Amy added 13 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Did a rather inordinate amount of baking for K's birthday. Started as soon as I finished work at about 1730 on Friday evening until I ran out of steam, then resumed at 5am on Saturday. It was a blast. I made matcha cookies, chocolate hazelnut brownies, a lime polenta cake with lime curd in the middle and rhubarb frosting, mini vegan quiches with oyster mushrooms and courgette inside, and a buckwheat, lentil and edamame salad with roasted courgettes. The pastry went wrong the first time so I had to do emergency hot water crust at short notice, and that was actually way better. The quiches were excellent (if I do say so myself).
Amy added 16 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Summer can't quite make up its mind if it's here yet, but when the sky is blue, it's hot! Some big tides.
Amy added 9 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
I woke up with a screaming headache, so walked out of the woods to High Valleyfield, the nearest small and dreary town, to find the Co-op open before 7am. They IDed me for ibuprofen and a bottle of water, looking and feeling like absolute shit, still in the clothes I'd slept in straight from the woods. Haha. They sold me the ibuprofen anyway. We had to hang around until Culross Palace was open. Mostly we chilled in a park nearby, and visited the gardens for a bit. The palace was great actually. They even had a dog-volunteer (another dog) who Max could wait with while we followed the guide around inside. It's interesting how much history has been preserved here due to sheer neglect over the centuries. We delayed further by having cake in the cafe. We finally commenced walking. Most of the route was along roads and quite rubbish. At Newmills we met some people scavenging a door from a skip. We were about 18 hours behind our original schedule at this point, but managed to chat for over an hour about .. the environment, state of the world, reuse and recycling, litter, etc... We took a detour towards Charlestown off the official path, because it looked like a nicer woody trail rather than a main track. So glad we did! There was a lovely stream, some interesting caves, and... We found so much chicken of the woods. We harvested it, and continued to the town. It wasn't going to survive a night in the tent and another day of walking, so we decided to just call it and get the bus home. We went to see the lime kilns, and continue to the town of Limekilns. I wanted to press on to Inverkeithing or at least Ferrytoll, but the buses were scarce, my feet were hurting, and most of that stretch of the route was along road. So we just got the bus home from Limekilns. So there's a stretch of the Coastal Path between Limekilns and Inverkeithing that I've never walked... I'll have to get back to that.
Amy added 59 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Amy added 7 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
An adventure to Falkland Open Gardens with K, JB and E. We ate many good snacks, bought plants, saw lovely gardens, and also went to Pillars of Hercules for lunch. On the way home we stopped at B&Q. What a day!
Amy added 20 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Panna cotta with rhubarb topping at the Community Kitchen. Burritos and popcorn at home.
Amy added 8 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Loads of chicken of the woods, so nothing to do but make KFC... Kirkcaldy Fried Chicken. And chunked a load for a future curry. Polenta, almond and lime cake too, inspired by one I had at Culross Palace yesterday. Mine also has stewed rhubarb in, as a yoghurt substitute. Obviously.
Amy added 14 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Summer fruit jellies at the Community Kitchen. Excellent slow cooker thai green curry with chicken of the woods, oyster mushrooms and courgettes and onions from the garden. And a creamy oyster mushroom and courgette pasta sauce.
Amy added 11 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Made rose panna cotta at the Community Kitchen. And oyster mushroom lasagne and oyster mushroom tempura at home.
Amy added 9 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
An early parasol in Ravenscraig Park. Oyster mushrooms in Ravenscraig too, though none yet in the oyster woods. Chicken of the woods in the oyster woods doesn't seem to be growing, so we're leaving it alone.
Amy added 10 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
Someone found these growing on the compost at Greener Kirkcaldy! Gorgeous. (I was consulted to see if they're edible!)
Amy added 1 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
Oodles (1.4kg) of chicken of the woods at [redacted] on the south fife coast.. so much that we had to abandon our hike early to bring it home. Back in Kirkcaldy, the oyster mushrooms are flushing... right on schedule.
Amy added 6 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
The season is really kicking off in the oyster woods. Got several kilos. All in perfect condition, barely needed cleaning. Little rain means they've not been splashed with dirt, and also they're not so full of water that they turn to soup when cooked, but fry up perfectly!
Amy added 23 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
More oyster mushroom runs, closer to home. Found another chicken of the woods in a well hidden but accessible-once-you-know it nearby location. Waiting to see if it grows more; will be a good haul if so. Also found a deer shield, a small inkcap I haven't seen before, and some interesting weird grey growths on a fallen log.
Amy added 24 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-foraging/
Pulled out all the flowering salsify, as pretty as it is, and self-seeded potatoes. Planted chard, carrots (god knows what happened to the last lot), land cress, radish, radicchio, rocket, purple sprouting broccoli, kale. The beetroot crop is patchy. Lots of other things just didn't sprout. Some sunflower seeds from a flower head I left lying around last year in my living room got damp and sprouted, so I've potted them up..
Amy added 14 photos to https://i.amy.gy/growstuff/
Managed to stay on top of watering the footpath garden this week. Veg seems to be coping. Flowers are also looking good. Self-seeded nasturtiums are still popping up at a rate of about two per day. Sunday in the main garden. Some of the tomatoes are nearly as tall as me already. Dug the chillis out of the ground in the polytunnel into big pots, so we can move them when it's cold. Replaced them with aubergines (from the RNLI plant sale). Propped up the broad beans and sweet peas. Mounded potatoes. Improved anti-sparrow measures for the chard, beet, carrots, whatever other unlabelled things that have started sprouting.
