A Bunch of Weirdoes

Troughing but in a strange order. 

This season we seem to have accumulated, by chance, an odd bunch of weirdoes for livestock. Friends of the Blog will recall that I was mildly worried about the pigs' lack of enthusiasm for food. Well, they are hungry enough now and wake up and trot out to receive their breakfast or supper and they leave none in the bowl by the next meal but I am amazed by the order in which they take their 'courses'.

Pride sniffs a slice of galia melon

I give these snufflers mainly a commercial pig ration which is a grey/brown pellet looking a bit like the Layers' Pellets, poultry keepers would be familiar with. Worried that this looks just plain boring, I shake the ration up with a handful of flaked barley and throw in on top any cut up fruit I can get really cheap in the supermarket 'reduced' racks. It makes a nice varied meal for them while still giving them all the nutrients they need.

Empress checks out the breakfast potential.

All the pigs I have known or owned so far have taken one look and piled straight into the choicest items first, squabbling over the tomatoes and apple, and only eating the boring old ration when there was nothing else left. Not these two cherubs. They are first at the pig-nuts, shoving the lovely cooked new-potatoes and chunks of melons to the side of their bowl with their snouts the better to avoid accidentally biting the "dessert" course.

Kitchen progress. We pick out some floor tiles.

I have got bored and left by the time they must eat the fruit - it is certainly all gone by the time I return with the next meal but I have never seen more than a tentative exploratory chew on it. Never any enthusiastic schhhhlurrrping and dribbly, juice-leak, chewing like with previous piggies. Ah well, happy enough that they are eating and thriving, I guess. There is no rule that says pigs must eat melon.

These chooks have taken themselves off to 'bed' on this
perch 5 feet off the ground. The rabbit is on the bunny
'Maternity Unit' roof next to them.

Next up on weird-world, those rabbits. Having escaped their apiary pen they are now free range but if you expect them to run for it and end up eaten by Mr Fox somewhere 'out there' then worry not. These guys seem to naturally gravitate towards the house and yard and the out-buildings and prefer the grain thrown down for chickens to the 2.5 acres of good green natural grass and herbs (plus precious flowers and young trees!).

At 'bed time' for chickens as it gets dark, the chooks all take themselves off to their coops and their perching ladders in the out buildings. The rabbits go with them and one even climbs up somehow onto the former rabbit Maternity Unit roof, 4-5 feet off the ground so that he can "perch" alongside the chooks. They get locked in safe from the fox and are always sat just inside the doors when I go to let the birds out in the morning. They chase out to be first at the chicken feed and then go back to being grass-eaters once they've had their fill of breakfast. See? Weirdoes (or should that be "Weirdos"; I guess as it's only a made-up word I can do which ever plural I like).

Egg laid in the laundry pile.

Then there is the chicken who has taken to laying eggs in the 'waiting' laundry pile in the Utility Room. That room has a split door "stable door" style and in summer I generally leave it with the top half hooked open. One rainy day I was in and out of there and left the door fully open and returned to find all 5 of the new hens and their rooster (Herme) sheltering in there from the rain. Not wanting chicken poop on the 'dirty' clothes, I hooshed them out and shut the door and only later found an egg had been laid down in there on an old towel in the corner.

That scary looking Spanish goat cheese in the previous post
was nothing like as alarming inside and proved to be a lovely
strong flavoured crumbly-soft, pale cream coloured (slight pink
tinge) delight. "You know you've had cheese!" said our visitor

Well, it seems that the egg laying bird has now locked onto that site as a GOOD THING and goes back in each day to lay her daily egg even if I have the bottom half of the stable-door closed and she must have to fly up over that to get in. Determined lass, that. I will just have to be careful when sorting through my laundry for the machine - coloured, whites, delicates, woollens, eggs...oops!

The bugle from Charie Moss gets planted into the side of the
driveway. Pick-axe gardening. 

That's it for mad in this post. What else have we been up to? We have started into planting the various goodies from our trip to C Moss Perennials. This has meant getting the pick-axe out again; the bee-friendly plant, bugle (Ajuga reptans) is going in at the side of the drive to do ground-cover but needed a start-hole "drilled" into the compacted gravel there. That should get away nicely.

