Completely homegrown meals

Our favourite kind!



Before



After - Veg Fritata - yum!

Will be even better when we start rearing our own pork  =D

Beans! (or lack of)

I only managed to gather six runners and five french beans from the garden yesterday for our evening meal. At this rate we will never be self sufficient!

=D

No chirpy cheep-cheeps for us

We recently bought some fertile eggs for Blue, our Maran whose favourite pastime, it seems, is being broody. She hatched some lovely chicks last year, and was determined to starve herself recently until we relented and got her some more eggs. Only one problem – she abandoned them after five days, whilst we were on holiday. Our lovely chicken sitting neighbour replaced Blue with a broody hen of her own, and we hoped for the best.


Around Day 18 we found a broken egg which Mama Hen had pushed out of the nest. The chick had formed but there were no signs of life. We continued to let her sit on the remaining eggs but Day 21 emerged and passed without any muffled cheeping sounds from under Mother’s plumage. Devastated. Although probably not as devastated as the poor broody who has been dutifully sitting for all this time.


And to rub salt into the wound, after a couple of weeks Blue became broody again! Bad hen!

Blue on her eggs

Apparently I've been upsetting my worms

I am an obsessive composter and have been for several years. We currently have four bins on the go and I would happily have more, space allowing.

Last weekend I met a composter even more obsessive than me, which I thought was impossible... He runs an Allotment Group and is the President of a local Leek Society (!!!) and so very experienced and qualified to teach me a thing or two. He even goes go to the trouble of collecting seaweed and sheep poo for his bins and makes usable compost within one month.

So we chatted about the contents of our bins, as you do, and apparently my worms have been trying to escape their bins because I've been adding onion peel. Poor buggers! There I was thinking I was feeding them lots of lovely stuff, and I'm poisoning them :(

Gutted.

I'm so sorry wormsies! Only good stuff from now, I promise.

Happy Easter from Bertie

We received an email from Christine, the lady who gave our Light Sussex boy a new home. She sent us some Easter pics of Bertie with his ladies.

I'm so chuffed, he's turned into a very handsome boy.

Here's another pic of him crowing, but Christine reckons he looks like he's smiling ;D

We had a lovely weekend away...

That'll teach us.

The girls made the most of our absence by breaking out and helping themselves to all of our lovely new veg plants. They also very kindly thinned out the radish for us.

Luckily we'd been anticipating the Great Escape and had put some netting over two of the raised beds. We know our girls too well.

I'm off to the garden centre to replace the sweetcorn and I've sent Him to get some chicken wire. This weekend will be spent escape proofing the run. Until the next time...

This is Mouse....

....the killer of baby pigeons.

This is his 'special' face. How can I possibly be angry with that?

Can you grow happiness?

It may not solve the world’s problems, but I find spending time in my little piece of urban homestead incredibly relaxing and rewarding.

Like many people, I suffer from the effects caused by lack of sunshine, and am miserable during the winter months when I can’t spend much time in the garden and everything looks like a muddy Hippo wallowing-ground.

Having slipped over in the chicken run on more than one occasion after several days of relentless rain, I always feel for the girls and their mud-caked feet. We are constantly looking for ways to improve their run and perching facilities, and keep their food and drinkers off the sodden ground. On really rotten days we don’t even let them out of their enclosure, much to their annoyance and complaints, but I know it’s better to keep them dry than the alternative of letting them stand around in the rain (they never think about finding shelter) and catching a chill. 

Now we have started to landscape the area, I am suddenly feeling incredibly uplifted and positive. It may be related to the fact we have been having more sunny days, or maybe to the anticipation of watching seedlings make their way to the surface, and hopefully their bounty of produce to come. We have worked incredibly hard recently and our efforts are starting to pay off; the garden is beginning to look like a place I will enjoy spending time in again, after the recent years of neglect and destruction caused by the flock. Warning – chickens will eat their way through EVERYTHING, they don’t distinguish between weeds, shrubs, veg and flowers. They’re really not fussy and will help themselves, given half a chance.

Recent personal trials and tribulations have truly knocked me back, but I am now even more determined to focus on the positives in life and control the things I am able to, and to let go of the negative stuff, and the people who try to drag you down. I am also trying to see the positives in a bad situation – we have turned the disaster of a collapsed wall into an opportunity to do some landscaping with beautiful old Victorian bricks, and it’s coming along nicely.

We have been preconditioned to constantly want bigger and better and more, but this is not the answer to real happiness. I find it in the little things, like quality moments with my Beloved, one of Meg’s doe-eyed looks, attitude from Oily and unconditional love from Mouse, and the joy of watching my girls getting on with their chickeny day-to-day business. I am usually happiest when I’m surrounded by chicken muck and soil and my efforts actually show. Sow and you shall reap.

