Home Made

Fashion student (now graduate) Sue Carley made me a pair of DIY jeans from unbleached cotton – Dye It Yourself. A small oak ‘bush’ beside the Egg (behind me in the photo) provided galls to create the dye and its individual leaves the templates for … Continue reading →

Stinging Nettles are growing in huge profusion beside the Bofors Gun emplacement, which is itself slowly disappearing behind their dense metre high growth. The leaves make a refreshing green tea.

The AquaCam will be set adrift on the river, recording those chance happenings instigated by the wind above water and by the current below.

Blackberries stored since last September were boiled to extract juices which, with the addition of alum and cream of tartar, infused cotton with their essential vibrant energy. The resulting T shirt is part of an evolving collection of ceremonial and practical … Continue reading →

A cedar of Lebanon in Exbury Gardens gifted me the branch I needed for a ‘Christmas tree’ and has now laid a candelabrum at my feet. On a walk yesterday morning I found this weathered branch whose six eroded cones … Continue reading →

A handful of gorse flowers were painfully picked from the parish bush, then washed and dried. Rehydrating a few flowers with boiling water made a tea for breakfast. It has a bitter aftertaste with some sweet notes, but I could … Continue reading →

Yellow gorse flowers were a cheering splash of colour on a rare dry evening, given a warm tint by the setting sun as the moon rose up behind. Of course gorse is a common plant up on the heathland of … Continue reading →

Following on from my previous posting, I can report that the search for orris root (an ingredient in the purification of Exbury Sea salt in the eighteenth century) has quickly proved fruitful. On a walk today with friends and with … Continue reading →

I am living on the edge of an eighteenth century salt making landscape. Its many parallel banks and channels are like the teeth of a marshy comb, protected by the curving contours of the Outer Bank which was raised by … Continue reading →

I placed an egg of woven blackthorn in the thicket from which its twigs and small branches originally came. It is held together with ties of twine and will soon be slowly absorbed into the dense new growth of Springtime. … Continue reading →

The developing blackberry wine is looking very clear. After over a day of cleaning the Egg and my clothing of unwanted fungus (mould), it is pleasing to observe the benefit of a more welcome sort (yeast).

The tree is an appropriately curved frond from a Cedar of Labanon (appropriately biblical), found nearby within the confines of Exbury Gardens. It nestles in the arc of the inner wall is decorated with flotsam from the shore. On Twelfth … Continue reading →

I began to make rose hip syrup on October 4th (see earlier blog post), but decided instead to make the pulped hips into an ink for drawing. So last Sunday I spent a whole day making syrup using hips from another … Continue reading →

Intense rain showers drove me indoors to make a limited edition of sloe gin. The blackthorn berries were picked eight days ago on October 24th and were kept refrigerated nearby until I came back from leave. The freezing is roughly … Continue reading →

A small oak opposite the egg has a rich crop of galls to harvest. I will use them to make a dye for my clothing and to create an ink for drawing as the first step toward understanding the cultural … Continue reading →

Sauce from freshly cut late flowering mint was prepared and bottled for the Exbury Egg Kitchen. Leaves were washed, chopped and added to water, salt, white wine vinegar and caster sugar in the following proportion: 1 bunch of mint , 1 … Continue reading →

I have begun to collect hips in order to make rose hip syrup for the Egg kitchen. There are abundant fruits on the thorny stems of dog rose mixed in with Blackthorn and Blackberry that surround a nearby anti-aircraft gun … Continue reading →

Mint growing wild just 83 feet from the Egg, provided leaves to flavour the potatoes I had for supper yesterday and today’s digestive tea. It has the distinct flavour of spearmint and I have dried a small amount for future use.