Waiting for planting. Pick axe at the ready.

This week we play host to the last in the current series of house guests, this one being our most excellent friend John, husband of the late Diane (Diamond, to this blog), who lives in our previous town, Faversham in Kent. If there are guests who are "difficult" and those who are less so, the John is definitely at the 'easy' and 'low maintenance' end of the spectrum.

Gifts from "home" - Micro-brewery beers and some Deep-South
Cajun flavourings from our old favourite world-deli and farm shop
 'Macknades Fine Foods' plus some new Kent gin flavours for Lizzie

Not only does he call to check whether there is anything from home we might be pining for (Gentleman's relish, Marmite etc), he arrives bearing gifts and there is nothing he likes better than a chance to help me in MY garden with the weeding, planting veg and other allotment-type work because he'd be away from his own plot for a whole week. He also loves a craft-beer and would regularly nip round for some of the 'take-away' (Tetra-pack 2 pint style) guest beers from local pub 'The Elephant' when ever we were round to Diane's for supper.

That gives me a chance to indulge here - Ireland is seeing a real flowering of the craft-beer, micro-brewery market and even the standard supermarkets like SuperValu stock a huge range with great long racks of display showing them all off. John and I headed for the SV in Balla-D and came out with 9 different beers to try (not all in one night!).

In the interest of research, you understand. 

I was intrigued to find that they even had a little promo-display for a new supplier, Sligo-based "Lough Gill Brewing Co" who seemed to be doing cans rather than bottles. A fun aspect of this trend is some of the funky funny names they dream up to make the beer more memorable and eye-catching; in the UK we are well used to the Hobgoblins, Old Speckled Hens and 'Waggle Dance'. One of Lough Gill's beers is called "Thieving Bastards" Pale Ale. How could you NOT pick one of those up? Blimey, we nearly have as many different beers in the house as Lizzie has types of gin! Sláinte!

A Fictional Wife

Those ducklings are growing up fast. 9 days old here.

Somewhere in her 'legacy', followers of the late, lamented Diane ('Diamond' on this blog) will find a varied collection of sayings and expressions which her friends still use, always with a fondly remembering smile. One of these, 'Finish Holidays' , comes from the Greek island of Poros which Diane visited every year from teenager-hood (when she went with Mum). She loved the place and the people and knew many of them very well; some now café owners she would have bounced on her knee when they were baby sons and daughters of then café owners.

They learn about left-over petits pois

When she went to those cafés in recent years and tried to sit in the normal 'public/customer' seating areas she would be quickly gathered up by the owners in scolding tones and shepherded quickly 'out back' to the family seating areas and quickly plied with Metaxa. Many of them clung proudly (as you'd expect) to their Greekness and only learned the necessary amount of English to do the business of café-ing but also were proud to try out their stilted, awkward phrasings on Diane as Diane gamely delivered her quite reasonable Greek replies. One of these was when they all assembled at the quayside to see her off on the ferry back to the mainland - they would hug her and say, sadly, "Ahhhh Finish Holidays". Finish Holidays has stuck here as a catch phrase whenever holidays or breaks are ending.

Finish Holidays. The borrowed chooks
crated up for the homeward journey. 

Where is all this going? One of the jobs this week was to return our 'borrowed' chickens to their rightful owner at the end of their little Christmas sojourn with us. These half dozen came to us on 4th Dec when the owner was temporarily unable to keep them at home and have been living in one of our big rabbit runs ever since. I dared not put them actually in with our gang as the group contains a fairly feisty rooster and all 5 of our then roosters were trying to have a go at him through the mesh, as he was back.

15 more bales of straw for the neighbour's bullocks.

Well, that problem is now solved and their little holiday was over. We had to crate them up and whizz them home yesterday. The owners are fellow archers of mine and this delivery gave us a chance to sort a funnier, less tricky issue.

The clean air here allows for some lovely flamboyant
growths of moss and lichens seen on over-wintering trees.

