Silverfish

Following the report of batch 574 around this time last week at reference 1, I can now report the reasonably successful conclusion of batch 575. Made with Alto bread flour from Ponders End and Carr's wholemeal flour from up north. Turned out quite well, somewhere between the ancient flour low rise and the high rise which I had usually been achieving, before the plague, with Leckford Estate strong white and Canadian stoneground wholemeal from Waitrose. Some large surface bubbles present in the present loaves, say an inch across, but not too unsightly. Might almost be thought to have been contrived on purpose.

Part of the mix was starting the new sack of Alto, this one direct from Ponder's End rather than via an intermediary (for which see reference 2), and for some reason I had trouble opening it neatly. Not a problem I remember with the first. Furthermore, since its delivery a few weeks ago, the new sack had been stored in its cardboard box, underneath the computer table in the dining room. On removing the sack from its box, out jumped a silverfish, not something I see terribly often. BH says maybe several a year. Body maybe a centimetre long.

Wikipedia tells me at reference 3 that the silverfish is a very ancient bug, maybe 400 million years old, so pretty ancient compared with us, and well known for its fondness for sugar, starchy foods and the sort of dry organic matter found in houses - for example books, cloth and leather - generally. Rather to my surprise, they can live as long as two, three or more years - and they can survive on water for as long as a year. The thing is, did this one come with the flour or was it attracted to the flour?

As it happens I been pondering about pest angles on keeping a large bag of flour indoors for some months. And Bing turns up lots of stuff on the search term 'silverfish pest'.

And now I am wondering where Wikipedia get all their good quality images from. More than enough pixels for my purposes.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-crabs-continued.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-wonders-of-ebay.html.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverfish.