Early Summer

It has been a busy last few weeks with poultry, swarms and um, other stuff which has taken up my time but I now can't think of what...

The chicks are growing well and now that the nights are milder, are in the broody coop with Beatrice, and enjoying their daily explore of the garden under her watchful eye:

Ooooh!

The chick I thought was a boy I now think is a girl, and the white 'hen' seems to have a prominent comb already. I tried to talk myself round to it just being because it's a white chick so it shows up more but it's seeming less and less convincing!

Son of Henry

I really wanted a white hen as since Peggy (Amber Star hybrid) had to be put down due to a kidney infection, all the chickens have been varying shades of brown. Ho hum, I'm sure he'll be a handsome chap like his dad tho so I'll keep him as a replacement. The other two 'Welsummer' chicks (either the hens were running with another cockerel and retained his semen for longer than I'd anticipated, or Henry is not a pure Welsummer) are orangey-brown and have smaller combs so fingers crossed. I am pretty sure the two Buff Sussex bantams are pullets though, which would be brilliant as I need to replace the two taken by rats; I still feel pretty sad about that incident to be honest.

In other news, we've rescued a baby bunny from nextdoor's cat - it sadly didn't make it but it was a little poppet:

Ketchup, the young bunny

Clearly it wasn't a victim of my cat who is now on a diet due to his sedentary lifestyle - thankfully the rat problem seems to have lessened now it's getting on to summertime and the spring traps I bought have caught a few.

My allotment has been a bit neglected as I've been so busy elsewhere but a session with the girls saw off most of the burgeoning willowherb. The slugs have had a wonderful time as I'm the only person who doesn't use pellets, but I was delighted to see that the sheet of corrugated iron I left in a sunny spot has encouraged a large and expert slug-eater:

A warty friend

As Amber and Rose were with me, it had to be named, so meet Todd the Toad. I'm really hoping I might get slow-worms as I love them! I'm not sure if hedgehogs frequent the area; I hardly ever see them these days. I read an interesting article in Permaculture Mag about slug control: as usual, the more the ecology is fiddled with, the more problems you have. So, if you do everything to encourage natural predators the balance will be restored. Using pellets or even nematodes discourages the birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians from coming in, hence the problems the minute you don't use any control, or miss a bit. Utilising slugs and snails as food for beneficial animals means the predators will patrol the area looking for food on a regular basis and do a far more efficient job with none of the negative side effects. However, I would like to fence off my plot so I can take my ace slug hit squad up there periodically for a sweep:

Be afraid, be very afraid

I've not had much time for knitting recently but I have picked up some art - a timely and excellent birthday present from a like-minded friend has inspired me to pick up my pencil and paper and I'm loving it, to the point where I see something and my first thought is to want to draw it rather than photograph it. I'm only getting proper time to indulge about once a week but I'm hoping to start a sketchbook as well as galloping through A3 printer paper for my practise exercises, and a trip to Tate Modern beckons...

Let's Hear it for the Boys

One of the advantages of going to the feed merchant is picking up a magazine to browse through with a cuppa once all the animals are in bed. Practical Poultry is a fave, not least because they have a lovely pin-up poster in the centrefold and it's always of a stunning-looking cockerel. The temptation to pull it out carefully and stick it on my wall as I used to do with pop heart-throbs is enormous though as yet unrealised.

There is an excellent article in this month's edition (Issue 131, December 2014) called 'The Cockerel Conundrum' highlighting the sad fact that for every hen produced commercially, there is a brother who probably doesn't get to spend more than 24 hours of this world as they are gassed and put in to the pet-food freezer for pythons, falcons and other such beneficiaries. The genetics to make an excellent laying hen mean the males are worthless and useless and literally a waste product as it's not like the old days when the females laid some eggs through the year and the boys would be reared for meat as utility breeds are not specialised enough for today's market; it's exactly the same with the dairy cattle industry.

