Pimping Two Babes for the Lads

Diane (who died on 21st Oct 2014) and her disreputable
Border Terrier cross, 'Ragworth'. 

Ignore that dubious title for the moment. First up today we remember that most excellent Friend of the Blog, 'Diamond' (Diane Loraine Walsh). Rest in Peace, lovely Lady. Today (25th) would have been her 61st Birthday. The thoughts of this Blog are with her husband, John, Her Family and all those readers who knew and remember her. I am also told that today is the 602nd anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt and the 75th of the Dedication of the local village church here (Lisacul village), but maybe more on those later.

4 young poults. From the colour of them, almost certainly sired
by our Marans rooster, 'Gandalf'.

With the majority of this year's young chickens having hatched in June, a whole bunch of these are starting to come 'of age' (poultry keepers frequently use 21 weeks, or "point of lay" to denote maturity though that varies wildly between varieties.) from now through November. We had 19 chicks across those early batches and have since added another 7; the 'Manus' and the ABs, bringing our total to 26. The place is fair heaving with young poults. The law of averages tells us that we are likely to end up with 13 hens and 13 roosters though that, too, can vary wildly.

Existing alpha-rooster, Gandalf

In the hard-hearted 'business' world of small-holdering, we would generally keep or sell as going concerns, all the hens, especially if they start laying good eggs but have to dispose of the roosters. If you are lucky you might sell, or give away a few and you might keep one good one if your hen/rooster ratios can sustain it (you want about 7:1, so if you are adding 13 hens to your flock there should be room for one more roo', if not 2). If we can, we will make the(se) keeper(s) either pure-bred Marans or Buff Orpington. 

Our #2 rooster, sex-change 'hen', 'Herme'.
See earlier post
 http://deefer-dawg.blogspot.ie/2017/04/
mazy-lou-and-airy-fox.html

The rest of the roosters will be for the pot and you need to identify and cull them out as soon as they become a problem, fighting with each other or challenging your existing lads. As the girls start to come up to point of lay and (we hope) start popping out the good eggs, the boys cannot help but give away their own sexual identities by squaring up to one another, flaring their cape feathers and bowing down beak to beak preparatory to a few, beginner-ish flying 2 footed kick-outs. If you do not sort them it can get bloody and injurious very fast. What we will do between now and Christmas is to 'sort' them before they become a problem.

We love the colouring on some and we hope they are hens. This
one is optimistically called "Silvergirl"

That's probably enough on chickens. I said "If you are lucky" above (selling roosters) because just when you have your glut of spare males, so does every other chicken breeder you would know. It's like having too many courgettes and hoping other veg-fiends might not have grown courgettes this year.

2 Guinea Fowl boys in search of some female company?

Friends of the Blog may recall that our story of owning and trying to breed Guinea fowl here is not a happy one. We currently have, and have had for many months, two cock birds who are happy enough and tend to wander about like 'the management' minding any turkeys they can find or piles of food. In our Guinea story these guys are preceded by our first pair (Henry and Min; 2013) who tried to breed but we lost H in an RTA. This left M to desert her impressive stash of 16 eggs in the hedge on the far side of our lane. We incubated these and hatched, I think, ten. We managed to sell 5 as youngsters but then had the other 5 stolen by Mr Fox. So far, no roast Guinea fowl for the table.

Dillisk biscuits. 

Henry was briefly replaced by a white bird we called 'Blondie' but he/she was famous for his/her unwillingness to stay here and need to hike off Eastwards. Blondie eventually deserted for good. Subsequently we bought 2 boys (2015) from Sue and Rob (called Apollo and Belvedere) hoping that at least one would pair off with poor, lonely Min, of the heart-breakingly continuous 'buckwheat buckwheat' calls. Belv' did so and all was quiet for 2016. However we never saw more than one or 2 eggs and there was no breeding success. This year, Min fell ill and stopped being able to repel the attentions of our rooster, Gandalf. Before we knew he had nailed her well and truly, flaying all the skin off her 'saddle' with his spurs. We tried to isolate her (not easy to catch!) but she went downhill fast and died within a few days.

