concerningly near the base and will likely have to be rebuilt in the relatively near future.



The main beam supporting the roof comes right through the wall and has a protective bit of steel nailed over it. And a red cross painted on, though I have no idea of the significance of that.



The shed is mostly used for storage, but it also houses the humanure loo, which is due to be replaced by a willow feeder in the very near future. The local stone houses all have these wonderful alcoves in, originally for standing lamps in where they are relatively safe from being knocked over. This one has a couple of lamps shoved in there too, not for use but because they seem relatively safe there.



I hope some of you found it interesting!

Well I tested the new stove-top oven with some 'biscuits', and they cooked exactly the same as they did in the old one. Which isn't very surprising as they are virtually identical.

And then we decided to test it on the cook-top of the rocket-mass-heater.

We suspected it wouldn't work as well as on a gas flame as the funnel thing is designed to capture the gas flame and shoot the heat up into the oven and away from the bottom of the pan. Or it might turn out that the hot surface of the stove top will make the bottom of the pan overheat anyway. But we figured there was only one way to find out, so I made up a batch of biscuit dough while Austin lit the rocket mass heater up and we had a go...

We put the funnel on the hottest bit of the stove and popped the stove-top oven on top.



The base of the pan doesn't directly contact the stove-top so in theory the biscuits won't burn on the bottom.



The stove top was nice and hot but it seemed to take the oven much longer than usual to warm up. When I was convinced it wasn't going to burn, we left it to do it's thing and checked it thirty minutes later. Then another thirty minutes.



And finally after an hour and half we got hungry enough to declare them to be cooked.



They didn't brown properly, and were just a touch doughy inside, but good enough.



So we had wheat-and-flaxseed biscuity roll things for tea, slathered in butter!



And they were delicious!

So, the verdict. The stove-top cooker does work on the stove-top of the rocket mass heater, but only just. If I was lighting it in the summer because it was our only cooking option I would choose another way to cook the biscuits, probably in a cast iron skillet. At this time of year though when it's running for a few hours a day anyway, it would be an easy option to light it, quickly put some biscuits in the stove-top oven and leave it on there for about two hours and eat them when they're ready.

We could experiment taking some of those discs out so the funnel fits directly over the hot gasses rather than the hot cast iron stove top, but it might spoil the draught of the stove. We must might experiment with that in the future. Not sure yet...