There is a running in-joke at archery because so few of us/them ever show up with our spouses, that we are only pretending to be married and that our wife/husband/partner does not actually exist. This leads to a load of silly banter at shoot coffee-breaks when we try to explain where we got the cake or home made biscuits we have 'produced'. Liz was quite enjoying being a "work of fiction" and when I said that she could come too on the 'chicken-run' and meet these couple of friends she almost declined because it would blow the gaff and she'd lose her fictional status. It is now 50/50 whether the friends deny all knowledge at the next meeting (No! Matt didn't bring anyone -he came alone!) or decide to bear witness of Liz's existence.

Polly's fleece. She is a Jacob x Suffolk. 

Meanwhile, life chugs on and I have little to report. I am happy that no news is good news - our poor friends Sue and Rob have too much news and are not having a happy time; they are actually waiting for 'the third thing' to go wrong and professing that disasters always come in threes. First a pregnant Nanny goat went into labour about 3 weeks early and delivered 3 tiny kids, one still born and the other two managing only a couple of shallow gasps each but unable to start breathing. They died in seconds/minutes.

A 'pussy hat' and gloves. You may need to look that one up
in the USA/Trump news. 

The next morning they were still trying to get over that tragedy when the billy goat rocked up pumping blood from a horn-bud. He had ripped one of his big spiral horns clean off and goat horns have a very good blood supply. He was in real danger of bleeding out but they managed to grab him and stem the flow. Off to the vet then and he managed to only be 'woozy through blood loss'. He is quiet and recovering. We are told that he will probably grow back a smaller, soft horn.

'Our' Syrian refugees hit the national news. 

And local town Ballaghaderreen suddenly found itself in the national news when a story broke that a large batch of Syrian refugees was to be accommodated in a 200-bed 'failed/closed' hotel in the town. Initial reports were all a bit alarmist and had some local anti-foreigner types passing out leaflets saying these would be ISIL terrorists in disguise, images of jihadists beheading people etc.

I am glad to say that it has all calmed down a bit now and less alarmist, even welcoming voices have started to be heard. All the journalists have moved on, as they do and TDs are saying how proud they are of the way Balla-D accommodates its diversity. I expect when the (80) children and adults do arrive (in March) it may not even get a mention. The leaflet man is, by all accounts a local 'character' with 'form' in this area.

Finish Holidays!

The plane home. 

Finish Holidays! That was the expression (with a sigh of regret) Diane's Greek friends would use on the last days of trips to Poros as the girls packed up their belongings and prepared to join the 'Flying Dolphin' fast ferry out back to the mainland and the plane home. That was me today; back to Ireland after a superb and very enjoyable break in the UK catching up with relatives and friends, former workmates and, in one case, meeting for the first time some chums who I 'knew' quite well but only through the internet.

All his days seem to be 'bad hair' days. The rather disreputable
looking but very sweet Rags (Ragworth)

Of course the 'main event' was a trip home to see Mum ('Pud Lady' on these pages) and, as it turned out, 'big brother' Tom who was around the house for both my visit days. My main base was Daine's husband John's place in Faversham so huge thanks to him for TOPP hosting. He has a spotless (and very newly refurbished) house and the bed in his spare room is easily the softest and most comfortable bed I have slept in for years. He was also keen to try out his cooking skills on the guests, so we were treated to a succession of the likes of "Panackelty" (a northern layered 'stew' of corned beef which he used to do instructed by Stockton-on-Tees born Diane) and Hungarian Goulash and side salads which were so generous that they dwarfed the main course.

Miles and Paul with the 'heavies'

The 'internet' lads are 2CV owners (which is how I first 'found' them) but also keep a smallholding and I had been following their antics which ran in parallel to ours as they got to grips with sheep-owning, bee keeping, turkey poults and chickens. I knew too, that they followed my blog and as they live at a mid point between my Faversham base and Mum's place, I couldn't resist schmoozing them up for a visit so that I could put real faces to the Facebook stories. I was also dead curious to see the two 'species' which we don't do here - heavy horses and the tiny 'Dexter' cattle. I begged some directions and we decided a time and date. I just had to rock up in the very bright red hired Vauxhall Astra. There was even the promise of some home made onion soup and excellent bread.

I'm 6 foot 1. These are BIG horses.

The visit was a huge success and we got on like a house on fire. Miles and Paul welcomed me enthusiastically and we had a good 'farm tour' which took us everywhere. Their place is a chocolate-box beautiful period farmhouse near Rye, recently restored and improved in keeping with local listed-building regs. They have a vintage grey tractor which I covet (as well as a quad bike!). The horses are three huge geldings with feet as big as dinner plates - Shires and Clydesdales if memory serves (do jump in and comment if I have this wrong guys). They were quiet and gentle but quite curious about this new person in their field, so I got well 'loomed' over. They run with 2 standard sized mares to keep them company. The Dexters were two mums with calves at foot. Like us they are currently without pigs (wrong season). The onion soup was to die for. Thank you so so much M+P.

From huge horses to tiny cattle - Dexters.

The visit 'home' was also a great success. Brother (Tom) and Mum were on fine form and we had some lovely chat catching up on the gossip and Hastings stuff. We played some Scrabble and although we both beat Mum, it was not by much and we reckon she was happy with our argument that this proved she had reared a couple of genius sons. What's wrong with that? Mum is, of course well able for the pair of us and whizzed around cooking us a lovely roast chicken lunch which she insisted on carving to show us who was really in charge here. Tom and I might be 58/60, but Mum trumps us with her 88. There's no arguing with that.

Pud Lady at 88 attacks a chicken. 

I also managed to sneak in a visit to see the widow of my old work mate Steve (see post of 3rd July this year entitled "Hen and Two"), who was also the breeder of our oldest bitch, Deefer. Jean (that lady) still has Deefer's mother (Mollie) and brother (Archie) though she has had to have the 'dad' (Hector) put down. It was fascinating that the dogs well remembered me after 4 years and were straight way into clambering all over me and loving me up as I tried to drink the proffered coffee. Thank you and the very best of luck, Jean.

2CV Llew on the roof fixing down some panels. 

Another Westie who remembered me straight away was Boris, belonging to old mate 2CV Llew who has featured many times in this blog. We'd arranged to meet for breakfast in the Wetherspoons pub in Herne Bay, "Saxon Shore" (and very nice it was too!) But it seems that these days I have a taste for the buildering and can't keep away from it, so when Llew said he was roofing his new workshop in Herne village on the Wednesday and I'd be welcome to help him, I found myself agreeing to go at this all day despite the arrival of the British Isles's next named storm, Barney.

Llew's new workshop.

Llew had already created the frame of this 16' by 16' building in 2 inch steel box section and angle-iron (it's what he does for work) so we could do a day of Llew being up on the roof fixing down the panels while I was 'man on the ground' cutting panels to size and the 'firing' them up to him, plus scurrying up and down the ladder bringing him bits, connecting up power tools and helping to fix battens to the erected panels so that they would more securely take the next ones. All good clean fun.

Hidden treasure, Derek's old Roller.

The workshop is in the yard of a superbly "wheeler-dealer"  type guy who by coincidence knows our part of Ireland quite well as his son has just bought a former nunnery in Lanesborough (on the Shannon) so he's often in and out of Knock airport. He also turns out to have a lovely Rolls Royce under a sheet in one of the garages which Llew wishes he would use to drive the two of them to the local pub. It would make quite an impression, thinks Llew. Probably have to wipe the fish and chip grease off the fingers before you got back in, though, mate. Anyway, we got his roof done despite some impressive gusts of wind from 'Barney', working right round till last light, so dark that we needed a torch to go round rounding up the tools to tidy up at the end of the job.

John's lovely little "Faversham" stove - really meant for
boat and yacht cabins. 

My final call was to drop in on good friend of this blog, Mazy-Lou, where John and I had been invited round to supper and Mazy was known to have been BAKING. Anyone who knows Mazy will be familiar with her legendary baking skills and we were due a steak and kidney pie with 2 kinds of pastry (she uses shortcrust on the bottom and flakey pastry above) and multiple veg, a fruit crumble and then a cheese course all washed down with excellent wine. She did us proud. We were full to groaning point by the end and had to take a couple of "trou Normande" breaks to recover between courses. An armagnac and a good coffee sorted us out for the journey home.

