Goings on at Ellingham Hall

We spent most of the week painting the inside walls of a cottage that will be the wwoof residence at the farm. Several months ago, when the previous tenet left, it was thought that it would take less than a week to clean it out and move in the wwoofers. Once the farm manager got a good look at the place however, he realized that the wallpaper had to go. There is still some left, hiding out in a closet upstairs, so Josh and I have seen first hand how hideous the stuff is. Imagine a piece of uncooked tripe. Now imagine it in various shades of purple. That's what the wallpaper looks like: bumpy, purple intestinal lining. And underneath that, there are two more layers of ugly textured wallpaper. It looks like someone at some point decided that this train wreck was an improvement over previous bad interior decorating decisions. Once the wallpaper was finally removed, it was discovered that the walls were in such bad condition that they needed to be replastered. Luckily, this was all done before we arrived.

Our task all week has been painting every wall in the house a shade of off-white called, Magnolia. We spend a good deal of our work day making fun of this boring and entirely inoffensive color which we are spreading to every corner of the house. The skirting board gets a narsty smelling coat or two of glossy white and the doors get an equally foul covering with wood stain. Hopefully the cottage will get at least a week to air out before we are asked to move in. I guess it comes down to when the carpeting people come to install the carpet, which will apparently be a shade of brown guaranteed to not show dirt. It will be just the kind of place to house a bunch of ne'er-do-wells like us wwoofers.

I'm looking forward to the day when we can actually deal with vegetables again. Given how it keeps snowing, that day might not be soon in coming.

The farm will be holding a shoot next week. Bob says they are always short on beaters, so we will probably get to join in. The farm raises 6,000 pheasants every year, and about 2,000 of them are offered for shoots. The rest are either eaten by predators or escape into the wild somewhere. Shoots cost about $5000 and the shooters generally kill around 150 birds each event. This is considered a sport and is different from hunting. The shooters stand at one end of forest and the beaters start out at the other. We're supposed to walk in a line making a lot of noise and driving the pheasants in front of us. When the birds reach the end of the trees, they try to fly away. That's when the shooters get them. After all that expense, the shooters don't usually take even a single bird home. The farms sends them down to the restaurant in London, so they essentially get to sell the pheasants twice. Not a bad deal. The farm makes about $60,000 from the whole thing, and the rich people who participate get to have a jolly good time. Josh and I will get some fresh air and a taste of the catered lunch.