Tag Archives: hens

Semi-holiday week inc Book

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This week is a semi-holiday week.  The plan was to base ourselves in beautiful rural surroundings (here) while taking the opportunity to explore locally, chill out and invite friends over for BBQs while still being available for our livestock.  It’s sort of happening, though there is slightly more rain and less sun dappled relaxation opportunities than I envisaged.  Here is a quick round up of what’s going on:

Book.  I’ve just received the advance copy and, casting modesty to the four winds (not easy for a nicely brought up rurally based Brit), I’m THRILLED with it!  Looks nice, feels nice, smells nice, also available in ebooks.  You get the idea.  When the time comes that it hits the book sellers (17 Sept, also Mikey’s birthday – yay!) and any of you might invest in a copy I’d just love to know what you think of it.  Especially if you like it!

Horses/sheep.  All as fat as butter, but that doesn’t stop them yearning over the fence for the lush grass the other side.  Yesterday Harry yearned so much that the fence he was yearning over gave up the unequal struggle and collapsed.  Harry ploughed through the shattered remains and stuffed himself on mega grass.  The sheep followed in their own particular brand of stiff-legged 4-pronged jumps.  Slip, a Good Boy, stayed the other side of the fence and bellowed for help.  We heard Slip (brass bands aren’t in it when Slip is in full voice), grabbed Harry and the sheep and rigged up a temporary fence.  Now we’ve got to return with fencing posts, hammers etc and do a proper job, because Harry is built like a buffalo and wants back in, and the sheep are egging him on.

Geese.  Dreadful.  They got onto the road a yesterday and chased the postman.  I’ve put a large notice on the gate reminding everybody that if it’s not kept shut, we won’t receive any more mail.

Hens.  Fab.   Wenceslas’ girls are particularly pretty, a mass of frilly feathers and very friendly.

Village.  Empty.  As if all the inhabitants have been beamed up by aliens.  Actually, most of them are in Greece.

Swallows.  Hundreds of them up above the stables, making noisy travel plans.  I find it most unsettling and wish I was heading for the sun too.  Ah well, I hope wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing, you’re having a lovely week and have a great weekend.

Lupin heist!

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Last night as I slept (probably, full details of timings etc are yet to emerge) a hideous crime was perpetrated.  Somebody crept into our garden and nicked a lupin.

I didn’t notice initially, as I went to feed the hens this morning.  Then on my way back I glanced over to my flower bed (the only flower bed that I have managed to salvage from the combined attentions of the hens/dogs/cat) and there was a bit missing.  Where there used to be a tasteful mass of blue/purple/pink/white flowers linked by rampant bindweed (also pink, white and very harmonious) there was now a large hole in the very middle.

At first I thought it had been Scarab getting a bit overenthusiastic in his love-affair with the rampant catmint that I welcome because it is purple and within my colour swatch.  But it wasn’t.  And nor was it the dogs, digging a careful hole in which to hide a treasure (step forward Darcy, and a dead mouse he was deeply attached to).  And nor was it the hens, creating an extra special dustbath.

As you can see from the list of suspects, my flower bed has an uphill struggle to survive as it is, without the additional attentions of a genuine human lupin thief.

When I got beyond my dismay at the trampled path into the middle of the bed, and realised that a large crater had been purposefully dug to get out the roots, I raced back indoors and consulted some photos I took after a passer-by said that my flowers were looking ‘very pretty’, the nicest thing anybody had ever said about the garden.  ‘Characterful’, and ‘fun’, I’ve had, but ‘very pretty’ was a first.  So I had recent photographic evidence that the bit that was missing was a large lupin.  Pink, it was, and burgeoning.

