Wholemeal Bread

Heage Windmill is a heritage site run by the Heage Windmill Society, a charitable trust. It is a distinct part of the Derbyshire landscape near Belper and the mill is in part working order, having one of its two stone sets turning to mill flour. The trust and the millers give guided tours to visitors for a small fee, and this supports the maintainance of this windmill.

I often purchase my flour from source for bread making. Much of this has recently been from Rowsley Mill, a watermill near Bakewell. During maintenance, they buy in flour, so I have purchased some from Heage this year. The bags are initialled by the millers who worked on the flour milling for each batch.

The wholemeal flour is just a little finer than the quality I am used to, so I thought that I would make a purely wholemeal loaf, something that I seldom do.

0.8Kg wholemeal flour
6g dried yeast
10g castor sugar
30ml oil
warm water

Put the dry ingredients into a large bowl and whisk dry to mix. Add some warm water and the oil and mix thoroughly. add a little more water if needed until a very stiff dough is produced. Add a sprinkling of flour and kneed the dough into a firm ball. I put a drop of oil into the bowl and use the dough to spread it around. This stops the dough from sticking to the bowl. Leave to rise for at least an hour, to double in size.

Knock down the dough and kneed again. In this instance I made two roles and a loaf, standing the dough for another hour to rise, before baking at 200 degrees Celsius (rolls for 17 minutes, loaf for 25 minutes). Cool for at least two hours before eating.
Wholemeal bread has a solid texture and a nutty flavour which is ideal with cheese and pickle or thick soup. This was the first wholemeal loaf I have made this year, my usual bread is 45% wholemeal and 65% strong white flour. I have recently started to make multi-grain loaves using 6 or 8 flour types. If you take a hand full of whole grains and blitz them in to a course flour before adding them to the dry mix, the resulting flavour in the bread is exceptionally good.

http://www.heagewindmill.org.uk/

http://bread.pursglove-ons.co.uk/

The Sky at Solomons Temple

Solomon's Temple is a folly to the east of Buxton in Derbyshire. It was built following a design by Solomon Mycock in the 1890s by public subscription. It is located in Grinlow Park at the highest point in the old quarry, where you can climb to the tower top and view the surrounding landscape.
We had travelled to the Park at noon, driving over the Roaches, where we encountered snow and thick cold fog. The air temperature fell from 6 degrees in Stoke, to 1 degree on the Pennines. By the time we had dropped down to Buxton the air temperature was reading 2 degrees on the car thermometer.
In late November, with an advancing cold front, the cloud is thick and low in the sky. An occasional break in the cloud cover allowed me to take the accompanying photographs.

The day continued to be cold and dismal so we went home to a warming curry with nan bread.

Derbyshire Trilobites

Today, whilst I was baking bread, I spent some time looking at my trilobite collection. I have a good selection of specimens from around the UK, but my drawers that hold the Carboniferous age specimens are not very full.
The reality is simply that in the UK, Carboniferous trilobites are uncommon. They tend to be small species that are found at a few localities and in many cases, the fossils are the same colour as the rock matrix, so they do not stand out.
This is a specimen from Derbyshire, not far from Castleton. It is the pygidium (Tail segment) of a species called Griffithides and it is about 1cm across its width.

Similar specimens from French sites are much more distinct, being fossilised in a different material to the surrounding rock matrix. They stand out clearly and are easily found, making them more common in collections and museums.

The picture on the right is of a specimen of Griffithides from The Humbolt Museum of Natural History. It clearly shows the form of this type of trilobite. The tail segment is large compared to the overall size of the specimen and the three lobes of the tail tend to be fused into a solid plate with the ridges of the segments standing out.

These Proetid trilobites were from a time when the trilobites were in decline. Only a few families are found worldwide and they were mainly fast swimming coastal species with well developed compound eyes. They are well adapted for avoiding predation, and in the Carboniferous, there were a lot of things about that would eat trilobites.

The humble Moorhen

Cromford Mill was Richard Arkwright's factory, built in 1771. It was the first successful cotton spinning mill and it survives today as a charitable trust. Our visit to Cromford Mill was for a coffee stop at their excellent cafe and a chance to purchase flour for bread making as they have a selection of specialist flours from local flour mills. We venture out along the canal after coffee.
On the canal are a wide variety of water birds, including the Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus). This medium sized rale (Ralliform) is often overlooked by bird watchers as a background bird. It can be seen grazing on water weed and grass on most lakes and rivers in England and Wales. It is less common though in Scotland.
The birds have a very distinctive red patch above and onto the beak which has a bright yellow tip. There is a row of white bars on the feathers of the wing. It is a very distinctive grown dwelling bird.
But did you know that this bird will roost in trees as a protection against predators and disturbance. It is a very poor flier as birds go, but it can be seen scampering up the trunks of trees using its wings as a boost to aid climbing.

Happy Birthday Brother

Today is the day that the Royal Mail strike has impacted upon me personally. It is my brothers Birthday and I have been unable to send him a card in time for the event. E-mail and blog to the rescue - happy birthday bro'.

I will be scratching out the inscription and altering it to Merry Christmas, so you now have a preview of your next greeting card. It will of course be hand delivered to avoid the need for the postal chaos next month. I should have chosen a tortoise card!

Dabchicks at Cromford

The Dabchick or Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficolis) is not a common bird in the County of Derbyshire, but at Cromford there has been a colony on the canal for as long as I can remember. In the Spring and Summer it is a colourful small water bird with a black and brick red head and a grey body, having a distinct white spot below their beak.
In the Autumn and Winter, these birds become quite drab and uninteresting in their colour. They become a dull and brownish grey colour, losing some of the splendour of the breeding plumage. However they are still amazing little characters, darting about under water and emerging to chirrup at each other in a very distinctive call. They make a lot of noise at times for such a small water bird.
The grebes feed on water invertebrates and small fish, remaining in the water most of the time. Their legs are very far back, making them excellent underwater swimmers, but their ability to walk on land is very poor. They will fly rather than walk, nesting at the waters edge in vegetation.

Consall Gardens

Autumn at Consall Gardens is quite an event. These extensive gardens have 6 lakes and a wide variety of different forest habitats. One of my favourite and unusual forest habitats is the Leylandii forest.
Leylandii (Cupressocyparis leylandii), commonly called the Leyland Cypress, is a forest tree which is usually marketed in garden centres as a hedging plant. It makes an exceptionally high maintenance hedge, as the trees have a fast growth rate and will grow very tall. They also naturally shed leaves when they are overshadowed by other Leylandii or garden structures. This is a natural process in a forest environment.
The perimeter of the Leyland Cypress forest is green with fine leaves, giving a dramatic effect all year round. When you enter the forest it is like any conifer forest, having the foliage high in the canopy.
The tree trunks are bare and devoid of green leaves, though, above the browse line, the dead branches still remain attached to the trunks. The inside of the forest is dark and quiet, with leaf litter on the forest floor and a soil which is generally too acid for any other plants to grow in.
There is little usable food here for birds or mammals and few insects are adapted to feed in these forests, so they are very sparsely populated. Their main function seems to act as shelter from the elements.

The trees are a cultured hybrid, originally bred in 1888 from a Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) and an Alaska Cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis). They are specific to the UK and have occasionally been exported as garden plants to other countries. These forests at Consal Gardens are a rare habitat, which is seen in very few places. The gardens are closing to public access at the end of this month, which is a shame. Seeing these forests will have to be arranged by special appointment in future.

Rosies final visit to Consal Gardens