The problem of too many males is of course the same for domestic hatching with many people brooding a batch of eggs, some of all of which could be unwanted cockerels. These end up in all sorts of horrendous situations such as being dumped for a fox to get, or put in the paper under 'Free to good home' just to be dispatched unceremoniously or worse, in pain and suffering. However, at least the offspring can potentially be reared for meat depending on the parentage.

I think it's a huge shame that urban henkeepers are obliged to be cockerel-free because of the perceived nuisance of crowing. It seems bizarre when the songbirds' dawn chorus is mourned for being lost, or swamped by car alarms, drunken revellers, dogs barking and sirens yet a cockerel announcing the beginning of another day is somehow abhorrent. Are we that detached from our agricultural roots? Besides, anyone who keeps hens knows that the girls can make quite a racket when they see something unnerving, lay an egg or run out of food. Cockerels are a charming addition to the flock as he will balance the hierarchy and find nice things for the girls to eat (theoretically) and generally add a certain flair to the proceedings. They are equally if not more characterful than the females, and the plumage can be beyond handsome.

A solution is to cull the males, however, this to me is not as straightforward as it's sometimes portrayed. I wouldn't be able to do it. Not only would I struggle to actually kill one of my birds for all sorts of pathetic anthropomorphic reasons as well as lacking the necessary technique, but I don't have anywhere to process the bird, even if I did know how to dispatch it humanely. It seems odd that if one owns a pig, or a cow then one can contact an abattoir and a butcher and if both are willing, the deed can be done for a single or small number of animals in a legislated and skilled environment and then the meat returned having been professionally taken care of.

Anyway, it would present less of a problem if the boys were held in higher esteem instead of being viewed as a troublesome inconvenience. With beekeeping, there is a similar view about drones, the male bees. A lot of beekeepers remove the comb with drone brood as they are seen as a drain on the resources in the hive but once again, we are skewing the natural balance without knowing the whole story. Cockerels are not dispensable but without the forethought to produce a reasonable meat bird from the males and accessible facilities to process them, they will need to be enjoyed for who they are. I think they're great :-)

Emu

Last year I inherited a chick from my ex-husband' step-daughter (!) and a lone chick is a sorry thing, so of course I bought it some friends of the same age. Emu is one of them, and he's had a run of foot infections which thankfully seem to have cleared up after a second, heftier dose of antibiotics. I figured that part of the he problem was the coop he was in; it's a lovely one from Flyte So Fancy but it's a bit small for him, but he's been in the broody coop during his treatment, which really is too small for him:

So, armed with these plans for the Basic Backyard Coop, I headed off with lots of enthusiasm and a little trepidation to the timber merchant and Wickes.

The weather's not been great and the garden is a mud bath so I had to construct the coop indoors but it was ok as the guys at the woodyard had sawn up the main bits and I had my dad's workbench and a vaguely sharp saw. Here it is in the lounge:

As with all flat surfaces in my house, it immediately took on the role of Extra Table, even though the dog clearly thinks it's some box of torture or kennel of some description judging by the look on his face.

I then painted it a tasteful shade of Herb Green and put it in position:

Here is a picture of the inside:

I have actually replaced the perch with a free-standing spare one from another coop but the basic layout is the same. Hopefully Emu will work out where to sit so that he doesn't squash his tail feathers...they are a bit thick like that. I'm hoping that as it doesn't have a ramp up into the coop that Emu's joints will cope a little better. 

So, today Amber helped my build the run and I reunited the cockerel with his two (probably rather confused) hens who have been in with Simba for the last 3 weeks. They didn't seem to mind too much though and were soon happily scratching and Emu was bok-bokking manfully and strutting around proudly on his fully-recovered legs:

They did go near the coop eventually! It's a bit Heath Robinson but then everything I make always is, and I have now upgraded from string to galvanised wire to hold everything together which can only mean I'm improving.

And here is my best attempt at a pic of them all in their new home:

What was it someone said about never working with children or animals?