Cheesy fish pie. We missed this while we hosted Augustin
who professed a loathing for fish and cooked cheese. 

So in 2017 we are left with the 2 lads, Apollo and Belv' and, although we think they are OK, we think they might enjoy some female company. We livestock keepers are, after all, meant to keep our stock to the "Five Freedoms" (freedom from starvation and thirst etc), one of which is "Freedom to Express Natural Behaviours". In my opinion, that includes being able to mate, breed and bring up young if possible.

Growing fast, the young turkeys. This one is male.

Step forward, then, our newest friends who I mentioned a few posts back, who happen to own a goodly flock of Guineas and are happy to find me 2 hens of sure-fire female-ness (Guineas are notoriously hard to sex). They have promised to get the birds to us by early next week. I have, I hope "pimped" some lovely ladies for the lads. Watch this space.

New limbs for the archery bow.

I will finish with a completely random waffle, the fruits of an addled mind left out watching over dogs on the front lawn today. I said that today was Birthday for the late Diane and also the anniversaries of both Agincourt and the Dedication of Lisacul Church. Agincourt is 602 years ago and 602 (cc) is also the engine size of my beloved Citroën 2CVs. So today handily brings together all manner of "my favourite things". Diane represents friends and Kent, the 602 brings in France and 2CVs as well as archery (Agincourt) and Lisacul Church stands for the local area and the Community here whom have made us feel so welcome here in Ireland.

No Blue! It may BE fish on the menu but we are still not giving
you any even if you try to take up station on the Dining Table.

Sorry about that. It just kind of bubbled out of no-where.

Mazy Lou and Airy Fox

Happy chickens out in the sunshine.

In celebration of the lifting of the avian flu restrictions, I bring you a post full of pictures of happy out-door birds, scratching in the dirt, pecking at the grass and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs. This is as it should be and in my humble opinion the Ministry's avian flu restrictions had absolutely zip, zero to do with the welfare of 'our' free range birds and was all about protecting the livelihoods of the commercial, factory-farming, (not very) free range boys.

Suzy's Six gather round the sheep feed trough.

In our own flock an interesting dynamic has developed. Friends of the Blog will know that we have been nurturing 6 youngsters since Storm Doris (24th Feb), given to us by our friends Sue and Rob. Back then we chose the 6 from one of her big rearing cages, trying to pick out the ones which looked like hens, though sexing birds before 21 weeks age is notoriously tricky. We had great hopes that all 6 might be female and that the new group, called "Suzy's Six", would neatly restock our depleted (by the fox) flock. Also that the two which are good Cuckoo Marans colouring would fill the gap left by the deaths of Bubble and Squawk.

Cuckoo Marans, but are they female?

Well, no such luck, it seems and our success with sexing birds has taken a thorough knock - we think that almost certainly five, and possibly all 6 are roosters. As they come of age, various of them have crowed, squared up to one another with capes flared, grown upright, iridescent greenish tails and started strutting around like lads. More recently they have taken to trying to jump Galdalf's ladies, sometimes more than one at once. Enough, we say! Time for a rooster cull. Good for the freezer but not a lot of fun.

Herme, our 'sex change' hen/rooster. 

One rooster my be given a stay of execution. Our friends Con and Niamh from archery are in need of a rooster and rather fancy one of our "grey" ones (the Cuckoo Marans. The other "grey" is the chicken we hope is a hen - 'she' has quite yellow legs which can be a sign that the bird is starting to build up yolk proteins in her body prior to laying eggs. Ah well. It will all come out in the wash, I guess.

Our five ducks.

Our existing hens, who now number only 7 fit and well, will certainly be relieved. 7 on 7 is not a good ratio. Hens like their 'manly' attention diluted down to about 1 on 7. We are also pleased that the restrictions have been lifted because that means the local poultry sale is also now back in action and we might be able to go and buy some genuine hens. We hope there are either Buff Orpington or Cuckoo Marans available.

Left to tight, LIz, Mazy and Airy

You may recall from my previous post that we were 'between visitors' awaiting the arrival on the Friday of our most excellent chums from the UK, long term Friends of the Blog, Mazy-Lou and Airy-Fox. Originally Internet friends, these ladies have been part of our story for almost as long as this blog has been running. They currently live in Dorset and this would only be their 2nd visit each.

Rhubarb Pavlova

It was, as expected, a lovely visit and we thoroughly enjoyed the company and 'doing' the hospitality. Liz created marvellous food with, on the second night, the help of Mazy who is also a brilliant cook.  First was a superbly tender roast pork - it was actually "steamed" over a shallow bath of beer under a little tin-foil "hood" to keep the flavour in.

Gifts from Dorset - local cheese and a jar of, new one
on me, "bacon jam". A delicious relish. 

The joint-effort second night was a chicken-based curry with a rather good dahl (lentil) and sag (spinach) veg course plus a cooling bowl of mixed yogurt, cucumber, mint and coriander-seed. The chicken was boneless, skinless, cubed up breast which had been marinaded 24 hours in spiced up yogurt. The whole was served with poppadoms and flat breads. It was all really good. Huge thanks to both chefs.

Naturally a little drink was consumed (only a little. We are very sensible these days) and the chat flowed the way it does in such lovely companionship. One little aspect which amused us was that Airy voiced that she would rather like a dog, specifically a Beagle. Mazy is currently holding hard to the 'No Dog' line but her guard may be beginning to crack. At one stage she asked 'how many' dogs should one have if dogs were, after all, to be part of the picture? We have 3, of course.

We DEFINITELY don't want dogs.

Of course, our dogs were happy to get their wooden spoons out and stir this brew on Airy's behalf, climbing onto her lap and schmoozing Mazy up shamelessly. Time will tell on that one. It may take a while. The girls departed Thursday morning headed for Dublin Airport, where they needed to drop off the hire car by 1 pm. The remainder of their tour they will do sans car. Good luck you two and safe home. It was lovely having you.

That was it for visits in this burst. We now have a bit of a break till mid May when we get three more 'sets' of guests.

The Quality of Mercy

A hen called Doris

That's it. It's official. We have gone soft. We are no longer the hard-nosed, mercenary, calculating, efficient small holding managers we may have claimed to be in the past. We have a PET chicken. Yep. A completely useless, non-productive birdie eating up the 'profits' (Ha! That'd be nice) and not contributing a single egg or any meat.

Meet 'Doris'. I am not sure how we came by that name; it was nothing to do with the storm as far as I know, but the name is a recent acquisition of hers; she's only been Doris for about 3 weeks. Doris has been through the wars with us a bit, surviving all manner of ill and harm, putting up with too-frequent attention from our series of various roosters and faithfully knocking out a good egg each day right round the year, sometimes as the sole egg layer in our motley band of better looking hens. She is a survivor of both fox attacks and the mink's visit, the bad winter storms, snow, ice and heat waves.

Giving the invalid a bit of sunshine in the dog-crate.

She has always been a stumpy-legged thing who walked with a waddle and, because of the frequent attentions of roosters, usually with a baldy back and a bald top of the head. She is just your generic 'red' hen with darker wing and tail feathers, possible from 'Sussex' DNA. She came to us as a 'day old' from Mentor Anne which we hoped would be pure Buff Orpington but she and her sister had a different father. They stayed short and 'bantam'-y and were named the "Mini-Buffs" but, as I said, they were excellent reliable layers so we kept them alongside the buffs for all these years past. We love(d) them. One died of natural causes last year.

Enjoying a 3-day mini heatwave.

Doris was relegated from 'productive' status to pet by our 2016 fox who, we think, bit her and damaged a leg, though she survived. On that day all the surviving chooks were scared to go back into their real coop and moved into the Tígín for 'safety'. Most then recovered and ventured back out doors (or died of their injuries) but this hen, obviously crippled and hobbling, stayed put and we went through winter bringing food and water to her where she hid under some planks.

I've been minding 20 bullocks for a guy down the lane.
This is a handsome Limousin lad. 

It was obvious she was not going to walk properly again and our then three 'spare' Marans roosters all picked on her and 'gang raped' her till we realised what was happening and separated the birds for her safety. She was in a sorry state and the sensible hard-nosed thing would have been to cull her out. Hey ho. She's still with us and still in 'protective custody' given that new name and even carried carefully out in the recent sunshine to enjoy some warmth in the dog-crate. Still has a healthy appetite and was last seen schmoozing up the sex-change hen-rooster "Herme". She hops along on one foot with the other leg jutted out at a jaunty angle, used as a crutch to stop her over-balancing but mainly held off the ground. She stretched out her wings to sunbathe, lying on her side like any other chicken. Bless her. She always looks to me on the point of "falling off her perch" but never quite does so.

Finally making a start on the daunting task
of weeding this jungle bed.

The last three days have seen us enjoying superb weather - you'd say "Spring like" but really it was more like a Roscommon Summer. We have been spending all our time outdoors and got stuck into some long overdue gardening. Weeding, to be precise. We have attacked all the railway sleeper beds in the 'Kitchen Garden' and started on the rather daunting task of rescuing the 100' x 25' veg' patch from its sorry neglect of 2016. Long story but I lost the plot, nearly literally.

4 of the 'lads'enjoy some afternoon sun
with their 'meal' in the trough. 

I have also been minding 20 bullocks for our chum down the road, who was over to the UK for family reasons. This was no problem at all as I love some part time cattle involvement. They needed feeding (forking silage to them)  and checking in the morning, then feeding again plus letting some of them out for a drink in the evening.

The 'slatted house' boys. Well, 5 of them.

16 of them have an automatically filled drinker in their 'slatted house' (as in slatted floor - all the muck falls through to a big sump and can be pumped out) but another 4 have no such facilities in a concrete floored barn. They have to be let out to access an enamel bath which you refill from a hose. Getting at water only once a day gives them a big thirst. 4 of them will half-empty the bath at one 'sitting'. These guys also get mucked out, sometimes by me, but not this weekend. They'd just been mucked before I arrived and would not need it again till my friend was back from the UK. Easy life. Beef farming? A breeze! (OK, maybe not).

'Creeny' sheep's cheese from Corleggy of Belturbet, Co Cavan

Finally, we have "found" a new artisan cheese-maker. Well, technically it has been found for us by a friend who knows of our cheese-love and was visiting a Farmers' Market in Carrick. They tried the cheese, 'quite' liked it and decided to buy a chunk for us as well as some for themselves and generously brought it to me for us to try out and see what we would 'pair' it with.

Concrete floored barn.

The cheese-maker, 'Corleggy' (it means small windy hill!) is based in Belturbet up by the Northern Ireland border in Co. Cavan and this cheese is made from unpasteurised sheep's milk. It is called 'Creeny'. It is fierce and tangy and has quite a 'pong' coming off it. I love it but for Liz it was rather too fierce/sharp. In blue cheese Liz would love the creamy "Cashel Blue" but finds the sharp twang of Danish Blue too much. Creeny would be the same to her. It has just stepped over that line from 'very tasty' to 'too much'. 'Very nice', she says, ' but you'd need to pair it with a sweet chutney' (like the mango/kiwi chutney she makes here).  Our friend who bought it originally was last heard of "still trying to decide whether (she) likes it or not!

This post has been squeezed in just prior to us starting a whirlwind of visits in and out, but more on that in the next post. One of the visits promises to be VERY EXCITING but you will have to wait and see.

A Changing Dynamic

Miss Mini-Buff enjoys the indoor life. She is starting to recover
well from the over-amorous attentions of those Marans roosters

We have always been fascinated by our chickens. We could watch them for hours, with their little comings and goings. likes and dislikes, their individual personality traits and their little battles to try to be as high as possible up the 'pecking order'. We love to see the changing dynamics of who joins the small gangs under each rooster and how these relationships change as roosters climb up the rankings or get beaten back down again by their rival(s).

