An Easter Swallow

Yesterday was Easter Sunday. I haven't turned religious, but it marked the most important day in the calendar. It is not a fixed date but it is one which marks hope and new growth.
For as I was digging out a new pond, I happened to glance up just at the right time to see a swallow disappearing through the window into the stables. Before I continue, I'd like to do something very unusual and apologise for being wrong. It's not the apology which is rare, it's me being wrong! But I did say in a recent blog that the swallows wouldn't be back until later in the month. So the appearance of this single swallow took me somewhat by surprise. But when I checked up, they returned on 8th April last year, so three days earlier this year.
The morning had seen a large flock, maybe 50, of wild swans departing to the north, so it was definitely a case of out with the winter and in with the summer.
Last year six swallows returned together and alerted me to their presence with their excited overhead chattering. This year's bird is a lone bird, but it headed straight into the stable as if it knew where it was going and rested up there for quite some time before heading into the sky over the farm to feed up.

For reasons I won't go into (not to do with Sue), I am making myself scarce in the house at the moment and spending about 12 hours a day outside. I am achieving plenty. I have had some help too. For the guinea fowl have been putting a lot of effort into turning my onion bed into a very fine tilth.

I obliged them by planting all my onion sets today, 350 of them in total.
I have placed them in rows 10" apart (25cm new money). When I have squeezed the spacing in the past, not only do the onions come out smaller but hoeing down the rows is a nightmare, normally resulting in the beheading of at least a couple of onions.
I have spaced the Giant Stuttgarters at 6" apart to give them plenty of space to grow into fine specimens. The Red Barons are closer at 4" apart.

Needless to say, I've netted them all just in case the guinea fowl return!

Snow Comment

Monday morning found me at Wisbech hospital for an Xray and a bloodtest. Needles and I do not exactly get on well, so the nurse was trying to distract me with idle conversation. I commented that we'd escaped lightly on the weather so far this winter.

I made the best of an unscheduled day off work and busied myself all day in the polytunnel. As usual, I fed the chickens late afternoon and as darkness loomed I locked them away. It had been a lovely, crisp winter's day. We've had a lot of those this year.

It wasn't much later that the security lights went on by the stables, triggered by... snow. Within half an hour the ground was covered. By mid evening, the scene outside looked like this...

Taken through the window from the warmth of the kitchen.

I still get very excited when it snows. I could watch it flutter earthwards for hours. And so, on and off, I did. And it just kept on coming, far outperforming the BBC's prediction of possibly 1-3 cm on the high ground (which most definitely does not describe our position here on The Fens).

Tuesday morning saw me up bright and early. There was lots to be done before I headed off for work and I was keen to take some photographs too.

A layer of snow makes everything even flatter!

 

Hopefully the bees are clustered
safely and warmly inside the hives

First job, in the semi-dark, was sweeping the snow off the polytunnel, then on to giving the sheep extra food.

Next the chicken houses were opened to let the chickens out into their snowy pen. They weren't too keen on coming out.


The guinea fowl, as usual, had toughed it out all night. They really are incredibly resilient birds.















The geese just waddled out of their stable in the usual orderly fashion, like soldiers, and stoically continued with life as normal.

The ducks, on the other hand, could not have been more excited. They dived into the snow as they would a pool of water, dipping their heads into it and quacking delightedly. They are never easy to photograph, as they never stop moving and always seem to be walking away. But their black plumage against the gleaming white snow gave me even more problems. Anyway, I managed a couple of half decent images.





I would dearly have loved to have spent the day with my camera. There are only so many different views to be had here on the smallholding, but some of the dykes and drains would have provided some excellent compositions cutting through the flat frozen fenland landscape.

As it was though, work beckoned. The best I could do was a quickly snapped piccie with the phone through the front windscreen.

All the muddy slush without the fun.

I was up bright and early this morning to capture the amazing winterscape at sunrise. For when I went to bed, this was the scene outside.

At the tender age of 48 I still find this inexplicably exciting and could sit and watch the snowflakes tumbling all day long. The only problem last night was that it was absolutely pitch black. With no artificial lights outside, the only way to actually see the snow was to fire the camera's flash and capture it mid fall. By the time I went to bed the ground was white.

So I woke up somewhat reluctantly at just past 7 this morning. My body was telling me to snuggle back down into my cosy bed, but we had no snow last winter and I was keen to capture the farm and the fenland landscape at it's wintery best.
So imagine my disappointment when I looked out of the window to see rapidly developing puddles of slush. Overnight the snow had turned wet and nature had taken all the fun away. All we were left with now was cold wetness, muddy slushiness. I climbed back into bed and pulled the duvet over my head.


I did eventually get up, for there are always animals to look after and in this weather that job becomes even more important. We've deliberately gone for hardy breeds as it can get rather bleak here in the winter. The Shetland sheep, while not looking overly happy about the situation, did at least seem to be taking it in their stride.

The guinea fowl, who never cease to amaze with their toughness, were looking a bit bedraggled but no worse than that. Presumably last night was one of the rare occasions when they abandoned their exposed perch and headed for a modicum of shelter.