One of John's plaques - made near to where he was born by
Osbourne Plaques, this one includes a Thames Barge bottom
right. 

Of course, with me away, Liz was left in charge of the farm and coped but reports that she was run ragged what with work and a training course she had to attend, so was really missing the chance to drink a whole cup of tea without being interupted. There was also a day when she, too was away at the Dublin 'Knit and Stitch' show/trade sale and I cannot close this post without thanking two more people, our fellow small-holder friends, Sue and Rob (of the various piglet adventures) who stepped into the breach and came to let chickens in and out in the day-light, safe from Mr Fox. We owe you guys. So that was it. Aer Lingus flew me home this afternoon on an interesting, Jet-Stream affected, turbulent flight (it was like being driven home over rocky roads in an army truck! They "suspended" the refreshment service for half an hour for risk of bouncing hot drinks over the passengers while the pilot found a calmer altitude). Liz has had her tea and all is well with the world.

Greece and Turkey(s)

Annamaria gets the girls mobile.

The eagle has landed. My travelling wife is returned from her mission to tie up those loose ends for our late friend Diane in the Greek island of Poros. Poros was Diane's favourite (and 'only' by the end) holiday destination and she went two or three times a year every year from when Mum took her, aged 27, around 30 years ago. She was well known and loved there by many locals and, indeed, many café owners there now, she bounced on her knee as babies of the café owners 30 years back. Liz went with her around a half dozen times in recent years and was there for the trip when Diane married John out there (remember the famously miss-spelled 'Happy Webbing" cake?). Latterly, Liz would go out on the Spring trip, and Diane took John in the autumn.

Annamaria, Liz's main guide, with her son
Andreas. Thank you Annamaria - we owe you
so much.

In these recent trips they would always use the same hotel, owned by a local lad but run by the two 'old dears' of the family, always affectionately known as the "Yia-Yiás" (pronounce it Ya-ya's, it is an affectionate term in Greek for Grandma). That was an obvious start point but Liz had a mental list of similar haunts - pavement and indoor cafés, restaurants, even a Taverna across the water up in the mountains surrounded by lemon groves. She wanted also to visit all these local contacts and friends to say a kind of 'Goodbye' on Diane's behalf, explain to them, if she can, how Diane died, sympathise with them and somehow share with them that there will be no more visits from their bubbly, happy, English 'regular'. I must hurriedly apologise if I am making a hash of this 'explanation'.

Liz gets a cuddle from superb old gent, Andreas Lazarou

Liz is fortunately helped in this task by there being some among the Greek (or long-term Poros visitor) mutual friends who speak good English, notable a lovely lady Annamaria who even suggested hiring a moped with pillion seat to help them get about. Liz has no Greek and is further hampered by the fact that Diane had the Greek so she used to guide and organise everything, but also used the local names for things which everyone on Poros would know but would not be in any guide book or on road signage. "The Yia-Yiás" is not the real name of the hotel (!) and a café which they all know as "The Bulgarians" because back in the day when there were a lot of Bulgarian economic migrants on Poros, that was the café where they all gathered at lunchtime or of an evening. One favourite haunt (known locally as Thanasis Café) had actually closed down in the intervening time; just a clear pavement and white-washed windows.

Beekeeping burger man.

So Lizzie was not much looking forward to this trip and wished it would go away, but knew that it wouldn't and that she must steel herself and do this last thing for our much missed friend. She knew she must go alone because to take me or any other 'third party' might make it look like she was really on holiday to the Poros folk, and if she went with widower John, there would be raised eyebrows at him, so recently bereaved, "swanning about" with another woman and former best friend of Diane. They are salt of the earth and genuine Greek Orthodox people with a keen eye for old traditional values. They deserve respect and so does Diane's memory and legacy. No, this had to be a single-handed journey, but she was sure she'd cope. She was only away from here 7 nights; time flew. Now it is done, it is done for good. 'We' may return to Poros, maybe in our later years, when we have a bit less livestock and a bit more time.

Burger bee-man's signs

But how to go about these very difficult 'meet and greets'? How do you address an old old mutual friend who (you hope) knows of Diane's passing and that you have come out to the island just to say a kind of goodbye to these valued loved ones? Liz had mentally put together a quick few sentences telling of Diane's last day, including the happy tea party with her London friend Stefan, husband John off on his dogwalk with Diane's request for 'posh cheese' the last words he heard, her quick, clean, painless end from the pulmonary embolism, that she died at home and on her own bed.

Gifts from Greece - brandy. Actually, to be more accurate,
"Greek alcohol drink of natural aromas and distils"

Many of the Greeks would openly weep there on the street where they met and hug Liz tight. One poor lady actually met Liz as she came out of a washroom, recognised Liz, guessed why she was there, burst into floods of tears and had to be ushered back into the washroom by Liz while she got herself back together. Some of the greetings were a bit less harrowing, one (Angelo) they caught up with as he was out on his boat in the harbour and Liz ended up yelling friendly abuse across the water to him about why he never had his phone turned on or charged up, before heading for a café. Two other favourite old boys in Diane's crowd, she met while they were taking their regular walk along the sea front (Captain George (fisherman) and Eleftherios (fishmonger)). To a man/woman, they were very concerned about Husband John, was he coping? Was he eating OK? Greek men apparently will often go to pieces when first bereaved.

Greek sweets - they are (phonetically)
"ah-mee-gda-lo-ta" - don't ask me to
spell that in the Greek alphabet!

The old boy, Andreas (now quite elderly) who owned the Taverna up in the lemon groves was just awake from his nap, being looked after by his lovely carer, was still a bit befuddled from sleep and has no English, but he was happy to sit by Liz patting her knee and smiling - he seemed to know that he'd seen Liz before and that she was here for a good reason, but the carer explained that he had not taken in Diane's death and that she would explain it to him in due course when he was more with it. There, inevitably also one lady who had not heard of Diane's passing, so Liz had to actually break the news, and there other people who over heard Liz talking to the 'ones on the list' and chipped in with "I knew Diana too...." (They all called her Diana out there).

On the right a hard Greek sheep's milk cheese (nice enough)
but on the left, the freshest, most gorgeous feta I ever had
the pleasure of tasting.

In this way Liz worked her way round the town and completed the task. She was very much ably assisted by our good friend Annamaria who scared Liz half to death by suggesting that rather than walk, they hire a moped and zoom around like proper Greeks, dicing with the traffic. Liz took her first pillion ride with eyes tight shut, head down and both hands gripping Annamaria's waist hard enough to bruise the poor girl. By the end, though, she was apparently sitting back, hand by her sides, big silly grin and "I'm on a BIKE" in her head!

Newly hatched turkey chick, still damp from the egg.

With the job done, Annamaria decided they both needed some rest, relaxation and recouperation. Annamaria had taken time off work (in Athens) to shepherd Liz round Poros (we are so so grateful, Annamaria - thank you so much) but now needed to go home so that she could return to work, but she suggested that Liz come with her, stay in her house in Athens and relax till the time came for the flight home. Just what the doctor ordered. We also need to thank the bro-in-law, Sparks, who did the airport and railway station taxi-runs in Dublin and put Liz up overnight at either end of the Poros mission, cooking a nice line in breakfasts. Thank you Sparks.

In one final amusing aside, Liz managed to meet 2 more beekeepers while she was out there and even enjoy some bilingual conversation about bees, where she'd have only minimal vocabulary and the Greek guy maybe a tiny bit more English. One was just a man with a burger van where Annamaria stopped in the car for some light snacks; Liz spotted a pic on the van of the burger seller in a beekeeper-suit and realised that he was also selling honey. The other, a guy named Costas (Annamaria is his daughter's Godmother) had been minding the Annamaria's son (also called Andreas) while Annamaria was looking after Liz on Poros. Liz and Costas were also found showing each other pictures of their and our animals, and letting Liz photo their geese. In Greece, though, honey quality is judged on darkness of colour, with the real burnt-umber colours being the best, so Liz did not show them pics of our straw-coloured product. They would not have been impressed.