New Things

The garden is underwater at the moment as we've been deluged thanks to some low pressure weather systems recently, but I have noticed that my crocuses have emerged which is early - presumably because of the mild weather so far this winter; we've only had a couple of days where the temperature's nudged below zero.

These are Crocus 'Gypsy Queen':

I have finished my Kate Davies First Footing socks and apart from a few furrowed brow moments with the heel flap, I'm really pleased with them:

I used Shetland Heritage yarn which was delightful to knit with, and the whole kit had been a Christmas present from Nicky so it was fun to do. I have quite big feet so used the pattern for the larger size up and actually they fit perfectly.

The desire to sow seeds and encourage spring to arrive is almost overwhelming, but I know from previous years that sowing too early just produces leggy spindly seedlings, but I have been ordering some packs. One batch is from Chilterns Seeds but I have just received my seeds from Higgledy Garden - a selection of Bee/Butterfly seeds at the bargain price of £10 for 10 packs, plus a few other goodies such as Cosmos 'Pied Piper' and some climbing nasturtiums. It was beautifully packaged:

So lovely!

I had a bit of a worry earlier in the week as my cockerel Emu, who had been suffering with a swollen foot before Christmas had a bit of a relapse. I spoke to the vet on the phone who advised me that the prognosis was not good, but once we were at the vets and he'd given Emu the once over, we decided to give him another course of antibiotics so I didn't have to deal with the awful feeling of leaving the vets with an empty basket, and he had his first dose last night when we got back so hopefully they'll get to work quickly.

It's probably time I washed the kitchen floor...

It's Been a While...Again

...since I last posted. Much is the same, much has changed.

I've almost entirely changed my flock of poultry - having accumulated some, sold some, lost some I've now got 4 pens/coops, with a trio in two of them, 6 in another, and 4 ducks in the last one. I'm currently treating Emu (an enormous and handsome Speckledy cockerel who was reared from chickdom to keep another chick company) with antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds as he has a swollen foot. He's been to the vet quite a bit so I'm not counting the ££££ I've spent on a rather worthless rooster - he's a male hybrid so I can't even breed from him due to his parentage, but did I mention he was really handsome? At least it's not Marek's disease which can afflict chickens who haven't been vaccinated as most commercial hens are, but the vet gave him a thorough going over and couldn't find any tumours so fingers crossed.

Simba is another cockerel from the batch of chicks, and we had to keep him as Amber used to brood him in the crook of her arm and consequently got extremely attached to him. 'Him' of course, so that involved getting another coop...

I'm still knitting although plodding rather than rattling through projects as I once did. I'm working for myself part time as a beekeeper/gardener and have less time to spend dossing around enjoying myself. It does mean I managed to justify getting a bit of domestic help - Jo (who I think one would term as a "treasure") has done an excellent job on the house so far, although I was mortified last time when I came down and found she'd pulled out the blanket box which has been there for erm, since we moved in..."Ooohhhhh, let me get you a bin bag" I said :-/ as she unveiled 5 years' worth of crap. I returned later in the morning to a sparkling lounge and all the hair bands/marbles/Lego and plastic beaver sitting neatly on top of the blanket box. However - she then dealt the killer blow: "I found a cheque book in among the sofa cushions..." Nooooooo, not the sofa!!! I then apologised for the amount of Cheerios and guinea pig poo that I knew was under there, just knew yet never cleaned up. I could have got away with it too as she said "Poo? Oh I thought it was guinea pig food". I may as well let her do my fridge now; I can't sink any lower, surely?

Cleaning and Crowing

I thought I'd prepare for Jo's arrival today by cleaning out the fridge, as she said she'd tackle the kitchen this week. After the sofa last week I felt it was the least I could do, so when I got back to find she'd done behind the fridge I realised I was fighting a losing battle. Anyway, it looks very shiny and clean, and despite my eyes smarting from the bleach fumes it has inspired me to tidy up the dining room, which I ambitiously call my study/workroom. Having domestic help is a bit like being married to both a houseproud husband AND wife: half of me feels "Oh no! Look at the state of the lounge - I'd better wipe the table" and another half feels "Wow, look at those taps! You've done a fantastic job..." I'm probably getting the best of both worlds.

I did wait until after Jo had left before I brought Emu in to the kitchen to give him his anti-inflammatories. He's looking much better and squaring up to the other cockerels when they goad him through the wire rather than running back inside. He came out of the broody coop for a constitutional this morning. He can't stand upright in there as he's so large, and has to crow by stretching his neck horizontally which gives an interesting tone to his vocals.

His matching wives, Emily and Mary, are currently running out with Simba and his two, as Emu is on erm, 'restricted duties' due to his poorly foot. Simba seems unsurprisingly thrilled with the arrangement, and thankfully adultery, bigamy, trigamy and anything else is all taken in good heart so everyone's happy.

The girls are now making a cake - in my clean kitchen. They've promised to tidy up afterwards...

New Kid on the Block

As I mentioned in a previous post, Henry my cockerel has gone to live with a friend of mine, and in his place we have Bruno the Barnevelder. He's enormous! I trying to see if I can use him as an excuse to invest in yet another Flyte So Fancy creation - I'm thinking Gypsy Caravan ;-) - but he is very handsome:

He's also a total gentleman which is a pleasant surprise after Henry's rampant libido. The hens seem very settled around him which is nice as his presence means the older ones don't pick on the babes.

The ducklings continue to be exquisitely cute and are getting really big. I might get the ducks a paddling pool as they love scudding under the water in their seed tray. We had a fox in the garden again yesterday but luckily Blossom spends her time on red alert and kicked off with the most frantic clucking and I hot-footed it out in to the garden and saw it running off down through the field.

My lupins have put on the most spectacular show and the bees are back in the garden now that the oil seed rape has finished flowering. I've set up a bait hive in case they swarm again when I'm out, but I've now got 3 colonies doing well - the small swarm I collected has laying workers so it won't survive but they are happy enough so I will let them fizzle out on their own. My roses have suffered with aphid attacks but I've been rubbing the little blighters off each evening so hopefully the blooms won't be too affected. My veg table is really productive too and we've enjoyed fresh salad every (well, I've enjoyed it, the children have eaten it) but I found Speckledy Emily devouring the lettuces this morning having learnt it was a simple hop and a flap to get up there. Sigh, it was nice while it lasted...

The girls have been enjoying the sunshine and have spent hours in the garden building tents and playing with sticks. Amber drew and typed some beautiful labels for my plant stall and they seem to have an endless capacity for making up stories. Tristan has been busy with his studies and generally keeping a low profile. I procured some 1970's sun loungers off Freecycle and Amber sits on hers with Hazel the chicken for ages:

Ahh!

Bills in the morning post...

But bills of the Galliforme variety!

I had been very dubious about the prospects of the little black chick that I helped out of its egg, and when I woke up, I crept downstairs so as not to wake the children, collecting a small box and tissue paper on the way to retrieve the little body for burial.

But I needn't have worried:

I gave an involuntary gasp of joy at seeing a little fluffy cheeping chick. I was so relieved. In rootling around under Mary I found another eggshell, so here's our third chick:

This one was still slightly damp on its wings so I think had only hatched a few hours earlier. It's got a lot more yellow on it so we have a dark chick, a blonde chick and a mixture chick which makes for easy identification. The first chick was looking extremely bonny:

He's starting to explore his environment. I don't know he's a he, but I can't call such a bundle of fluffy cuteness 'it'. The girls, of course, were thrilled. I'm sure Tristan will be sufficiently thrilled to make the journey down to the chicken run too, once he wakes up...

Here's a photo of the chicks' dad, looking splendid and Kelloggs-ish in the morning sun:

Shame about the puny tail feathers. He's probably also trying to suss out whether he can get over the hedge...I saw him and Daisy standing on top of the run yesterday, plotting their escape.

I'm not sure if the last egg has anything in it as there's no pipping or cracks but I'll give it a couple more days if Mary's happy to sit on it. She's being such a good mum, I'm really proud of her.