Flood control measures by the local drainage crew.
Sorry you kingfishers and herons.

Regular readers will know that we have been trying to favour the 'Buff Orpington' breed and trying to ensure that only pure bred Buff-Orps were incubated or brooded so that we would slowly but surely evolve into a Buff -only flock. You only have to look at our flock to see how badly this has gone for a whole variety of good reasons plus that fact that we tend to look at the 'misfits' and decide that they are perfectly good, healthy chickens laying perfectly good eggs, so we will keep them. To add another fly in the ointment, we also decided that the breed 'Marans' were also good and that maybe we could run 2 'approved' breeds here just keeping the roo's and purebred hens separate while we got hatching eggs.

Garlic emerges in the tunnel

As a result, as well as the Buffs we have a mad and merry mixture. We have a couple of Buff-crosses, we have a black Marans hen and another black hen whom we think is Araucana x Game. And then there's our belovéd "Enda Vaneera", the only Sussex Ponte (white with black markings) hen left from our first ever Irish batch of birds, bought in 2011. The Marans came as a dozen fertilized eggs for the incubator last year and hatched as 4 roosters and 2 hens. Mr Fox took one of the hens and we had to cull out 3 of the roosters as they were stalking round as a threesome and gang-raping any hen they could catch.

I found this rather lovely shed during a '365' hunt.

Through much of this time we have enjoyed the gentle, dignified dominance of our alpha Buff Orp Rooster who you may recall, was named Lt. Col. Sir Buffton Tuffton. 'Buffers' did a splendid job minding his ladies, seeing to their needs, keeping us in fertile eggs and never indulging in that short-lived behaviour of 'aggression towards humans'. I say "short lived" because sensible chicken keepers do not tolerate such attacks and tend to cull out anyone who shows signs fairly quickly.

The archers take a break for tea and some of Liz's most
excellent polenta, nut and orange cake.

Last year, an upcoming Buff Orp rooster (The Captain) took Buffers on in a spring-time fight and soundly beat him. We have been advised that we should then have culled out Buffers (who was obviously 'fading') but we did not know that at the time, we preferred Buffers to the Captain, and we offed the latter, so Buffers got a bonus year. The Captain was followed by another Buff roo' (The Corporal) and the same might have happened this spring but when Mr Fox came he managed to badly damage the youngster (he died of his wounds a few days later). We are not sure how, but Buffers came through that day unruffled and without a mark on him - we suspect he made himself scarce to the beer tent or to his London Club and watched the action on Cable News.

Walkers

So now, if you are keeping up, we have a depleted collection of girls and just 2 roosters One is 'Buffers' who is/was nominally in charge and would by now be our only source of pure-bred Buff Orp DNA for use in the 'Let's go Buff Orp' campaign. The other is an ever-more magnificent, fast growing Marans rooster who we believe might be the 'Blue' colour variant. He lost most of his long tail feathers in Fox-wars and has only 1 left, but this is surrounded by half-length replacements which are coming on strongly. He struts and marches about and crows like a professional - even letting a few loud cock-a-doodles go late at night if we turn the yard light on and disturb his darkness.

Sausage meat, black pudding and apple pie filling.

This guy, named 'Gandalf' for the blue-grey of his magnificent plumage is starting to be a real challenge to Buffers and we often see him with a good collection of women around him while Buffers is quite often alone. The only fights we have seen have generally had Buffers come out on top but the only blood we've seen was on Buffers, rather than Gandalf. Buffers needs to be looking to his laurels a bit and watching Gandalf closely but instead he has made a big tactical blunder.

The way we shoot, safest thing to wear on your head is the
target! Wouldn't want to be the bloke standing next to me.