Amy added 22 photos to https://i.amy.gy/growstuff/
Arranged wildflowers I picked at dawn on the solstice, on the way back from rose petal harvesting. Also, mystery (self-seeded) bean growing with one of my tomatoes.
Amy added 12 photos to https://i.amy.gy/growstuff/
Took an afternoon bus to Kincardine with R and Max and the tent, and began the first segment of the Fife Coastal Path. It wasn't really very coastal. We poked around Culross when we arrived, and debated marching on for another few hours, or hanging around to visit the palace in the morning. We decided to stay. So we passed the evening with some unnecessary miles around the perimeter of Preston Island, and camped in the woods. Culross is very cute. So far this part of the rest of the coastal path has been uninspiring though.
Amy added 50 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Miraculously planned ahead on thursday, and made a pizza dough to rise overnight. I only had wholewheat strong flour, and plain flour, so used a combination of the two and it was great. Topped with a tomato sauce made from homegrown tomato/rocket passata, sambal, and tomato puree; chicken of the woods chunks, oyster mushrooms, and courgette from the garden of course, home-pickled gherkins and jalapenos as well; and grated and cream Sheese.
Amy added 6 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Many hours spent rescuing spiders, wee flies, aphids, earwigs, tiny snails and weird squiggly guys from the rose petals, before processing. Unlike last year, I managed not to bring any bees home with me. Then I made loads of rose water and rose syrup, at home and at the Community Kitchen.
Amy added 10 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Rhubarb mousse topped with rose jelly tart, with a date and oat crust, and decorated with a variety of scavenged, donated or homegrown fruit. Cardamom rose shortbread topped with pistachios.
Amy added 22 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
Polenta almond lime cake, drizzled with rose syrup, at the Community Kitchen. Vegan and gluten-free.
Amy added 7 photos to https://i.amy.gy/madefood/
An incredible, gentle solstice. I walked, alone, to the beach at West Wemyss before dawn, and harvested dewy rose petals for a couple of hours.
Amy added 39 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Some exceedingly braw sunrises this week. Mostly hot clear days. First half of the week starting the day with a bit of haar, so had to wait for the sun to rise past it. Beautiful blue afternoons, with enough sea breeze to offset the summer heat. Idyllic, really.
I sometimes still just can't believe I live here. Also that my body cooperates in sitting me bolt upright wide awake at 4am so I can witness this every day.
Amy added 10 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
More celestial masterpieces on my doorstep.
Amy added 16 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
A week of braw sunrises, calm seas, still evenings. R came to visit, after years of being so-close-but-so-far!
Amy added 51 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Sunrises; wanders into town (too much sushi); Greener Kirkcaldy volunteer celebration in Ravenscraig Walled Gardens.
Amy added 27 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Amy added 11 photos to https://i.amy.gy/2023-fife/
Co-op internal/operations and governance work. Prepping for our OGM. Made summer fruit jellies at the Community Kitchen, and thai green chicken (of the woods) curry, oyster mushroom pasta, and chicken (of the woods) and mushroom pizza at home. Several trips for oyster mushrooms and found some other things too. Vast amount of baking for K's birthday. Exciting visit to the RNLI plant sale at Kinghorn. Garden day on Sunday. Dried oyster mushrooms, mint and sage in the dehydrator. Finished Surface Detail, started A Psalm for the Wild-Built. More meetings and IRL socialising than an average week. Might need to hide for a couple of days. Dave came back, briefly, and left again. But he did make me lunch in the short window of being in the flat. Woke up for sunrise most days. Swam in the sea twice. Monday morning around 9 was in a light haar, and the sea was really glossy with big rolling waves; high reflection and low water visibility made it felt like I was swimming in the sky. Friday morning at 6 was gorgeous too.
Walkies with Max. Worked on upgrading the JSON schema version for the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard. Co-chaired our co-op OGM. We made some Decisions About The Future (tm). Finally got some rain. Swam in the sea. The now traditional Solstice dawn rose petal harvest. Made much rose water and rose syrup. Made polenta cake at the Community Kitchen and Rhubarb and rose jelly tart and cardamom rose shortbread at home. Arranged some wildflowers. Finished A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Started Use of Weapons. Glorious sunrises. R came to visit and we foraged oyster mushrooms.
Returned from Arran. Swam in the sea. Alternating grey and braw days. Not that they grey isn't also braw, on an empty beach at 5am. Made carrot cake at the Community Kitchen and rhubarb/banana muffins at home. Long work days. Oyster mushrooms are starting... Falkland adventure. Much blog catchup. Finished A Deepness In The Sky. Started Surface Detail. Garden catchup.
Finally on top of Co-op internal work, and even did some client work! Swam in the sea. Made rhubarb panna cotta at the Community Kitchen. Walked part of the Fife coastal path, from Kincardine to Culross, then visited Culross Palace and went the scenic route to Limekilns. Had to abandon the hike there as we found so much chicken of the woods and needed to get it home to a fridge/stomach. And the oysters started too.