Tuesday 19 July 2011

Midpoints

It's mid-summer in England according to the calendar, if not the weather outside. The apple tree has finished its June drop, letting go of some of its fruits early, for the good of the many still left to feed and ripen. The hard green sacrifical apples carpet the lawn, and the living room. The retrievers pick one up on every trip out the the garden, and bring it in to play with later. I find them under chairs, on chairs, I step on them rolling around the tile floor in the kitchen.

The rest of the garden is combatting cold and windy weather, for another week at least. I'm wearing wool and fleece instead of t-shirts and shorts. We're eating stews and stodgy puddings, so many that I'm now forced to combat my middle-aged spread.

My sister suggested a diet she found successful, a sort of Atkins 2.0. I'm halfway through it already. The only problem is I don't own a set of scales so I could weigh myself to see if the diet was working. Well, I haven't got a set of human scales, but I do have a weigh crate for sheep.


Usually when I weigh the lambs I'm looking for the dial to move up. In this case I'm hoping it goes the other way. It works fine, though I learned two things about myself: I'm already cull ewe weight, and if I had worms, I require a 12ml drench.

If I had worms I probably wouldn't be so well-covered in the first place.

Speaking of well-covered, I've butchered the ram lambs. They were obviously converting their grass diet well and there was a lot of excess fat which I cooked up for the dogs. I'm supposed to eat a lot of fat and meat on this diet. I don't think that's going to be a problem.

5 comments:

Tovar@AMindfulCarnivore said...

Ha! This post cracked me up, Jen, particularly your scale, and the related photo and commentary. Love it.

megan said...

I second that Ha!

Colette said...

Diet info please, I can assure you that I am well over cull weight!!

Hope your enjoying the sun (I am sure it is there, nope, just been covered by a grey cloud!!)

Anonymous said...

Lots of fat and protein, eh? Sounds like the primal diet to me, which is what my husband and I follow. I don't mind eating lots of fat -- particularly if it's butter. Yum.

Tamar@StarvingofftheLand said...

Cold weather is not conducive to weight loss. It makes you want to stay indoors and eat. Or maybe bake, which is worse.

I think this post illustrates the vast difference in what you do (actually work the land for food and raise animals for sustenance) and what we do (dabble). You have a picture of weighing yourself on a livestock scale. I have a picture of weighing my turkey on a bathroom scale.