He has taking to attacking us, the humans, and particularly Liz. Now, fortunately, he has no spurs (we don't know if this is a Buff Orp thing or just a trait unique to this particular rooster), so his 'attack's involve a lot of 'looming' and some fluttery 'kicks' and wing-butts at your calves. However he needs to know that his sole-Buff-rooster status will not protect him if he starts to annoy Liz to the degree where she gives him the Roman Games 'thumbs-down' or if he loses in a proper fight with Gandalf. There is more than one way, as they say. to skin a cat. We can buy in a replacement rooster or buy in fertile pure-bred eggs to put in the incubator or under a broody. Meanwhile we would just enjoy having a blue-grey roo about the place instead of the old military 'buffer'.

Ducklings at 2 weeks get that long-bodied shape.

I suspect that this is enough on chickens. Meanwhile the 3 ducklings are the every definition of 'thriving' they seem to feel heavier and bigger each day when I handle them to taxi them outside each morning and back in the evening. They have long since left behind their spherical, new hatch, ball-of-fluff shapes and moved properly into young duck shape; long body with legs at one end and neck and head at the other. At a week and a bit they outgrew the first plastic crate and were promoted to our bigger crate. The new breathing-space did not last long and they are already tall enough to not be able to stand straight under the (cat proof!) mesh 'roof' and starting to look like battery hens on an A4 size allocated patch of floor.

A kitten-box for safe transport.

They are also very very messy as anyone who has tried to brood ducklings indoors will happily tell you. They need a constant supply of fresh water but are very sloppy with it, dipping their heads to dibble up food or to drink and then flicking their head side to side, spraying water everywhere. Their food is mainly a pelletized dry mix (chick crumb) which goes soft on contact with water and with which they are as clumsy and messy as they are with the water. As a result, the food/water end of their home quickly submerges under a grey mush of crumb, other food, water and poo and you have to change their bedding (newspaper is nice and easy to roll up even when sloppy wet) daily.

Those pies get a (lamb) suet crust.

We find ourselves buying the thickest, most page-iferous newspapers we can (Irish Farmers' Journal is good) and snatching up any free 'rags' on offer to meet the demands. The ducklings get evicted as soon as we dare - let them do their messing and water-spraying out on the yard for as long as it's warm enough! At present, that means they go out into one of my 2 x 1 m rabbit runs with a mesh roof and a 'bedroom' at one end. I move them each way in a kitten-basket because they were quickly able to leap out of the open-top feed buckets I had been using.

If you are doing this, I advise never let them even TRY to escape. If ducklings get out they will do what wild ducklings do by instinct every time they are threatened - they scatter (at high speed!) and go to ground hunkered down silent and still somewhere out of sight - a grass tuft or under your enamel bath. They will then stay hidden and silent till Mum sounds the all clear and calls them back to herself. Your problem, obviously, is that these are hand-reared babies so there is no 'Mum' to do this and I am guessing you, the reader, do not speak 'Duck'. You end up having to go stand close to where you think they went, stand very still and silent and hope to hear the first, tentative, piping calls of bored ducklings who think they have hidden long enough and are now hungry.

Not 100% Convinced.....

On the left our pure-bred Cuckoo-Marans hen. On the right a
'possible' youngster. 

Followers of this blog will know that we are slowly trying to 'evolve' our chicken flock to one of pure bred Buff Orpingtons and Marans. This from our starting point of Sussex Pontes and via our current motley collection of weirdos which include some bizarre Araucana x Game birds and some hybrid, bantamised Buffs with odd, clumsy, short legs but who were/are, none the less, prolific egg layers. Those we called our 'Mini-Buffs'. The 'evolution' is being done mainly by natural wastage, just not bothering to replace the unwanted types and trying to hatch probable Buff or Marans eggs. Please draw a veil over the fact that we slid the 2 blue Araucana eggs under a Buff broody this spring to keep her sweet and then let her hatch 2 'black babies' - see earlier post.

Those young 'Marans' at 3 months.

For the Marans breed, we had only had our geriatric Cuckoo-colour hen, 'Squawk' and no Rooster, so we purchased 12 of the dark brown, speckledy eggs from the farrier who looks after the horses of our friend and sheep supplier 'Mayo-Liz'. We put them in the incubator we were 'keeping' for Charlotte while she moved house. With permission, of course. The farrier had said that he could not promise that these would be Cuckoo colour Marans, but they were definitely Marans, possibly of his other three colour options - Copper, Blue or Golden.