Last on the list of bills, a pic of the ducks enjoying a late evening nap last night:

Ahh!

Lazy Sunday

Today was another lovely lazy day. Well, lazy in that I didn't feel obliged to do anything, consequently I got quite a bit done. Charles came over and we went to lunch and I sat in the garden this afternoon reading my new course book...all about the Ice Age. Difficult to concentrate on isostatic rebound following the Last Glacial Maximum when it's glorious sunshine and sparrows are fighting on the bird feeders. I had a sparrowhawk fly into the garden and land on the bird feeder today; luckily it was minus a bird as they'd all disappeared sharpish into the hedge but I was a bit worried about my ducks as I reckon it would have a go - they catch pigeons don't they? Although they are only uncovered from above when they are in their bath tub so unless we get a passing osprey I'm thinking they'll be ok.

Maud meanwhile has decided it's easier to be a duck as there is 100% corn access and 0% Henry access:

She hopped in

I thought that putting her in with John and Jean might be the answer to the conundrum of keeping her away from Henry but without isolating her completely, but she then started pecking the ducks to get at the corn and snorkelling for it when I put some in their water bowl so hmm, back to the drawing board.

I also cut the Forsythia back to nothing as it grows like the clappers and despite its welcome yellow flowers in the winter it doesn't smell of anything and is quite a dull yellow. When we moved in to this house it was winter and the Forsythia was cut into a wedge shape so it looked like an enormous block of cheddar cheese. The dreary Escalonia hedge outside the backdoor also got a haircut:



Henry trips over an abandoned Tupperware

I also repainted the blackboard for the store...and also an old chopping board...and a few pallet bits to make notices: well, it's a big pot of paint. And I did my bees.

Anyway the children are back and seem to have had an ok weekend and I seemed to be able to have a reasonable conversation with their father :-)

Restful Day

I didn't have the children, dog, or anything to get up for so needless to say my 'lie-in' lasted until I woke up at about 6am and Started Thinking...nice thoughts admittedly but anyway I got up and did the animals.

This morning was spent with Charles, firstly mucking about with an app that makes your pictures into a comic-strip. Very silly but good fun!

Then we started sorting out seeds and deciding what we were going to plant, whilst watching the ducks in the tin bath. They go a bit cracker-duck and dive and splash around and frenetically preen so I take that to mean that they're having fun. After lunch we sat outside and actually did some planting:

We sowed loads of seeds and I planted out and potted on about 25 other plants.

I then had a visit from Kit who had taken a swarm of my bees for his hive (they'd absconded but luckily he didn't take it personally) who asked if I'd like to some and see where he keeps his bees - he and his wife own a 10 acre plot near the bridge down the road which they are using as a forest garden permaculture project. They've got nut and fruit trees and are coppicing the willow that's already there. Kit's built a spiral asparagus bed and I also saw his beehive...I really want one! It's a top bar hive and it has an observation window so you can see in the side! It was brilliant. I think instead of replacing or expanding my er, whatever the collective noun for hives is, I will get a top bar rather than more Nationals.

Anyway I came back, made some vegetable soup from my garden produce and shut the poultry in as I need a soak in the bath after all my traipsing around the garden with pots and compost!

New Tricks

I woke up quite early this morning so I went out and released the poultry:

Happy duck couple

Maud says hello...

The hens seem rather perturbed at the fact that the ducks don't really eat their corn; the hens gallop across the garden at the rattle of the feed tin so spend a lot of the time staring covetously at the ducks' feed bowl...

