What a lovely weekend the sun was out both days and NO RAIN! 

I had an early finish on Friday so I got a head start preparing the pheasants for sausage making. I also skinned my first deer all by myself. 

Our friend Martyn helped us make the sausages he had great fun and it was great to share the experience of making sausages. We make pheasant with port and cranberries and pheasant with garlic, fennel, lemon and oregano. 

The beautiful weather made me want to get out in the garden and start preparing for growing however the minute you stand in the garden you sink and squelch in the mud. One day soon.

We have been looking at seed potatoes ahead of the South East Essex Organic Gardeners Potato Day. They have over fifty varieties. 

On Sunday Gareth went to work so I had the mammoth task of filling up all the feed, strawing everything up, topping up the bird feeders. It's much more fun when we both do it. Uncle Maurice wS a great help me filled up eight bags of straw for the week ahead. 

The time of year has arrived and we must set a date for Dennis the Dexter to go. We seem to be avoiding the subject, coming up with excuses why a certain day doesn't work and my latest excuse is the freezers are too full! Well that is a fact I am a food hoarder! I have fruit, a huge array of game, lamb, pork, beef, turkey. Enough to feed the whole village for six months I reckon. 

So Dennis my boy we don't need to think about it for a few weeks. I am a firm believer in using a much as we can from our animals when the time comes. So I have been making enquiries about having Dennis's hide tanned. It's going to cost around £180. I'm not sure what we would do with it after, maybe a rug, a wall hanging or a throw over a sofa. But I think it would be great to utilise something that would otherwise be lost. 

A friend of ours runs a joinery business, so tonight I filled me car with wood off cuts a lot of it is oak and it's great for the fires at home. So I exchanged a saddle of muntjac for wood a fantastic swap!

Well I am sitting here typing grabbing my tissue, the lads at work have given me their cold and a stinking sore throat so I am having an early night.

Night Night.