Rooster killing

Favourite Handyman killed and plucked two roosters this afternoon. I gutted them and they are now hanging inside pillowcases in one of our outdoor sheds. Given the very cold weather, we have no concerns about them hanging overnight. Last time we killed roosters was a hot summer's day and we only hung them for an hour that time. The pillowcases mean flies cannot get at them.

When I went around to Raelene's to collect the roosters, she also had a big pile of "Lifestyle Farmer" magazines for me to borrow. Interesting reading so far. I took particular notice of an article on gardening through carpet, where the author laid manure over lawn/weeds and then laid wool carpet over that. Then she cut holes in the carpet and planted seeds or seedlings through the hole. She was very impressed with the results. I've ignored advice relating to recycling carpet before because I never come across any old carpet. But in a lightbulb moment this evening, I remembered that our childminder's husband is a carpet layer. I'll have a chat to Pete next week and see what my prospects are.

We don't get a lot of sub-zero temperatures where I live, but this week Jack Frost has definitely been calling. I think the tamarillo is going to become compost rather soon. Everything else is surviving okay.

At the end of this month I will have been blogging for one whole year. So now that a year of haphazardly labelling or not labelling my posts, it has finally dawned on me that I want a better system. Specifically, I want to be able to use my blog as a resource to check on what worked and what didn't for particular flowers/herbs/vegetables/fruits in previous years. So I'm in the midst of puddling round pushing some order into my labelling, even gunning for a system. This is a typical pattern for me for almost all ventures I undertake.

These are the labels I'm thinking of reorganising into: community, politics, vegetables, fruit, herbs, flowers, food, compost, recipes, gardening techniques. Could be a few more, such as my using up the cupboard project. But maybe I no longer need a label for Monty Don just because I mentioned him once which was really just because I fancy him, in an idle hot-garden-knowedgeable-man kind of way. Maybe.