Finally a bit of nice, surprise, good news from home - we woke up the the cheepings of just-hatched turkeys. We have 8 eggs in the incubator and were not expecting any hatches till day 28 (June 8th) so these little ones are 2 days early. We have 2 out so far and a third well on the way to cracking the top off the shell, so watch this space for a final score.

A Rather Sad Spring Break

The new cat, Soldier, is well settled in at this stage and
exploring the garden. 

It has been a miserable cold wet May and in any other circumstances, a Spring break in the Greek Islands would seem like a brilliant idea. The Med, sun, warmth, café life, ouzo, seafood, maybe a swim, what could be better? For poor Lizzie, though, these are not "any other circumstances" and she must head for the Island of Poros on an altogether sadder mission, to settle the affairs of our late friend Diamond (whom I should probably now call by her real name Diane). More on this mission in a future post.

Local beekeepers say that a good horse
chestnut tree is worth an acre of clover.
This fine example grows right opposite
JD Bob's place.

Heads down feeding frenzy for the Hubbards at 4 weeks+

Release day for the Hubbard poults.

A well stained thumb attests to the fact
that we have been 'shepherding' again. 

Park life?

Meanwhile, after a fortnight of reasonable weather (OK, a tad chilly and prone to showers) we have been hard at it catching up on the garden. I have weeded through the veg patch (which sometimes seems like the Forth Road Bridge; by the time you finish, you have to start again at the start) and we have blitzed the big raised-bed garden and mulched it down with well rotted chicken/goose muck. With the new mower, I have been able to buzz off the pond-garden and the orchard, nicely topping off the plantain and dock flower shoots coming in the latter. It all looks very neat and Liz paid it the delighted compliment that "It looks really neat - like a bit of parkland!" We don't normally aspire to a site too 'manicured' but we both love the current 'deliberate' look, the 'lawn grass' is mowed and the shaggy meadow bits look like they have been left deliberately. Planned!

Plums (Victoria)

Some good fruit-set, especially on the plums which were worst affected by that late frost in April, tell us that we might have got away with it. Obviously, it is only May and no-one is counting any chickens. June-drop is still a way off, but those frosts struck just as these plums were coming to the end of the blossom season and in my memory, that should mean that fruit would fail to set. Here we are, though, with the withered remants of flowers now washed off by the showers and with tiny plums revealed in clusters. Who knows, but we might get some decent crops of fruit this year. It's a promising start anyway.

Baby (Conference) pears forming

Other than that, Soldier the cat is now well settled in and loving it here, the 'Hen with One Chick' fusses on doing a good job of protecting the little one. She even had a go at Liz this morning as Liz tried to nip from kitchen to utility room to retrieve some underwear for the Greek trip. In the goose dept a fair amount of chaos. We had no intention of allowing any geese to go broody this year - we do not want any more geese and I hate having to 'off' them but one out-voted us and yesterday morning she appeared to have been joined by 2 more on the same nest. 2 of these hopped back off mid-morning. It could all end in tears and smashed eggs.

3 broodies?

The bees seem to have given up notions of swarming for the moment, probably due to the cold weather but we will stay vigilant and if the weather warms up, we know what to expect. The pigs thrive on and one of the lambs is coming up to needing his final journey. That will be Feste, our first-born, January 6th baby, ear tag 00001F. He's booked in with Ignatius G Victualler on June 9th after Liz is back from Greece. He will be smaller and younger than lambs we have sent to slaughter in the past, but he is entire, and we dare not allow him to 'get at' Mum Lily as happened last year, but the butchers love that and assure us he will be like a tender New Season Easter lamb in the size of joints and the eating.

We take one final cut from the purple
 sprouting broccoli which has done so
well. The bees can have it now as it
blows away to flower. 

So, fare well then Lizzie and good luck on your rather sad trip to Poros. I know that you will do Diane proud.