New Chickens

Well, the Smallholder's Show at Ardingly is always a favourite of mine, and this year I was in the unusual and fortunate position of actually needing some more chickens! After the sad loss of Emu to a recurrence of his foot infection, and another to the inevitable attentions of the fox, I had genuine spare capacity. I was wondering if the poultry gods would be against me and leave me with nothing suitable but thankfully, they were smiling on me.

I already have a trio of Buff Sussex bantams from which I sell hatching eggs, but I was after another set so that I could potentially breed from them myself with the opportunity to mix up the offspring to enable further crossing. In the last building with poultry for sale, there was a pair of Buff Sussexes, and although they looked a bit scrappy thanks to an unhelpful last-minute moult decision two weeks previously, the hen was a good weight and looked bright and chirpy. Her mate had much more black on his nape, and more marmalade-y saddle feathers than my existing Sussex boy so I am pleased with the contrast. I took their ticket to the sale desk, brandishing my cash...

...when of course I was stopped in my tracks on the way by the sight of a pair of Rhode Island bantams in a pen further down. I've never seen them before, and although one of my laying hens is a Rhodey, I didn't know you could get a bantam version. They were the most gorgeous chocolate brown, and stood calmly in their cage. A bargain too at £20. But! - I didn't have room for another pair, and that would bring my cockerel tally up to five, which makes letting each set have a run outside in the garden each day a bit of a logistical challenge. Anyway, after much discussion and a cup of tea, I decided that I would regret not having them (of course!) so I came away with two boxes and a big smile on my face.

Robert and Cora, the Rhode

Island Red bantams

I am so pleased with them. They now have their own secure coop with run in the fennel bed, which also seals off a gap in the hedge where the fox has been known to hide: the dog discovered one waiting there yesterday, although the fox ended up with a snarling spaniel chasing it halfway down the field instead of an easy meal. The other two bantams have also settled in - I just need them to start laying some eggs now so they can earn their keep!

Game and Country Fair

Another hot day, but we wanted to get over to the game and Country Fair at Ardingly. The Fur and Feathers Building was great:

We did see some call ducks but they were £60 for a pair and there wasn't much selection. It was incredibly hot - we came back and the bees were obviously a bit warm in their hive too:

I let John and Jean out and gave them a bucket full of mud to play in:

I am such a good duck-mummy. Anyway by this time I was really regretting not having got any calls from the show, so Charles kindly dug out an old Friday-Ad from his car and we rang a number. We arrived and after traipsing round the farm looking for the lady and a confused conversation over whether she could let any of them go anyway, we chose a pair and came home.

Do you want to see what's in it?







Really?









Oh ok then:

Meet Joanna and Llywelyn! The drake has curly tail feathers so I can tell them apart. Well, that and the fact that Joanna makes a racket as does Jean.

I am really pleased, they are completely adorable :-)

South of England Show

Well, I have not been to the South of England Agricultural Show for some time and the forecast wasn't great but we were looking forward to it all the same. T was sleeping over at his friend Joel's house, so we only needed to provide lunch for the girls - in other words, enough for small family rather than an army.

We arrived at the showground in good time and headed for the tea section for the first round of refuelling:

Then it was off to see some animals :-)

We stopped off at the Hound Show first where, as part of the judging, the hounds were released - presumably to show off their movement and ability to chase biscuits and sniff things they shouldn't.

Organised chaos in the Hound Showing Ring

We then headed over to the cattle show rings, which were conveniently close to another tea tent. There were some beautiful Charolais and Sussex cattle:

Sussex Cows being judged

Championship Charolais beef cattle

We also went past the pigs:

More organised chaos

It was starting to try to rain so we headed for the Fur and Feathers tent to get some 'ahhhh how sweeeet!!!' out of our system as my companions had thus far not joined me in thinking the cows were adorable for some reason.

Amber with prize-winning Brahma

I was not allowed to take these home

We stopped for a spot of lunch on wet seats and then started to make our way back to the Red Entrance which seemed to be diagonally opposite where we were. But no matter - Amber got to milk a real lifesize plastic cow called Buttercup:

Quite the milkmaid

And Rosie got to stroke a pig:

So I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

I'm going to try making some rose petal jelly as my roses are so gorgeous it seems such a waste to throw them into the wormery, even though I am having as many as I can in vases.  Well, I say vases; random vessels and beer bottles with pretty labels but it still seems a waste. I have only made jelly once before and it was like trying to get a knife through a trampoline - I think I had over-estimated the time it took to reach setting point. Watch this space...