Copied from the song written by Johnny Cash. And I recall that in some Amazonian languages there are forty different words to describe 'green' in all its shades! Again I want to see and do The things we've done and seen Where the breeze is sweet as Shalimar And there's forty shades of green
Dominic Cartier.
My orthopaedic surgeon allows me to take, once every few months, a high dose three day course of prednisolone to allow me to have a pretty pain free couple of days. I use his permission for special events. I used it this week.
In retirement my wife and I live with two of our sons on a small 100 acre (40Hac) property. About 40% of it is taken up with 2 hills steep and covered with my enemy the Chonkee Apple. That leaves us about 60 useful acres. One of my sons is adopted and younger than many of our grandchildren. He is an apprentice mechanic. The other much older has a part time job as pastor of a small church, and makes caring for us and the farm the rest of his job.
So what do we do on the 60 acres? We are developing, I guess you would call it a hobby farm, with Dorper sheep. Initially we bought 12 ewes and a ram. We got 11 lambs, sadly one of which was stillborn and the dogs got at two of them. The dogs have since gone to dogs’ heaven even though we loved them very much. A farmer cannot tolerate that behaviour, and I refused to see them chained up all the time.
So we have 8 lambs nearly ready for market (males) or putting back into the breeding flock (females).
As we separated them from the small flock we counted 8 of them. I think if you try you can count 8 heads. The brown in their ears makes counting a bit difficult. But there were 8. Yesterday there were 9!
All our ewes have ear tags. None of these have. The 2 uncastrated ram lambs are easily identified and there are still only 2. So How? I don’t have an answer except maybe our neighbour who has a few now has one less. Something about grass on the other side of the fence being greener! At any rate they are looking in good nic.
But what has that got to do with my use of prednisolone? Nothing! We decided to buy some more ewes. Hopefully by getting a good percentage of ewe lambs we hope to run a breeding stock of about 50. The only place we have been able to get them is a round trip of about 1,200Km. This area around us is a cattle area, so there aren’t many sheep, and not many have dorper sheep. (These don’t need shearing, they shed their wool.) So I, usually limited to small trips and often in a wheelchair these days, wanted to go with my son. Hence the three day course.
So setting out at about 10 in the morning, we arrived back and by midnight had unloaded the extra 15 ewes and were in bed by midnight. I thoroughly enjoyed the outing.
Now we’ll have to wait and see how many lambs we get. They’re all supposed to be pregnant.
Dominic Cartier.
Just after the communists were driven out of Ethiopia, the organisation we were connected to preferred us not to travel at night. We were seconded to a government hospital in Soddo. There was still a fair bit of shifta (bandit) activity. We had planned to leave earlier than we did, but I was held up at work. Our planned trip was about 400 km. It was almost getting dark when we filled up the main tank with diesel in a town about 150 km from our departure spot. We were using the reserve tank and didn’t switch back onto the freshly filled main tank until we arrived at the next main town a further 100 km along the way.
Within about ten kilometres, having spluttered for a while, the engine stopped altogether, My wife and I, with the 3 Ethiopian teenagers who were living with us, were stranded just outside a prison farm in the dark. A place which we had heard was not well secured.
What should we do? There was a mission station back in the town we had just passed with people we had met. We could not contact them as in those days no such things as mobile phones existed. So my wife and the oldest teenager stayed with the car and the younger two and I set out to walk back for help. I guess we were a bit scared, it was dark and I had seen at the hospital what bandits could do. I can’t remember what we talked about until the youngest explosively let off a prolonged emission from his nether end. He was embarrassed but so what! It got us talking about what sounds were common to all mankind. We could in the languages we knew between us, apart from belches and fluffs, only think of ‘amen’ and ‘hallelujah’.
By the time this enlightening conversation was over we arrived back at the last town, and were able to get help. Our acquaintance at the mission got some tools and 20 litres of diesel and a tow rope. I went to the local motel and found out how much it would cost to stay overnight.
With the mission guy’s help, having been towed back to the mission station, we discovered that the diesel we had bought previously was about 80% water. This was drained out, his diesel put into the tank, we were profuse in our thanks then went to the local fuel place and filled up. By now it was getting late, so I went back to the ‘motel’. But the manager had heard about us and, realising that my wife and I were white, doubled the price for all of us even though 3 were Ethiopians.
I decided we’d take our chances of bandits on the road rather than be robbed by this guy. So off we went for the last 150 km. No more robbers, and we arrived at about midnight. We hadn’t been able to contact them but the place we were to stay (friends) having been worried about us were glad to see us arrive.
Bominic Csrtier
I’ve been remiss lately hardly even opening up my blogs. And I want to say why.
There has been the pressure of meeting the deadlines for publishing my two ebooks. At last they are in the publishers’ hands and due to open for sales in the next few days. They are published through Smashwords.com. They are – ‘Have Scalpel will Travel – memoirs of an older surgeon – revised and updated’ & ‘Medical Diagnostics a Surgical Approach’. The second is definitely medical with pictures.
Then we are not quite prepared for our pregnant ewes to lamb and have a shed and yards to complete in the next few days.
There was a granddaughter’s wedding to attend about 1,500 km away. We drove but whereas once we could do it in a long day it now takes three days. So we were away a week.
We got a broken car window and with all the bits they add into the glass these days it meant a wait of several weeks for the correct glass to be found and a second trip to have the bits tuned up. Now it is much better than looking through cracks!
Then in the last couple of weeks I’ve had a preaching appointment on zoom to India and Ethiopia, another at a church whose minister has just resigned and this weekend in our own church. Our church has a new man arriving in January, we having been without a Minister for a while.
The house restoration is looking good, but the place needs painting! So all I can say is please forgive my tardiness!
Dominic Cartier
Some of you older ones will remember the coupons which allowed your family to buy food during and after World War II. I was still pretty young (5) when the war ended so I don’t remember all the details but if you had a slice of bread it often had fat (lard) from the cooking plus some salt and pepper; you could have butter or jam but not both on your bread; special desert was a jam tart which you were allowed to help your mother cook.
(If you note a lot of spelling mistakes it is because my dog is insisting on putting her paws on my shoulder and licking my ear!)
Back to cooking. I remember when we got a coupon allowing us to get some rice – for instance. Basically we ate a very plain meat, potatoes and vegetable diet with very occasional desert. Somehow at Christmas they seemed to go overboard with lots of lonely old people from around the district and a plethora of delicious food.
Then as a medical student I went into National Service. We weren’t allowed to join the medical corps and I was a cook. So I can tell you that maggots float to the top when meat is boiled and scooped off and there is still good meat to serve the troops – while you (the cook) opened a tin of preserved fruit for yourself. It was good training as my wife doesn’t like cooking much.
So then I went to India where the food was so spicy I wondered why they didn’t just serve up the coals. I got used to it but I remember going to a wedding where the food was so spicy that hardly anyone ate much. I asked why for a wedding it was made so spicy and was told that it allowed them to invite lots of guests. I lost about 20 kilos in my 6 month stay in India.
On arriving in Ethiopia they use different spices. In India spices were hot in the mouth; in Ethiopia they were hot both ends – entering and leaving. Graciously the people who knew us toned it down for we foreigners. But it did give me a taste for more than what we had as kids.
Coming up to date, I want to give you a marinade sauce recipe. I sold some land to a neighbour who still owes me money (they are very faithful in their payments) but who kill their own pigs and cattle and sheep. They send us gifts sometimes. We are very thankful for it but it really isn’t quite as tender as you buy in the shop – but as a gift much cheaper!
So I’ll share with you my mixture to make it more tender and which still reminds me of some of my Indio-Ethiopian past. I know you’re supposed to measure everything exactly but I excuse myself by saying I do it to taste. So what you’re getting is approximate.
I mix it all up and if the meat is suitable (eg chops) marinate in the fridge for some hours. Then cook the meat in it. If I think the meat is going to be very tough I use a slow cooker and boil up my mixture separately and use it as a gravy/sauce.
None of us have died; one likes me to limit the tomato paste a bit, but they keep coming back for it!
You might like it spicier, then add some ground chilli – which I tend to do if we have Ethiopian visitors.
Dominic Cartier
Heated Stew 