Happiest of all seemed to be a rather large flock of fieldfares who had gathered a little further down the land and seemed to be enjoying the decidedly damp ground, for the snow melt had created some rather large temporary pools.

Which reminds me, I really must go and sort out the bird feeders. I've been holding back on this as the rats have been more numerous than usual this year (hopefully a cold winter this year will sort them out) and I don't want to do anything to encourage them. It's decidedly hard at times here to prevent the food scattering all over the floor as the wind buffets the feeders.

Do they know it's Christmas time? I'm talking turkey!

Yesterday marked the winter solstice. I'm no more one for celebrating pagan festivals than I am for celebrating Christmas. But have no fear, this is not another bah humbug post.

However, the ebb and flow of the seasons has a huge impact on our lives now that we live off the land. The shortest day marks the time for planting out shallots. They'll be ready for gathering on the longest day. I was kept busy taking cuttings yesterday, so the shallots went in a day late. The soil at the moment is delightful to work.

Anyway, back to our Christmas celebration and this year, for the first time ever, we have been raising our own turkeys, a stag and two hens. For one of them, the shortest day really was the shortest day! What's more, they seemed to sense impending doom. All morning they were behaving oddly, first refusing to come out of their stable, then wandering to parts of the farm to which they had never previously ventured.
The two turkey hens even jumped the gate and mixed it with the sheep in the top paddock. I don't think the stag (that's the boy) is physically capable of jumping a gate any more as he has been making a decent effort to fatten up for Christmas!

But the sheep got curious which resulted in a hasty retreat by the hens... into the sheep shed. I looked away for a moment and, when I looked back, three of the sheep were in the shed. They don't usually spend much time in their unless the weather is foul, but they stayed in there for over five minutes, just staring into the corner. In the end I decided to end the stand off. The poor turkeys were just standing in the corner, hemmed in and completely puzzled about how to extricate themselves from the situation.

So, about 3 o'clock in the afternoon I led the turkey trio back into their stable, as I do every day. But from there I headed to the kitchen to put a large pan of water on to boil. I then got ready an old table top and a broom handle. I'll leave the rest up to your imaginations! (Don't worry, the broom handle's not for bashing them.)



A suitable sunset for the turkey stag to go out on.

While we had everything set up, we decided to thin down the Cayuga ducks as somehow we had ended up with three drakes. Choosing which would go was straightforward, as the biggest of the drakes was also the one with a little too much white to count as a proper Cayuga... He'll be rueing those white feathers now.

An old photo of the Cayugas.
They never stay still long enough for me to get many photos.

This was the first of our ducks we had ever killed for eating.

While we were on a roll, we decided to dispatch our first ever guinea fowl too. Evening is the time for this, as they can simply be plucked (excuse the pun) from their roosting perch. Catching them during the day would be a different proposition altogether.

The best time to catch a guinea fowl.

To cut a long story short we ate the guinea fowl last night. We'd eaten them before, in East Africa, so were keen to see how our own birds would compare. Considering that this bird was well over a year old, it tasted very nice indeed. In fact we'll definitely start 'harvesting' our guinea fowl on a more regular basis from now. The duck we prepared last night and roasted today. Again we were not disappointed. All those slugs from the vegetable patch have obviously given the ducks a very special taste!

As for the two surviving turkey hens, they have spent the whole of today inside their stable, despite the door being open for them to wander at will. Sadly, I think they have been calling for their 'man'.


Earlier in the year on our poultry dispatch and preparation day.
It may not be everybody's cup of tea,
but our birds have great lives and are dispatched quickly.

The turkeys have really surprised us with how gentle and friendly they are. They are a social animal too, never straying far from each other. I really hope that the two birds we have left can get over their loss quickly. When their time comes, which will be later in the winter, they will both go at once since it would clearly be unfair to leave one on its own.

Meanwhile, the days are getting longer now. The chickens have started laying again and tomorrow I've got bean trenches to dig and compost to spread in preparation for the next growing season.


Keets progress

Of the 32 guinea fowl eggs which were shared in the corner of the chicken pen, 12 hatched on 31st August. This was a slightly disappointing number, especially as at least another dozen had fully grown chicks inside. I don't know what happened there.















But life as a keet (that's a guinea fowl chick) is tough. Within the first week they were down to ten and then, just when I thought that the weakest had succumbed, I went down one morning and could find only 8. I later found one dead under an apple tree.
I don't know if it's just coincidence, but the same day I unearthed, under the biggest chicken house, a nest of young rats. They did actually look rather cute, but no mercy was shown! I have also raised the house up onto tyres. If the space underneath is big enough, the rats won't burrow under and feel safe.


A cute nest of ratlets.



But the guinea fowl saga has dragged on and on. Not quite sure when they started sitting, as we were away on honeymoon, we had almost given up hope on any hatching from either of the other two nests. But then on Saturday a fluffy little chick appeared next to G'nea, G'nea, the original mother of all guinea fowl who had devotedly sat on a wonderfully concealed nest further down the land.



3 very little keets. Look how much smaller they are than the one from the first hatch.

