The Three Amigos

The 3 Amigos. Top to bottom, Billie-no-Mates, Little Orphan
Annie and Beeblebrox

I find chickens a constant source of amusement. I could watch them for hours. What fascinates me most is their very different personalities and how the dynamics between them work. Who is the boss and does he have any challengers? How many hens does each rooster 'mind' and how loyal are they to their man? Are they serene, calm and 'decent' to one another or are some a little bit mean and spiteful? Are they fully hand-tame or quite skittish and nervous? How are the youngsters trying to integrate with the main flock? How do they react to the dog(s) or fox? Are any self-proclaimed guard-dogs?

I may be getting my sense of humour back!

Recently I have been able to watch as the group dynamic all re-adjusts following the removal of several key players by the fox. This included the #2 rooster (Corporal), the male "black-baby" (Araucana) and the mother rearing the 4 newest chicks, plus 3 of the chicks. This event left us with three lonely females who have since coalesced, rather nicely, into a tight little gang whom I call "The Three Amigos". These are, in no particular order:-

• The female Araucana who lost her brother/main man. These guys had that Araucana "top knot" of feathers on their heads so looked like they had two heads and were named "Zaphod (and) Beeblebrox" after the character in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She is Beeblebrox.
• The abandoned poult from down the lane, left behind when the fox took all of our friends' birds except this one. Billie-no-Mates is on long loan to us while our chum decides whether to go back into chickens.
• Little Orphan Annie, the one young Buff-Orp not eaten by our fox when he took her Mum and 3 siblings. 

The Three Amigos spend most of their time together but not with the rest of the flock, but are loosely affiliated to our old original #1 Buff Orp rooster, the Lieutenant Colonel.

Meanwhile, our Christmas progresses and we have the tree up, lit and 'decked'. It turned out to be a good one. I had been worried that a lot of the foliage on one side arose from a single branch growing from so low down the stem that, to get it into my stand, I would need to cut this branch off leaving a well-stood but lopsided tree. We worked it by cutting tight into the bottom of the joint so that the stand would go on and the branch stay attached. We have it in a new position this year as the old slot is now taken by the reclining settee.

We spent a happy hour decorating it while the 'kattens' ran around like children given a new climbing frame and toy. Is this ALL for US? You are SO KIND! Luckily, after an initial flurry of fun, patting low-hanging baubles till they fell of and skittered across the ground, the pair have become bored with this toy and moved on. We made sure to only hang the cheap simple silver balls down there. The more expensive, more unusual decs and those with good memories and stories attached (We bought this in New Orleans or 'Do you remember our friend x gave us this one?).

"We got this in New Orleans!" (see text)

The tree-dec thing is one of our family traditions - anyone who stays to visit at Christmas is bullied into buying a dec for our tree (and they, of course, get one back for theirs).

Lidl's rather good Glühwein

We have started a new 'family tradition' this year, teed off by our visitors Dan and Dan (see earlier post). Dan (the Man) spent a lot of his growing-up time living in Germany, so is quite fond of that German speciality, warmed mulled wine or "Glühwein". Dan told us that the pre-mix currently being traded by Lidl is a rather good one and to prove it, he turned up with a bottle and had us warm it up and try it. We have since bought a couple as part of the weekly shop, so we had one on the shelf as we finished the tree and decided that it would be a very pleasant way of celebrating the tree-wrangling. It was indeed. It is beginning to taste a lot like Christmas.

Up till today, we have had a very nice
rainless and almost windless December

I was amused enough by 2 things this morning to have remembered them long enough to include them here. The first came on the radio when the announcer, interviewing a sports pundit, spoke of a vox-pop competition for the "Best Sporting Moment" of 2016. I'd forgotten all about this but the winning 'moment' involved two Irish rowers (Gary and Paul O'Donovan) from Skibereen competing at the Olympics in Rio. The Irish entry into the Olympics got quickly mired in bad news, controversy and alleged criminal conspiracies - the boxers all under-performed disastrously, there were failed drug tests which got certain big names sent home in disgrace and one of the Team Managers got embroiled in a ticket sales ring.

Blue. You have a good Christmas... or else!

Then, under the 'radar' and emerging from all this, two unknown Irish lads in a "mens' lightweight coxless scull" who no-one had paid any attention to before, started winning.

Even better, when interviewed, they proved to be so down to earth and lacking in airs, graces and sports celeb' nonsense that the journalists  had a field day with their 'blokish' sound-bites and we all fell in love with them. When asked about special diets to maintain fitness they said that as they were in Rio "you could have steak and spuds for breakfast lunch and dinner if you like" and when asked about their strategy for victory, Paul said ""It isn't too complex really, A to B as fast as you can go and hope for the best. Close the eyes and pull like a dog." 'Steak and Spuds' and the 'pull like a dog' quickly became the tee-shirt slogans.

Finally, we were both delighted and amazed to find that the Irish had a word all along for that thing where you have put down the object and you know it is safe but you can't remember where. In our family it was always "It's just on the surface somewhere". My British readers should pronounce it, approximately as "Kyle tash-ka" for that authentic Gaelic effect.

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.