This would work very well. Most butchers will have packs of 1 or 2 pigs trotters - scrub well, heave ONE into the pot with the pease and when cooked you’ll have a lovely gelatinous stock.
They don’t have much taste - you can make sweet fruit jellies with pigs trotters and very nice they are too - but the collagen/gelatine they release is incredible. Freeze the other trotter for the next time.

I reckon you’d need to make the base stock with a ham bone - they’re cheap at butchers shops. With the pease, onion, carrot and bay leaf as per usual but cook it for longer. A slow cooker would be perfect for the job. Then add the chopped sliced ham to the soup at the end. No need to add salt then, the sliced ham will have enough. Just using the sliced ham only you’ll lose out on the glorious gelatinous mouthfeel of a proper pea & ham soup, and it won’t set to a jelly like a ham bone/ham hock soup would.

Yup. Nice little stawm blowing in. Won’t last long though I reckon.

quiz

35/50

Grass fire in Viewbank, which is getting a bit too close to home rn.

This?

Thank you chef! My favourite flavours too - life is good.

A selection of chilled fruits in season please chef. And could you please magically stock my freezer with ice cream?

Saturday. Laundry done and out on line - nearly ready to take in again. Shopping still to do. Will indulge in a banh mi from my local bakery on the way home. On second thoughts, shopping can be tomorrow. Banh mi is a must though. They’ve recently added a roasted mushroom one to their line up. It’s yummmmmm.

On another note, this hot weather has magically removed 5 kilos of weight from my person.

We’ll have to have a special Catfish moving day party I reckon.

Good to see you back again!

Congrats! When do you move in?

The fork seems to be OK - I had a few casualties when I used a spade but they seem to wriggle away from a fork or hoe.

Garden fork is perfect! Also, drying worms doesn’t actually happen - they go into aestivation, having laid eggs. As soon as things moisten up, the eggs hatch and the adults re-activate. Yes, they are less active in winter, but they don’t actually stop - just burrow deeper which is what you want for circulation of nutrients.
Wet vegie scraps are an extra - you might need to give the compost an occasional bucket of water but seriously, the worms actually generate quite a bit of moisture themselves. I’ve never had a dryness problem that couldn’t be fixed with a bucket of water whatever the season. Worms are the gift that keeps on giving. They eat the dry stuff too - and turn it into wonderful worm castings. Just takes a bit longer.
Most compost problems are too much moisture and too little aeration. Worms fix both.
As you’ve probably figured, I’m a fan of worms. I like the way they do the heavy lifting while I kick back with a glass of wine.

Agree. Wait until it grows up.

CEO is not in Carlton. Although I think you might be surprised at how fast it goes even in Carlton.

The really important bit about compost is to add at least as much dry carbon matter (autumn leaves, hay, dried lawn clippings, shredded cardboard, shredded newspaper) as wet vegetable scraps. Tea bags/coffee grounds are sorta in between. There are whole tomes of info on doing compost but it’s pretty foolproof if you keep the dry/wet ratios about equal with the dry predominating. I would also recommend getting a bag of worms to put in the compost cos they do wonders to keep the compost non-smelly. And a longish stick/fork to stir up the layers occasionally to keep it properly aerated and cooking away. I use a very old 3 prong hoe with a shortish handle to do this in mine. Once a compost bin/heap is cooking away merrily, it can cope with almost anything that was once alive. Including all the stuff that they say you can’t put in it such as citrus peel and meat bones and avocado stones and eggshells. I once put an old pair of jeans in my heap, and there wasn’t anything left of them except the buttons & rivets a year later.

The classic advice is to buy the worst house in the best street/location. I reckon this applies here too. Location location location.

Yes. A start. As you get more confident, you can branch out a bit more and make more connections. It’s tough but it can be done. And you have your music (and Gibson).

Will there be enough left for us?