Needles

I have been attempting to knit a Christmas bauble from this book which is my first go at using 4 dpns. It looks quite innocuous when sitting there on the side:

But when I am actually knitting, I see this before me:

I should probably wear safety goggles as they are a bit long for the task but I keep smiling at myself as it is the most un-dextrous thing I have ever done and frankly, every stitch is a small victory. I have a nasty feeling they are going to look a lot simpler than they actually are, unlike the Nordic hats which look terribly complicated but are ok as long as one can count:

Maud isn't very well; she has an impacted crop and I have tried a few home remedies but we'll see how she goes. Amber fed her some softened mash this morning but I hope she'll perk up over the next few days. I let the duckles out for their regulation lawn-destruction exercise:

And walked the dog up through the field which is all a bit squidgy after the drizzly weather but it looks beautifully verdant which is welcome in the gloom:

Mary has been keeping a close eye on the broad beans and generally treats the chicken wire around the vegetable beds as a sort of refuge from the chicks:

The big hens went out today too as their enclosure is revoltingly muddy and they need to graze. Note they are in the field but only the headland; they aren't scrabbling at the crop...honest...

It's Autumnwatch and Gardeners' World this evening which hopefully I'll be able to watch without too many interruptions. I'm really starting to notice that I'm not getting my usual Friday evening off since the girls started Stagecoach, and it's been half term so there is no contrast with the holidays with home-ed as the whole staying-in-pyjamas-all-day thing is a pretty frequent occurence! I was rather distracted before the week off anyway as I had my exams so they have not had to be terribly focussed. However, I was listening to Farming Today and there is a big drive to get children into the countryside and understanding where our food comes from and what is involved with agricultural practices. Apparently an astonishing number of children (and some student teachers) thought that bull calves went into the milking herd with the cows! Presumably they also thought that cockerels laid eggs...

So in fact, if one takes all the activities my children are involved with on a day to day basis, we would beat the National Curriculum by a country mile :-)

Warm October Day

We have had the most spectacular autumn, it seems to have been warm, dry and sunny for ages, and I'm not complaining. I struggle with winter at the best of times, as does my house who scores embarrassingly low on the alphabet of energy efficiency ratings. My garden is not suffering too much from the lack of rain, as I empty the duck's water on to my vegetable plots and containers, and in fact the wheat in the field behind me has germinated well:

I love the orderly lines of identical tiny plants stretching off into the distance.

I let all the poultry out at some point today so firstly the lawn had a puddling by the grey calls, then the same by the whites who also paid a visit to the hens:

Ida has learnt how to fly over the fence - she needs a leg-up from the coop but with a huge squawk and mad flapping she does clear it. Usually anyway. Mary has been very keen to talk to Henry through the fence and there is lots of pacing up and down and bok-bokking sweet nothings to each other. I'd like Mary to go back in with the big hens at some point, mainly as I feel rather sorry for her still feeling obliged to brood her chicks in the nextbox during the night as they are about half her size and there's 3 of them (I do sympathise). Anyway, she seems very keen on Henry so I let them all out together in the evenings and he seems more than happy to resume his er, relationship...honestly, he's incorrigible.

Anyway, Mary was happy to dust bath amongst my broad beans:

Maud took a turn in there too once she'd got over the fence:

Then after lunch Charles and I went to the garden centre but he hadn't warned me about the tubtrugs full of 'Seeds for 50p' so we both sat down on the plinth and got rummaging. It was great! Shame there wasn't a cup of tea on hand but anyway, we came back with £55.20 of seeds which had only cost £12!

Very exciting.

My bees discovered an old frame that I'd taken out of the hive and left out for them to clean up. I thought it was empty but seemingly not:

The frame is revolting as I trod on it in my wellies but as with all the other animals they are determined to find the disgusting horrible stuff so as to shatter any illusion of pleasant pastoral living.

I did finally get to prick out my hollyhock seedlings which were getting rather large in their seed tray. These seeds are from my magnificent hollyhocks which I took from my friend Kate's garden as they were a gorgeous deep red, though of course cross-pollination meant they were pink in my garden. Just as well I don't have any sort of colour/plan/scheme for my garden! They have come on really well though:

That was meant to be an arty shot but I seem to have missed out the cup of tea in Emma Bridgewater mug and included the Playmobil man minus his plastic hair. C'est la vie...