I contemplated ringing the police, but the ensuing conversation could have been a bit feeble:  “I have to report the theft of a lupin.”  “A wot?”  “A lupin.”  “Sorry to hear that, can you give me a description?”  “Well, it’s a lupin.  And it’s pink …”

Nah, I rang the Neighbourhood Watch coordinator to tell him of the Terror that is Stalking our Streets, and I’m afraid to say that he giggled and asked me for an Identikit of the missing plant.  But I’m taking it seriously.  Somebody came into the garden, trampled into the middle of my only decent flowerbed, and collared a pink lupin.  So now my family, the dogs, cat (very fierce when roused) and chickens are on full alert.  Let him visit again, after a delphinium or similar, and we are armed and ready for him.  Or of course her.  I’ll be looking carefully at Audrey’s garden, for instance, next time I ride past it …

More new kids on the block

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I’ve just spent a happy half hour in the hen run, introducing this year’s fresh young chicks to the old lags who live there.  It’s a peerless day, unclouded blue sky with promise of real heat later in the day, and the smell of the neighbouring hay field makes every breath a pleasure.  So I didn’t exactly rush away as the chicks made their way down the gang plank, all wobbly knees and big eyes, to discover what the rest of their lives is going to be like.

I put them in the hen house last night, so that they would become part of the flock in the dark of the night without really realising it had happened.  This morning the home team came bouncing down the ramp all fluffy and bright eyed and made a bee line for breakfast.  Then came a pause as the chicks all shuffled around the hole in the floor of the ark, gazing down at the hen run below and saying ‘after you’ to each other (the little ark they started out in doesn’t have a gang plank).

Then Frillz, the bravest, started inching slowly down the plank, all claws and feathers.  She started to speed up despite herself, then gravity took over and she finished her descent at warp speed, hitting the ground below with a startled squawk.  She’ll learn how to do the plank, it just takes practice.  Encouraged by her example, the rest of the chicks came out to join her except for Dolly (there’s always one).  Dolly yelled through the hole in the floor that she is having nothing to do with that there plank, and is going to live as a hermit in the hen house.  For ever.

The other chicks all headed out into the run.  It’s bigger, and lusher, and greener and more interesting than anything they have ever seen before.  They explored as a pack (safety in numbers), and when I came in to write this they had:

  • Tried out the drinker (big success)
  • Stuffed themselves with breakfast once the older hens had finished
  • Watched Wenceslas having a dust bath (awesome sight)
  • Been chased by Fluffy (most unfair, as she was once Frillz’ mum)
  • Found and eaten a small and bewildered spider which they discovered with shrieks of excitement under a leaf

Now they have the rest of the day free to explore and amaze themselves.  I’ve got a busy day ahead myself, but I’ll just nip out now and see if I can encourage Dolly to walk the plank and join her mates …

Sun! Yes, really!

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It’s happened!  The sun is shining and (you can’t always take this for granted) it’s warm with it.  Not hot yet, that would be too much to hope for, but the forecasters are quietly confident that we may yet ‘bask’.  And basking would be nice after so much shivering and sheltering.

The village has burst into colourful life after months of hibernating under grey skies swollen with rain.  Over the weekend my neighbours split into traditional roles, easily and naturally and without discussion.  Mars dug out the lawnmower/strimmer/any other power tool that he could seize and make noise with, and roared about the garden cutting things down.  Venus either made a trip to the farm shop if she could be bothered and bought steaks/burgers/BBQ chicken portions or disinterred frozen sausages from the very bottom of the freezer and in both cases gave them to Mars to burn on the barbecue.

Sun umbrellas were erected.  People tried to remember how to mix a Pimms, and some of the loudest jollity came from the gardens where people had forgotten and got the proportions wrong.  And Mr Addington appeared in a pair of empire-building shorts that were belted just beneath his armpits and reached nearly down to his ankles.  For months now he has been telling anybody who would listen that a second ice age is on its way and we are doomed.  Yesterday he was flagging down passers-by and telling them that global warming has now arrived and we are doomed.

Meanwhile every farmer in the vicinity has leaped aboard their biggest tractor and taken to the lanes and fields.  Most cut their hay yesterday, though some waited another 24 hours for the unprecedented sun/ breeze combo to transform lakes back into meadows.  I’m just back from walking the dogs, and the air is full of the unforgettable, primal, glorious smell of drying grass.

As for my animals, we have mixed reviews on the change in the weather.  The hens are thrilled, and are lying about in attitudes with their wings fanned out, sunbathing.  The sheep say it’s Too Hot and have withdrawn to the back of the field shelter.  The horses, though swaddled in fly rugs and face masks, are the centre of a buzzing mass of flies and have joined the sheep in the field shelter.  The dogs are two black lumps in the shadow of a crab apple tree, and Scarab the cat is sun-worshipping from the depths of a cat mint bed.