The daffodils have emerged, with their cheerful yellow faces. The garden is waking from its winter sleep.

So I am looking forward to growing what we can and making our environment and surroundings a nicer place to be. I get excited about the prospect of picking home-grown veg and fruit to take straight to the kitchen (munching what I can in its raw state before I even get there).

So yes, I think you can grow happiness; allow yourself to take the time and find contentment the little things. 

New and improved veg patch

The fruits of our labour (two weekends of furious digging, tidying and building with fully recycled materials). Filled with homemade compost. Ta-daah!

It'll look this pretty until the chickens break out of their run I expect... I'm reluctant to sow or plant anything! ;D




Gardeners Gold - all homemade



We lost Piglet :(

Despite our perseverance and some positive signs, Piglet gave up her fight last night.

I take comfort in the fact that she had a lovely last day, sunbathing in the garden while we were creating our new raised veg beds and tidying up. We had brought her outside with us so she could scratch around in the fresh air, undisturbed by others pecking at her, and just amble around as she pleases, which she did. I held her for quite a while, then she found a lovely sunny spot by the compost bins and spread out her wings for a bathe. This is now her final resting place.

We rescued her from a life of battery cages and possibly a dog food factory, and she spent 18 months with us, so I hope we did our bit.

Sleep well x

We have a poorly Piglet

One of our ex-bats has been under the weather. We found her in the garden on Saturday, keeping her distance from the flock, hunched shoulders and a miserable look on her face - the classic signs. We scooped her up and promptly placed her in the cat box (used on many poorly chicken occasions), filled with nice warm bedding and brought her into the house for warmth.

Not sure if she has caught a chill or it's her age, only time will tell. It's our job to make her as comfortable as possible, if these are to be her last days.

We've been feeding her lots of warm porridge, rice and even cooked peas, which she has been gobbling down; nothing wrong with her appetite at least!

Here she is having a good old drink, and some rice :)



A few days later, finding grubs and goodies by the back door

Let's hope this is the start of the recovery. She seems to have regained colour in her comb and around her eyes anyway.

On another note, Mr Fox has helped himself to three of our neighbours girls (am really gutted for you Andi...). Not sure how he got in, as their run and coop is constructed like Fort Knox, but it teaches us all never to get complacent and take the welfare of your girls for granted. Am sending Him up to have a wee around the chicken run later!

Cockerel situation sorted

We have now managed to successfully rehome both of our Light Sussex boys. And no Coq au Vin in sight - result!

I'm sure the neighbours will be pleased too. And the girls, who were getting fed up with amorous intentions. Calm at the bottom of the garden restored. For now...

Light Sussex in Suffolk Heaven

Just received an update from Christine, the lovely lady who adopted one of our Light Sussex boys. Sounds like he's in heaven!

Just a quick message to say that your dear 'Bertie' has settled in really well with my two girls (Hattie Elizabeth and Rosetta May) and has already won over some of my friends and neighbours who were really quite nervous around my previous cockerel.

You'll be pleased to know that Bertie has been wormed and is enjoying freshly cooked rice, pasta and corn on the cob most days. He really enjoys his dust bath with the girls each morning, sunbathes on the patios on sunny days, and loves to scratch around under the wild bird feeders. He's incredibly friendly and is now eating grapes from my hand. Although he's found his voice, he doesn't crow that much yet.

Kind regards, 

Christine

Everybody wants to be a cat

This is what Mouse, one of the resident cats, gets up to while I'm at work.
The more relaxed he is, the longer he gets.
Judging by this, he was very. VERY relaxed...

 

A Farmer's Life for Me?

It's a travesty! It should have been me!

I watched BBC2's A Farmer's Life for Me this week with mixed emotions. We applied and auditioned for this last year but were unsuccessful. Perhaps we wouldn't make good TV? Were our ideas, passion and research not valid? At the audition the production exec was very impressed by some of our answers, and how much thought we had actually put into our 'smallholding' idea. Perhaps she thought we had enough enthusiasm and gumption to go it alone, who knows?

Anyway, the point is that for whatever reason, these nine couples were chosen, but what a waste of precious contestants the sisters were. It was quite obvious from the start that they were never meant to work together. So it should have been me (and Him). And the fencing would have been priority. Don't bother faffing with clearing the land, that's what pigs are for, let them do the hard work for you. And where were the chickens?

I'm bemused but shall continue to watch with interest. And probably do lots of shouting at the TV.