One of the geese fires up the new season
with this 179 g whopper.

Well, those babies are now 3 months old and we are not 100% convinced that they are pure-bred Marans. We do not claim to be experts, never having reared the breed before, but they seem so long in the leg and so upright that we worry that they will never fill out to the Orpington-style, rounded, Mumsie shape of Squawk. I even texted Mayo-Liz to check that Mr Farrier does not keep a few game cocks running around his place who might have been sowing wild oats but she assured me that he doesn't. In their favour is that the eggs were definitely Marans, so at least the Mum must have been. We have 3 grey-ish birds who I could believe could be the 'Blues' and the 3 darker birds are all starting to get a coppery hue to their cape-feathers, so they might be the 'Copper' Marans. Ah well, they will get the benefit of the doubt for now and we will try to ignore their upright, tail-erect, Tottenham Hotspur badge, fighting cock looks.

The Corporal's dark-tailed lacy lady. 

Meanwhile we also have a possible issue with one of the three hens from the 'Corporal's group. Although she is a perfect pure-bred (pb) Buff-Orp shape, she has a few dark tail feathers (with brown edges) and the feathers on her back each individually have a pale edge. This 'lacing' (as they say in poultry circles) and the dark tail are, I think, not allowed in the breed standard for Buff-Orps and may indicate that Mum was one of the mini-buffs or possibly our old Sussex Ponte, 'Enda' (both of whom lay the buff-coloured eggs).

Our young Golden Hornet crab apple tree
gave us almost 3 kg of good fruit and a few
splits for the piggies.

Outside of chickens we are more certain that we are on track. We have re-started our goose egg season with 2 found on the same day, and Liz has already had one of these as her breakfast 'dippy egg' - it weighed 179 g. I cleared the rest of the standing crop from the polytunnel and was delighted by some huge Sarpo Mira red potatoes. I struggle to get enough water into that part of the garden and generally expect light crops on the spuds, but these guys must have been growing near enough to the edges that they pushed some roots out to where the rain runs off the sides.

'Baker' sized Sarpo Mira from the poly tunnel.

We have been enjoying these as beautiful baking potatoes with stews etc or as mashed potato. The are a fairly resistant variety Blight-wise, anyway but growing them early or late in the tunnel helps you miss the worst blight weather. These were as clean as a whistle.

Soldier the Cat checks out the jelly bag.

Our little, young crab apple tree pleased us with a yield of 2.994 kg of good fruit plus a few splits and bruised one for the piggies. Liz combined this with an equal weight of our nice local blackberries and gave it all a good boil up. I then strained it through the 'jelly bag', added sugar and boiled it to set point. I say that as if it is easy - I have NEVER been good at getting jams and marmalades to set.

Crab Apple and Blackberry Jelly cooling.

The recipes say boil for 10 minutes, test for set point and, oh if it is not set, try another 5 minutes. I just assume it is going to be more like 30-45 minutes. This time I even didn't bother putting the Kilner jars into the dish washer for their 36 minute wash/sterilise till I'd started the brew. Happily I did eventually get a set point and the crab+BB jelly is cooling and setting nicely out in the kitchen on the worktop even as I write.

Log Rat nailed from 30 yards away

Finally in the archery department I am happy to report that in our (most likely) final outdoor shoot of this year I finally nailed that elusive sneaky target 'Log Rat'. That after 5 months of trying. Those arrows on the ground in the picture are NOT all my misses, by the way, they are arrows I have retrieved for other archers (we helpfully do that for each other). Mine are the ones fletched in a rather fetching (fetching fletchings?) bright orange and green. It was good to finally 'get' that pesky rodent. Now we move indoors and go back to target practise in the big Badminton hall at Castlerea's "The Hub" sports complex. The poor, much-pierced animals get a holiday through the winter.