In fact it’s fab here right now.  Looks good, smells great, and helps me remember all over again why, despite everything, North Wiltshire can be a sort of earthly paradise.  Once the mud has dried up.

Weekend round-up #1

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Book:  I’ve now sent the corrected proofs back to the publishers (very few typos – respect!)  Publishing date is now set for 15 September – yay!!  I think it’s going to feature at Country Living’s Autumn Fair, which will be fun.

Weather:  more rain than you would believe could fall out of a single sky.  I was about to do my evening rounds with the dogs last night and opened the back door.  Outside it looked as if somebody was sitting on the roof tipping buckets of water down right in front of me.  Just masses of water falling straight down.  The dogs and me decided to go right back indoors and light the woodburner instead.  The stream is roaring along, normally it doesn’t flow at all in summer.  On the plus side, it looks very pretty if the rain stops for long enough for me to go and look at it.

Horses:  I took Slip out around the lanes this morning, between showers, and all the water dragons were out.  Water dragons live in puddles, and they wait … and wait … and then they LEAP OUT AT YOU!!  That is, it hasn’t happened yet, but when it does Slip will be ready for them.  Harry isn’t interested in water dragons, but he says the grass is excellent this year, very lush.  And Harry is a connoisseur of grass and currently shaped like a beer barrel.

Cat:  Scarab says thank you for the kind concern, and his paw is feeling much better.  He highly recommends wicker cat baskets, because then the human can go through all the fun of thinking they are taking a cat to the vet while the cat can stay at home and wish them well.  Wicker baskets have escape routes (see previous blog).  Plastic baskets don’t, and are not to be trusted.

Sheep:  Because of current weather conditions, the ewes spend most of their time gossiping in the field shelter while the lambs climb on a straw bale that I put out for them.  The lambs think they are semi-aquatic, bless them, and know no different.

Hens:  I know I’m biased, but the frizzle chicks (Wenceslas’ little princesses) are ridiculously cute.  I’ll see if Mikey can put a photo of one on the blog at the weekend, so you can see what I mean.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND, AND IF YOU LIVE IN THE UK REMEMBER TO TAKE A BROLLY!

 

 

Just so you know …

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My broadband has been down.  Last time that happened it was because a snail had got into the box that matters (honestly, I’m not making this up) and got wedged.  No broadband.  This time it was because the cat Scarab, who has a prosperous figure and likes his sleep, climbed into the computer cupboard, spent several happy hours kipping among the cables and dreaming about anchovies and pulled a wire out.  Anyway, we’re up and running again but I haven’t done a blog.

London was surprisingly good fun, by the way.  It was raining when I left Wiltshire, but when I arrived in London the sun was hot and everybody was strolling around in T shirts, looking relaxed.  It was like being in another country entirely.  I had a great meeting with Country Living, and it was lovely to look through the proofs of the ‘Tales from a Stone Cottage book’ with them and have some ideas.  Then home again and guess what?  it was raining, and people were trudging about in waterproofs.  As always though, I went and stood on the bridge over our little stream and rejoiced about being back in the deep countryside.  And the animals were most welcoming, though they had a vested interest in that they all wanted to be fed.

The chicks seemed to have grown in just a day, they are getting the most outrageous hairstyles (nice one, Wenceslas!)  The chick I am calling Pippa (Middleton) because she always looks perfect in any situation, is golden with a pure white hat.  Very striking.  Dolly (Parton) is a mass of golden curls and Camilla (Duchess of Cornwall) – you may notice that we have a royal theme in the hen run at the moment – has a most sumptous feather headdress.  The sort you wouldn’t want to sit behind at an opera.

And this is very nearly a full-length blog now.  But I must race away because we have 8 for supper and they are arriving any moment now.  Have a wonderful weekend, and it’s great to be back online.

Wet Open Gardens (and sheep etc)

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One of the local villages had an Open Garden Day yesterday.  The format is now familiar:  the house owners garden frantically in the preceding weeks through the driving rain and extreme winds – despite everything they weed, mow and edge.  As the Day itself approaches the weather forecast gets worse:  expect tidal waves, water spouts, hurricanes, says the BBC calmly.  When the Day dawns it is chilly, overcast but the wind isn’t bad at all really.  Not really.  Not compared to yesterday.  Mid-morning the visitors start arriving, sensibly dressed for late June in waterproof coats, hats, umbrellas and wellies.  They splosh loyally around waterlogged green dens of wetness, admiring the petals on the lawn that were a stand of rather lovely peonies yesterday and then go into the village marquee and eat tea and cakes.  Until the marquee blows away, that is.