Emily doesn't really get the water thing

Handsome Henry in the morning sun

Then it was off to Latin lessons and a chance for me to catch up with Nicky. She showed me how to crochet! So I now have the coathanger cover and crocheting to er, keep me busy. I was so impressed wtih her apple cosies and after lending me a crochet hook and a ball of wool we enjoyed a pleasant hour or so fiddling about with wool and trying to say Country Craft Club and looking up about peapod wine on the web. Watch this space :-)

Back home and a bit more crocheting before a trip to town. I bought some new wool - it's a bamboo/wool mix and I liked the colour and feel of it so I got home and started again with my apple cosy. My first attempt had been a bit of a practice run, partly due to trying to read the instructions on iPad in the sun but anyway, here is my second version, with new wool:

Tristan, being the only male in the house at that point, asked the male question "Why do you need one of those??" but being the only male in the house, the girls and I ignored him and started planning what other colours we could do. I must finish the coathanger now I've got the apple cosy out of my system! I'm really pleased though as I'd not done any crocheting before 11 o' clock this morning but thanks to Nicky for teaching me :-)

Saturday

I woke up rather early today as the dog needed to go out which set Henry off, and despite listening to a few Farming Today podcasts about TB in badgers, ragwort, and the East Anglian pea harvest, I didn't manage to drop back off to sleep.

Anyway I haven't blogged for a few days as it's been a bit of a case of bees, studying and fielding arguments between the children but today was fun. Ma and Pa came over and took the children out for a bike ride and I went for lunch with Charles at the Rose Cottage (which has a no children under 10 policy...it's one of our favourites!) and we went and sat up at Bo Peep bostal and admired just how bloomin' beautiful Sussex is in the summer. He also bought me a book of ice creams and lolly recipes, yum. Came back to find Maud hiding behind the greenhouse having been savaged by Henry, horrible cockerel }:-( but after some wound powder on the gash over her eye and some TLC from Amber, she seemed to be ok, if a bit shocked. I hope she's ok tonight...

Then this evening Nicky came round bearing gifts! Of homemade elderflower jam and strawberry jam, courgette and Brussels sprout plants, and pressies in the form of her hand made soap, and knitting needles and nice wool. We then spent a very happy couple of hours knitting (me) and crocheting (Nicky) interspersed with cups of tea and aforementioned jam on my home made bread. How lovely. I am knitting a wooden coathanger cover and Nick was trying to work out how to crochet but doing a very convincing job! We both would like to make these among other things, but I can see the Winterton houseshold enjoying unbruised apples well ahead of us.

My knitting

Roses and sweet peas from my garden

Amber with a maybug

The maybug

My hollyhocks...thought they'd be dark red, oops

Eggs and a rainbow

The morning started with catching the cockerel so that I could brush surgical spirit on his legs - he's got Scaley Leg which is where mites get under his scales, poor chap. I told Rosie to make sure the photo was of Henry rather than of me - she certainly did a good job at protecting my identity:

Henry would be horrified to know this undignified photo
is in the public arena

I then had a cuddle with Ida. She's very soft and pretty.

The day was spent rather drearily, as yesterday. I did some studying and made a start on the maths for my assignment - trying to hold on to the threads of the calculations is like nailing jelly to a wall, I have to work so hard to keep track of what I'm doing and I get to the end with a number and read part (ii) of the question which involves the dreaded words 'interpret' and 'evaluate' and 'explain'.

I was about to let the hens out when my neighbour pointed out there was a fox behind my hedge. I called the dog and decided to go for a walk in the field - not deliberately after the fox of course as that is against the law ;-) but a stroll seemed like a very good idea. Scruff seemed happy to oblige and tore off through the wheat. The fox was long since gone but I think at least a doggy presence may put him off a bit.  When we got back in the garden Scruff was sniffing in the beech hedge and I discovered why Mary had spent so much time in there, which no doubt was also the reason for her demise:

14 eggs!!

Mary was tiny - how she managed to brood that many eggs I don't know, I can't think of anything more uncomfortable. I don't think they would have hatched as she was coming back to the run and in the coop every night but she was probably sitting on them when the fox was passing by.

I went back to check the new hens and found another egg:

They are laying then

We did check the rest of the hedge for Mary as she may have found somewhere else to make a nest but no sign.


I went to collect 2 beehives this evening and delivered them to their happy recipients and driving away from the farm there was the most perfect double rainbow.