We left her undisturbed and I expected that, by Sunday evening, she would be attending to a small tribe of keets. But yesterday morning Sue came to tell me that she had moved back to the chicken enclosure, but with only three babies. This was very disappointing, especially as I had actually sold half a dozen keets and was hoping to be able to take three from each brood.




Sue retrieved the rest of the eggs and tried putting them under the third sitting guinea fowl. She also found one alive, half-hatched. She placed that under the girl too, but she showed no maternal instincts towards it and by this morning it had slipped away. however, when she stood up she had another chick underneath her, so I am now waiting with bated breath to see if any others hatch.

Meanwhile, down in the chicken enclosure, all the new youngsters are getting to know each other.





Elvis with her latest family.

ed  Intriguingly tonight, there are nine guinea fowl roosting up on the fence. This only leaves two adults for three broods! My guess is that the three very young keets have been adopted by the hen who has brought up the other eight. Either that, or the weasel who has appeared on the farm (and is most welcome) has had them, but I doubt it as all three were fit and healthy a couple of hours before dusk.

double ed   All three still there this morning, plus four new keets from the third nest!

Guinea Gnanza

"Money is the seed of money and the first guinea is sometimes more difficult to acquire than the second million." I think Jean-Jacques Rousseau may have been confusing his guineas.

I really wasn't holding out much hope so I didn't mention this before. The appointed time has been approaching, but I wasn't sure when they started sitting. They just quietly slipped off and were only conspicuous by their absence on the roosting fence at night.
Last year they laid dozens of eggs but we did our best to disrupt them. We didn't want a whole population roaming around the place. We decided that a family of eleven was enough. Eventually some did sneak off and sit, but it all came to nothing.

This year I decided to let them sit, on condition that if any hatch we start eating them! (We will, of course, wait until they are a bit bigger). And so, for a while now, there have only been five guineafowl sitting on the fence at night, presumably the males.

There are three nests: one in the corner of the chicken pen where three fowl have been sitting on 32 eggs; one under the soft fruits, containing maybe 15 or so eggs sat upon by two fowl; the third took some finding. I presume it's the oldest female who has buried herself deep in the grass in the young woodland. I have no idea how many eggs she is sitting on.

A couple of days ago there was a false alarm when all five males were in close attendance of the nest in the chicken pen. I was half expecting to see stripy heads poking out from under the wings of their mothers, but when they moved there were just 32 eggs to be seen.

Anyone with any ability in maths has probably worked out that we could end up with rather a lot of guineafowl! But I've not been optimistic about the chances of any hatching and even if some do, they will run the gauntlet of rats and other predators. Guineafowl are brave and protective parents though. More of a threat will be long, damp grass, for this kills more guineafowl chicks than anything else.

Well, if you've been reading carefully, you've probably guessed that today the hatching has begun! I went to give the chickens their afternoon feed and collect eggs when I noticed that only one guineafowl hen was sitting in the corner. Half the eggs had disappeared and there were eggshell remnants in the grass. Not quite sure what had gone on, I guessed that maybe something (rat?) had disturbed the nest. But as I approached close, the hen got up and there, on top of all the other eggs, were three extremely small guineafowl chicks.

I quickly retreated and left them in peace. Only another 29 to hatch. That's from this nest! Pictures to follow.

A duck lost, a duckling born

So where to start with the updates?

Well, let's start with the sad news. We lost one of our Cayugas. It was while one of the girls was sitting on eggs under the old pea plants and we sort of assumed this one had sneaked off somewhere too, maybe in the dyke. But Sue was getting worried as this duck was not even returning for food in the morning or evening. Then one day I was over in the goose paddock investigating a wasps nest when I noticed something in the goose bath. You've guessed, it was our poor duck, long gone. It must have happened on the one night when we were away for the evening, otherwise we'd surely have heard her struggling and quacking to get out.

But, on the plus side, the sitting duck did, against our expectations, manage to hatch one duckling. This little creature is hilarious. For, as protective as she is of it, mummy duck does not wait around for her fluffy little offspring.

Instead, the poor duckling spends most of the day running as fast as it can through the long grass, those clockwork legs doing their best to keep up. Despite its constant extreme exercise regime, our new duckling is growing, though nowhere near as fast as those that Elvis recently reared.

These are now virtually indistinguishable from the adults and will be going into the freezer after Christmas, so I've been making sure that Sue doesn't get too attached to them!


Not so long ago these were cute, fluffy ducklings.
Now they look good enough to eat!

Elvis has already long moved on and is now sitting tight again on anybody's eggs she can find. So Sue has put some Cream Legbar eggs under her. A big softy is Sue.

Despite our attempts to stop them, I recently found Lady Guinea sitting amongst a patch of thistles, incubating quite a clutch of eggs. I've decided to leave be, but it will be a miracle if any survive till next Spring. For starters, it seems to be another of those communal nests where no bird is quite sure which eggs she's responsible for. It's late in the year too, so if any do hatch they'll have an uphill struggle against the elements. Guineafowl chicks are particularly susceptible to cold, wet conditions. The long grass won't do them any favours.