It’s important not to dwell on the weather too much (the wettest June in a century according to this morning’s papers).  It’s because we get so much rain that we have such a wonderfully green island.  And absolutely no scorpions etc because the poor things would instantly succumb to pneumonia the second they stepped off the boat they had stowed away on.  And occasionally the sun comes out to show a countryside so intensely beautiful that it’s nearly all worth while.

But in the short term, it’s a right pain, and that’s putting it politely.  Yesterday I sheltered under a wind-lashed tree and admired the remains of a beautiful herbaceous border, which obviously was the culmination of a lifetime’s dedicated work on the part of the lady I was standing next to.  “Lovely plants,” I said, as was true.  “Well yes,” she replied, “but I wish you could have seen the lupins before they blew down.”  And that said it all, really.

Home to comfort and feed the livestock.  The sheep have moved into the field shelter and say that until they’ve grown some wool back they are Not Coming Out.  Please send hay.  The horses say that they need waterproof rugs.  Unless the sun comes out even for a second, in which case they would sweat and need their rugs off.  Until it goes in again when they would like them on again (continues).

The geese continue to be smug.  They like rain, and the new puddles they can spaddle in.  And the happy fact that sometimes it’s raining so hard that I don’t get out of the car to shut the gate in time, and they waddle through in single file and go and chase cars on the road until I’ve fetched an umbrella and herded them back in again.

I don’t know what the hens think, because they never come out of their ark any more.  They say it’s an Ark, and they are Noah, and until somebody sends a dove plus olive branch to prove there’s dry land somewhere out there, they are staying put.

Impulses

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Different people obey different impulses.  Some shop for shoes (“yes, I’ve got another 50 pairs, but those jade crystal embellished suede spike heeled Jimmy Choos are just so darling … “), some give up boring executive type jobs and decide to build a future career repairing dry-stone walls (this is true: I once did a dry-stone walling course with three of them.  Scary.).  My particular impulse is to fire up our little yellow incubator and put some more eggs in it.  Even if I have poultry coming out of my ears and the last thing I need is more of the little angels.

I don’t even take a straw poll of what comes running when I enter the orchard with a container of corn.  That would be almost sensible, along the lines of:  well, we have enough peacocks (one, more than enough), enough egg laying bantams (I’m running out of egg rich recipes in which to use their largesse and am giving most of their eggs away at the moment), enough non-productive but charming bantams (ie anything that seems to be covered in a mesh of frills instead of feathers) and absolutely no guinea-fowl.

The sad demise of Precious, the guinea fowl, comes in a blog a couple of months back.  I miss her loud African chanting from the top of her favourite apple tree, her hunch backed earnestness as she scampered around the orchard on little fat feet, and her blissfully spotted feathers.  So it would seem sensible, if I have a compulsion to start up the incubator again, to obtain a clutch of guinea-fowl eggs (triangular, spotted, hard as granite) and start to repopulate.

Or how about some quail?  Bonkers, to a man, but the eggs are beautiful and presented in a little plaited straw nest would make a lovely hostess present at supper parties, saving us a fortune in bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates.  Or ducks.  We have no ducks at the moment, and the slugs and snails are rejoicing and partying all night in the flower bed as a result.  Ducks would be great, either Indian Runner (they have a habit of forming into single file, leaning slightly into the wind and patrolling around the garden that I could watch for ever) or call ducks (small, cute and never shut up).

Nah.  I’ve got a friend coming to coffee any moment now bearing has some bantam eggs she found knocking around her hen run that she thought would be pretty.  Probably.  If they are fertile, which they may not be.  She only has 3, so I am padding out the incubator with 9 of our own.  Which means that in 19 days time we will have yet more mixed-race bantams to bring up and release into the hen run to find their place.  And quite honestly (this is the impulse bit) I cannot wait!!

It’s raining!

