The weather forecasters were correct, for once. They had predicted rain. And rain we have. So today will be spent indoors as much as possible. This is fine, as there are lots of little jobs to do which don’t involve going outside. Sharpening a chainsaw chain is one example. But as it’s not that warm at the moment, I also lit the boiler stove.
LSS has been giving English lessons to a lady in Chaumont. Hearing that we kept hens, she asked whether she could buy eggs from LSS; so we now have another regular customer. Last week she was saying that she was a bit short of money these days. The conversation turned to growing one’s own food, and the lady asked if LSS would like her kitchen scraps for the hens. “Of course”, she replied. So this week saw the first plastic bucket of kitchen scraps arrive. But we had a surprise when we opened it.
Underneath the empty eggshells and squidgy apple, there was a nearly-complete lettuce, in fairly good condition. As the chickens don’t like lettuce (which apparently is rather strange – normal chickens supposedly love it), we ate it – having washed it first, of course. There were about six carrots. All in good condition. Chickens don’t eat carrots. But we do – and the remaining bunnies get the peelings. And the pièce de résistance – a complete untouched sweet melon. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it unless you count a small brown spot on the skin. The poor old hens didn’t get that either. We did. Mind you, they got some of the seeds (LSS having carefully conserved some to plant in the garden next year).
Short of money? I can see why. We have no qualms about rescuing and eating perfectly good food; after all we used to go bin-diving in the UK. It’s not that we can’t afford groceries, we just hate waste.
I wonder what kitchen scraps we’ll get next week?