Odds'n'Sods

Wednesday 4th July 2012
It did actually turn out to be quite a nice day.

My own man
The best part of my new smallholder lifestyle is that I can choose what to do and when, although the animals, the plants and the weather might have something to say about this. I guess that what I really mean is that my day is mostly free of interference by other people! This suits me perfectly as I am an independent so-and-so who doesn't really like being told what to do!

If I want to, I can devote a whole day to one job. Or I can fill a day with bits and pieces. Within my familiar, slowly evolving little plot little things happen and I have the time to notice them. 
I have to choose what to pick out for blogging purposes. So here's just a small selection of those little things from the past few days...

Gerry makes himself at home.

Gerry

Rivalling me for stubbornness has been our cat, Gerry.

He is well and truly better now, but since being given normal, wet cat food when he was ill, he has decided that he no longer likes the biscuits which he spent the first fifteen months of his life eating. Yesterday I won the battle and he ate biscuits, having refused to touch anything for two whole days. His tummy had even be heard to rumble. However, somebody has cracked and given him Wh*skas again!!!

Guineafowl

Lady Guinea has started laying again. I suspected this when G'nea G'nea himself was becoming more and more macho, calling raucously and charging at me (always behind my back). While I was clearing out the weeds from the poppy patch on Weasel Ridge I came across an egg sitting in a hollow on the ground.

Too late to realise, I'd left it totally exposed and it was no surprise that something had snaffled it by the next day. But then Lady Guinea moved to the soft fruit patch and left this behind....

Unfortunately the crows found that one. It would be lovely if one day I couldn't find Lady Guinea. It would hopefully precede her appearance with a family of young guineafowl.

Bird movements
I've not mentioned our fenland birdlife for a while, and that's because everything had settled down to breed. But I've started seeing the first young birds and gangs of young starlings. In the last few days I've seen a few birds of note though. A hobby appeared on Saturday, doubtless intending to try its luck hunting some of the young swallows. It was seen off by the adults though.
The same evening a cuckoo was fluttering about calling, being pursued by some very worried little bird, many times smaller.

Then, on Sunday, the familiar call of an oystercatcher came from afar announcing an imminent fly-past. A common tern drifted over too. Yesterday, two oystercatchers and four lapwings.

None of these birds is particularly rare, but they are noteworthy when they appear here. And for five noteworthy species to appear within a few days shows that something is happening. A slight change in the seasons. Post-breeding movements or failed breeders moving on. As far as birding is concerned, spring is over and autumn is on the way!

Chinese Artichokes

Down in the veg plot I've planted out the Chinese Artichokes. I've not grown these tiny corkscrew tubers before and I don't even know what they taste like! I know they can be sliced and eaten raw and I'm hoping for something crunchy and nutty.

Some Swiss Chard has been left
to flower and produce seed

Swiss Chard
I've sorted out the Swiss Chard too. It overwintered successfully and has grown to impressive proportions. But, being a biennial, it's now thrown up tough central stalks topped with flower spikes. So I harvested what leaves and stems I could for harvesting and left just a few plants for seed (and out of curiosity).

The rest of the bed was needed for some of this year's courgettes and outdoor cucumbers and for Borlotti beans.

A welcome visitor
On Saturday our local swarm collector called in. What a friendly man and a font of all knowledge, not just bees but pigs, geese, chickens...

At the beginning of this post I may have sounded as if I don't like people. That's not strictly true and this was a very welcome visitor, as are most people who visit.

However, I can be a bit fussy about which people I like and which I don't! And call me grumpy but I do prefer animals and birds.

Magic Beans

Friday 18th May 2012

The chickens (and guineafowl) emerge one by one from their overnight lodgings.

Growing upToday was a big day for 'the teenagers'. In their short lives they've moved from the incubator into a plastic brood box in the lounge, then into their own chicken run outside, occasionally allowed out to play, but only when the other chickens were off roaming.

But today the teenagers got to explore the big wide world. These four are very friendly chickens, not just with me but with each other. They stick close together and look out for one another.

For most of the day they disappeared, weaving their way through the overgrown grass in the chicken pen. But early afternoon I looked down the land to see them jumping around in the meadow.

By the end of the day they had become baffled by the fence which surrounds the chicken pen. Two had got themselves on one side, two on the other! They were easily caught and passed over the fence to be reunited, only to find that their old home had been taken over by two French Copper Maran chicks - the product of the next hatching after the teenagers.

On the plus side, remember that lovely new chicken house we bought about a month ago. Well, aside from laying the occasional egg in the nest boxes, the chicken flock has decided to spurn it in favour of their old quarters ( a bit like the way I prefer my ripped old jeans to a smart pair of trousers, I guess). So, from now on, the teenagers will have their own safe and secure home for the night and will henceforth be free to roam from sunrise to sunset

Wigwam City
Plants were moving into new homes today too. I have bitten the bullet and planted out all the runner bean seedlings (some growing rampantly in their tiny pots). I have two varieties, seeds saved from last year. Painted Lady is a traditional variety with wonderful flowers to add beauty to their luxuriant growth. Czar is a less vigorous white-flowered, white seeded variety whose beans can be dried to provide butter beans for the winter store cupboard.
















Of course, I may be growing Painted Czars if the varieties cross pollinated last year!I put in more purple podded mangetout seeds today too, with sweet peas and nasturtiums to climb up the trellis with them. In the rest of this bed I planted Swiss Chard Bright Lights, breadseed poppies and some Cosmos seedlings.
In the bed with the Painted Lady I am trying landcress, which should enjoy growing in the shade of the runners. And in between the Czar wigwams, Sweetcorn Minipop and a smattering of pot marigold seedlings.

I'll wait another week or so before I plant my other bean seeds. By then three of the four vegetable groups will be virtually all in the ground and I'll just need to put out the brassica seedlings to complete the fourth quarter of the wheel.

Back to the beans'n'peas. There's just one task left, which is to clear the Swiss Chard which overwintered. But just look at it! Look how well it's doing. They charge a fortune for just a few of those leaves! So I may harvest some and, if it tastes OK, leave some in for picking until this year's crop is ready.

On a more frustrating note, I think I broke my compact camera today. I don't think I did anything terrible to it, but as I went to take a photo this evening the lens refused to pop out and I received a persistent error message. So it's on to the DSLR, which will take nice pictures but is too bulky to be carting around all of the time.