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I don’t want to sound picky, but running a smallholding gets less fun when it rains and rains and rains (you get the idea).  The new frizzle chicks aren’t very waterproof yet, even less so than non-frizzle chicks, because their new frizzle feathers stick out at odd angles and let the rain in.  Once chicks have reached a certain age I like to put them on the lawn in a little run every day, so they can potter about in the sun, eat the occasional bone-dense fly that strays into their path and generally start getting street-wise.  Not a hope at the moment, they are all indoors with the heat lamp on, doing the chick equivalent of playing video games and getting on each others’ nerves.  And needing their newspaper replaced with astonishing regularity for such small birds.

Back in the henrun, Wenceslas’ dustbath is awash so he’s hanging about in the shelter with the rest of the flock and reminding them of why they couldn’t take him seriously in the first place (I am still amazed that he has fathered at least 4 chicks – all the bantam hens will peck him as soon as look at him).  Pavlova the Pekin cockerel just doesn’t get up at the moment.  He spends all day in the henhouse, presumably wrapped in a duvet and sending out for pizza.  He says he will reappear when the sun does, and not before.

The sheep look tattered and grouchy.  They should be shorn by now, but the Gribbles say they won’t do them until it is dry (at least I think that is what they said, I needed a Babel fish to properly translate “Oi’ll kumana droi like moi dear”, which is what one of them said to me last time I rang.  At least there is no worry about fly strike at the moment, I think all the flies have drowned.  And the sheep are nice and cosy inside their fleeces unlike their cousins in neighbouring fields who have been shorn and look cold, wet and depressed.

And the horses are back in their winter rugs.  I haven’t ridden Slip for days and he’s rapidly turning feral, while Harry has disappeared into the field shelter and tells me he’s applied to emigrate.  Anywhere that doesn’t rain, at all, ever.

On the plus side the geese think it’s marvellous and have discovered puddles in places where we don’t usually get puddles, like the herb garden, and are dibbling happily away with random shouts of joy.  And everything looks lovely and green.  Positive thinking rules (but it’s getting harder …)

Tearing myself away …

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I am a shadow of my former self.  Handing over the running of a smallholding takes it out of me, even though Sarah is very competent and I’ve left her with an exhaustive list of friends/gurus/vets who can help out if necessary.  Some things are easy:  Scarab the cat likes food, lots and lots of it (tick the Scarab box).  Some things are reasonably straight forward, in a sort of way:  if it’s cold put Slip’s heavy rug on, but if it’s sort of coldish but not too bad, put his middle weight rug on.  If it’s not exactly warm put his light weight rug on.  If it’s hot put his fly rug on.  The sort of thing I do in my sleep but have to explain to Sarah (who knows anyway) because it makes me feel better about not being there to do it myself).

Then it gets complicated:  the sheep should be fine, they are not due to lamb until mid May.  But if Foxy starts grinding her teeth, or Lupin suddenly develops an udder like a dairy cow, they’ve decided to lamb early so ring Pauline (my sheep friend).  And there’s a very new, very precious chick.  Make sure it doesn’t get wet, eats enough, doesn’t do any of the daft things a chick can do.  Fluffy is on the case, she’s a very good mother, but still …

Then it gets even more complicated.  If a large and grumpy peacock appears in the kitchen, best thing is to tempt him out with tuna.  Don’t try to shoo him out because it offends him, and he’ll peck.  If the geese go on the road, they’ll chase passing cars which is funny to watch but not popular, best to ensure they stay in the orchard.  Wenceslas and Pavlova have got on like two old mates until now, but if they suddenly decide they loathe each other and have a punch-up, put Wenceslas and one chosen girl in a separate run and leave Pav with the main harem.

Eventually I’ll have to step away, climb into the biggest black Land Rover I’ve ever seen and start the journey to the Atlas Mountains and desert beyond.  But until that moment I can’t help adding to Sarah’s list (currently in several volumes) – do keep feeding the wild birds while they still want something to eat; please water the veg garden if it gets dry again; the dogs would love quality time watching TV as well as walks.  And so it goes on!

Anyway, I do hope you all have a wonderful 3 weeks, and I’ll be back in early May.  And Mikey says he’ll put a baby photo of Chick on the blog in my absence.  Aly x