131. Today is St Philbert's Day...

So I thought a picture of our filbert tree would be appropriate. The first was taken when it was planted in January last year and the second was today.

Filberts are a type of hazelnut. Bigger, and supposedly tastier than nuts from the common hazel tree, the type found in many hedges.

Mid to late August is when filberts reach maturity and can be picked (or get stolen by squirrels). No nuts for us this year, but the trees in the Kent platts (hazelnut term for an orchard) yield tonnes of them.

Filberts, originally philberts, are believed to be named after Saint Philbert who died in 864 as it is this time of year when filberts are picked.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

285. Been thinking about my last blog . . .

Image
. . . even if no-one else has. One of the implications of much of an apple's goodness (minerals and vitamins) being in its seeds is that to benefit they have to be eaten. And not just eaten but chewed up as apple seeds tend simply to be passed. I then remembered something about apple pips containing cyanide. I began to look into all this . . . There are hundreds and hundreds of web snippets on the benefits of eating apples, an apple a day keeps the doctor away and all that. But quite difficult to shore it up with trusted sources. A medium-sized apple weighs 150g - 200g and contains half that number of calories. 80% is water, 10% is carbohydrate, 0.5% protein and 4% minerals and vitamins. Half the minerals and vitamins and fibre are in the peel and the core. Apple pips contain amygdalin which can release cyanide when coming contact with digestive enzymes. According to the http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/contact-us/about-us/  (Cambridge University group) a...
Read more

319. We've got a dog!

Image
I know, I know . . . but I've kind of always wanted one . . . . . . from when I was very young, before I joined the Job, when I was thinking about joining the Job. I had a dream (I must have been 13 or 14, and I had lots of posters of dogs on my bedroom walls) about becoming a bearded-batchelor police dog-handler. In my dream I called the dog Wolfram . And guess what? We've called our dog  Wolfram ! He's so cute. He is, of course, an Alsatian and a good guard-dog. Which will be good because this is a big place and Sarah's away a lot. (The door-bell went off in the middle of the night last week, no-one there, turned out it was half-pressed in, but it didn't half freak me out.) Anyway, Wolfram is a new type of dog. Specially bred for people like me. He's a veggie. Eats like a horse of course, but and this is the point, he eats just like a horse. CRUCIALLY, he shits like a horse too. So, no smelly piles all around the garden but just the sweet...
Read more

73. Stuck for something to read?

Try a William Boyd novel. They hook you from the start, have interesting and original plots and are not overly long. What's more there are lots of them, and relatively easy to find in second-hand bookshops. Perfect for a holiday read, if you are stuck on a difficult novel or just want something a bit different. His books sometimes feel like he has written them with the aid of a special book-kaleidoscope: twist it again, 10 bizarre plot-lines fall out and Boyd glues them together in 300 pages. Try one!
Read more