After eye drops, antibiotics and
isolation Speckled Star seems to be fine again. Somewhat underweight
but back with the other chickens and holding her own. Bluebell on the
other hand is looking plump, content and hasn't laid an egg in a
week. Perhaps I ought to threaten her with the pot. We certainly need
some new chickens. I think we'll give Speckled Star a week to settle
back in and gain some weight and then go and get a couple more. We
desperately need eggs. I am going to have to buy some this week. A
very rare event. Harriett's chicks are growing well too and hopefully
soon they can join the others in the main run. If we're lucky they
may even start to lay.
I found some slugs in the polytunnel
last night. Not many but the last thing we need in there is slugs. I
seem to have found that every garden we have has it's own particular
gastropod that eats all the plants. In London it was snails. In
Bovingdon it was weird green mottled slugs. Here it is those tiny
slugs. I got about 100 off the plants one evening. There are only a
few in the polytunnel, but I'd like to eradicate them as soon as
possible. My current method is to collect them in a jam jar and take
them with me as I take the kids to school. Then when we are a
suitable distance from the school we let them go. I used to just chop
them all up, but using secateurs on those tiny slugs is impossible,
and well, as we can just let them go a safe distance away, why not?
The peas and beans are also looking a bit sad in there. I'll keep an
eye on that. I might have to get out the gardening books with those
lovely pictures of diseased plants. I usually find that I read all of
the ailments described and none come close to what is the matter with
the plants I have. Always worth a try though.
The kitchen is now repacked and usable
(almost) as a kitchen. Once I connect the extractor to the outside
wall it's a fully functioning kitchen. It'll be nice to have a lick
of paint on the walls too, but one thing at a time. The main thing is
we can ditch the ready meals and actually cook. I have to admit the
move from microwave only meals and onto oven ready ones was a big
improvement. I think I overdid the Shepherds pie meals with Harriett
as she is refusing to eat it for at least a month.
Zoe managed to let the pigs escape over
the weekend. They are always quite boisterous at the gate as you go
to feed them (see video below - sorry having technical issues will add it when I sort them out). However I am usually quite careful as
they jostle to not let them out. Zoe however did. The Saddle back
being totally ruled by her stomach just wandered back in following
the food bucket. The Tamworth however is not such a … errm … pig.
She was enjoying the taste of freedom and of fresh grass (of which
there is now little in their run). I was upstairs about to have a
morning shower. So then Zoe, Harriett and I tried to guide the pig
back into it's run. It was not very keen and was having far more fun
running in circles avoiding us and eating the grass. Eventually in
desperation Zoe managed to get the dog lead around it's neck and
guide it back to it's run. It went happily to start with, but then
had a bit of a panic. We managed to get her back in though, and she
was calm and happy once back inside. I am going to fence off an area
of vegetables that is going to be a potato field and another for a
squash and pumpkin field and let them in, to dig it over. They'll
enjoy the fresh grass and it'll save me lots of digging or
rotivating.
With trying to mow a field with a push along petrol mower our thoughts have been turning to automatic edible mowers, or sheep. We were just discussing this one morning and then as luck would have it, that afternoon someone appeared in the field next door delivering a trailer load of sheep. So I thought this is really not an opportunity to miss and went over for a chat. After a very helpful chat and a bit of thinking we now have dibs on four sheep. They seem to be some sort of cross between about 3 breeds but apparently have few health problems, eat grass and taste good. I was wondering about milk too but apparently that's a bit more specialist, so we'll start with just mowers and eaters. We are getting four and trying to work out how many Ewes we want (as mothers) and how many castrated rams we want (for eating). I think we might go for two and two. He is also going to lend us his ram so they can be tupped and have lambs in the spring. All we need to do now is some fencing work and we are away. After this discussion we then went to Hull fair (see below)
Well on top of all of that I sanded the
kids bedroom floor, we've had the heating re-jigged and the leaking
chimney fixed so it's been quite a bust week. As for now, the
pipework has just arrived to connect the extractor to the outside, so
I'd better go and fix it all in place. Then the cooking can really
begin again.
