In tooth and claw...

Nature has been showing its nature lately round these parts. Not its creative nature alas, apart from a goodly supply of eggs from hens and bantams both. It looks like the hens' eggs on which the senior bantam is sitting are NOT GOING TO HATCH. To the great disappointment of all visiting children - and of Granny and Beloved too, it must be said.

Otherwise it's all red claws and teeth. Small- mother - goat has been terrorising large goat so thoroughly, they've had to be separated. Four of the young bantams - now all shown to be hens and all laying eggs - bullied the fifth until she has had to be put to live alone in the new run under the wall of the back patio garden. A rather charming little fish with a long nose - possibly an infant swordfish -caught by beloved ten-year-old goddaughter in the local rock pools and proudly borne back to the kitchen version was first set on by one of the resident fish - a goby - and having been rescued from him/her was then engulfed by an anenome and stung to death. A dead sparrow found outside the chicken run was the victim most likely of Feline Lorengar who has cottoned on to the sparrows' liking for chicken food - almost as great or even greater than the chickens' - and the fact that this traps them in the chicken run and turns them into sitting - Granny was about to say ducks; you'll know what she means. The very same day, a dead gecko was found outside the front door, this corpse the victim, undoubtedly, of Tiresome Terrier - on whom Granny has VIEWS. (For one, she quite definitely prefers geckos.)

As for the humans. Well it could be worse. But two pairs of young sisters - one Granny's granddaughters, the other Beloved Goddaughter and sister - are, like small girls in general, not always quite as fast friends as they should be, and Granny and the parent - of the first - and parents - of the second - have had to play peacemaker from time to time. The adults have been more restrained. Though Granny was once heard lambasting Beloved, who'd inquired once too often why she was sitting on the computer reading her friends' blogs, when dinner was in the offing. The dinner as she'd told him was ALL UNDER CONTROL. It did indeed turn up on time and in order. 'Multi-tasking' she told Beloved, not very sweetly. And very loudly.

But - there's the rub; it was the two legs of the lamb that had sat dead on the sofa in her office a few weeks back, before being butchered and consigned to the freezer. 'Dear little lambie', as a long-dead and wonderfully crazy American cousin of Granny's would carol as she consigned her own roast to the oven. This particular dear little lambie was, of course, slaughtered on Granny's own say so, a fact she cannot quite gainsay, even if she was nice enough to its dead self, rubbing it all over with a sweet and sweetening mixture of honey, rosemary and garlic, then roasting it very slowly, thoughtfully even, for nearly four hours.

It was as everyone said DELICIOUS. Despite nature; or, you could say, because of it. The teeth in this case belonging one and all to homo - and homa - sapiens.

******
Granny's next post, by the way, when everyone has departed, will tell the rather wonderful, very sad, but very sweet story of how she and Beloved Goddaughter's mother met. The mother in question, has given her permission. An extraordinary story, it is quite time it was told.