WELL, not exactly the belfry, in fact not exactly bats either, but certainly mossies in the eaves.
House sparrows are nesting in the eaves of all the cottages around us, including ours, but more recently at least one pair has colonised the underside of the corrugated aluminium roof of the Hide.
They have managed to squeeze into the gap left by the corrugations and have constructed a nest in there.
Of course, nests require nesting material, apparently lots of it, in fact we have wondered if our mossies have not constructed more of a hammerkop’s nest in their corner – we’ve seen them carting all sorts of bits and pieces into what would seem to be a very small space, but we assume they know what they are doing.
The other day there was a commotion and we noticed a mossie struggling to fly while carrying a transparent plastic bag, like the ones they wrap your milk sachet in at supermarkets.
It looked for all the world as though the bird was wearing a long bridal veil.
Anyway, it was attracting quite a lot of attention from other mossies as the plastic bag was clearly an object of some envy.
Eventually the bird was chased into a tree where the bag became entangled in a mess of mossies and branches.
Don’t anyone ever tell you that mossies are boring.
As it’s still the festive season I thought you might like a couple of good news stories about beer.
Tasmanian scientists have succeeded in brewing the world’s oldest beer from yeast salvaged from a ship wrecked off the island in 1797.
The live yeast, found in a beer bottle, was used with brewing recipes and techniques from the 18th century.
The beer has been pronounced good and the scientists have also succeeded in baking a loaf of sourdough bread using the same yeast.
Well, there you go, 220 year old bread and beer to go with your braai.*
Meanwhile, archaeologists working on a dig on the Wei River in northern China have unearthed pottery containing traces of 5,000-year-old beer.
This is the earliest evidence of beer in China and the use of barley in this ancient brew also indicates that barley reached China from the West at least 1,000 years earlier than was previously thought.**
The earliest evidence of beer brewing has been found in archaeological digs in the Zagros Mountains in what is now western Iran, dating back 7,000 years.
Beer was not the earliest alcoholic beverage known to man, however, traces of mead (mead is brewed from honey) have been found in northern China dating to 9,000 years ago.
As a matter of interest back in Johannesburg, I brewed both beer and mead.
Home brewed beer is comparatively easy once you get the hang of it, and it tastes pretty good too, but mead is a very difficult business.
The end product was very drinkable, but the game was not really worth the candle.
Cheers, anyway.
*Maritime News.
**The Digging Stick, magazine of the South African Archaeological Society.
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