It's that time of year.

It's at this time of year that the Seville oranges arrive and marmalade gets made.
It's this time of year when snow might arrive, (although to listen to the forecasters you would think it is unusual)
It's this time of year that predators are at their worse.
 and it's this time of year you think spring will never come.

Removing the pith takes time, this goes into a muslin bag with the pips to add natural pectin to the jam.

The first two batches of marmalade have now been made, I had bought a boxful of Seville oranges before Christmas but realised I did not have time to start making any marmalade so the oranges got frozen into 2kg bags. Friday and Saturday was spent making the first batch,

Then the skin has to be shredded, a Stanley knife makes a good job of it.

I have found that the two day process gives the best results with a good set and great flavour.

First lot done.

After making the first batch I realised that what I had in the freezer would not be sufficient to make an entire years supply so on Monday we popped to our local green grocer to pick up another four kg. Two kg makes eight 1lb jars,

Had to make sure it was OK, just checking!

and as we have marmalade most days for breakfast I calculated that we would need at least forty eight jars for the year. The second batch was started yesterday and finished today, four more batches to go and our years supply will be done.
There is nothing on the market to compare with home made marmalade besides being much cheaper than the shop bought we know that the oranges are all organic and fairly traded. It seems that in this area at least, all the Seville oranges are from one Spanish organic cooperative.

One jar = one euro.

The cost is just one euro per one pound jar, I doubt that even Lidl have marmalade that cheap.

Today we awoke to a light covering of snow. To listen to the forecast or the forecasts in the papers you would think we were about to enter another ice age with Orange warnings being given. Get over it forecasters, this is winter, this is Ireland, we expect to have some snow. The problem is if they give Orange warnings for something that is no big deal just -1c and 3cm of snow, people will ignore warnings of -10cand 30cm of snow, that is worth an Orange warning.
* Weather update, it's now midnight and two inches of snow has fallen and it's still snowing, maybe we will be snowed in by the morning.
Predators. Today we finally got a mink in one of the traps, she was large, 2 foot long from nose to tail, they might look beautiful but they are vermin, and have no place in our ecological system, they are not a native species.

Such  beautiful fur, but a lethal animal. This one can do no more damage.

I hate to see any animal killed but this mink, and yes we do think it was this particular one, has killed a total of twelve of our poultry in less than a month. The traps will remain in place, we are sure there are a lot more in the area.
 Mink like foxes don't just kill for food, they kill for the sheer hell of it, but give me a fox anytime, foxes can be controlled and your poultry kept safe by electric fencing, mink seem to be immune to even two layers of electric poultry fencing .
Even when we had the commercial laying flocks we can count on just one hand how many birds we lost to foxes and that would be over a decade or more, the hens were always protected by proper poultry fencing. I just don't want to think how many birds we have lost to mink and in Spain, Pine Martens.
Bulbs are poking their heads above ground but it will be a few weeks more before we see any flowers,

A bit of spring cheer.

I do like fresh flowers both in the garden and in the house so cheer the place up I finally succumbed and bought a bunch of springtime.
Megan, Meg for short, now acts as though the owns the place, she has her own bed complete with a nice comfortable cushion and blanket,

Only the best for Meg.

however her place of preference is an antique chair, we have still not seen how she get up onto it, why she prefers this chair is anyone's guess but I'm sure her own bed would be more comfortable.