Sowing, Hoeing, Mowing, Growing

I got the grass mowed this week for the first time this year. It's always a relief when the mower starts up. Until now the geese have been doing the job for me, but the warm weather and a bit of rainfall have spurred the grass into action.
On the whole grass is a pain. I have no want for a green carpet so welcome moles and weeds. But since I've got it I might as well make the most of it, turning it into meat and eggs via the sheep and poultry. And when there's so much that I have to mow it then it makes a good addition to the compost heaps or direct as a mulch, so it all ends up indirectly in my tummy!

I leave some of my grass to grow long. This irritates Sue but is a joy to me.













The thermometer in the polytunnel has soared this week, creeping up into the high 40s. The early sown turnips bolted but the mangetout is doing wonderfully. I have now planted all my tomatoes, peppers and butternut squash in there too. I am trying a variety of squash called Butterbush in the hope that it won't take over the whole polytunnel!


It has been perfect weather for hoeing. Within a couple of hours any weeds that have been chopped off at the base lie withered and dead. I'm gradually working my way round all the veg beds. The ones that have been previously mulched are much easier to do.

A forecast of frost for the next few mornings has been holding me back in the veg patch. As soon as this next cold spell passes the garden will fill with young bean plants, sweetcorn, squash and tomatoes which I have been raising for outdoors. Until then I am trying to hold them back in the polytunnel.

Self-seeded Poached egg plants,

wonderful for bees and a great

companion plant for broad beans.

The vegetable patch is starting to look gorgeous at the moment. I have left a lot of self-sown and naturalised plants to flower and the willow arches are coming on great. These seem to be a magnet for bee swarms and so it was that the third swarm of the year, almost definitely not from our hives, appeared on our last hot day. The swarm was huge.

And the reward for 

longest swarm

goes to...

Having already successfully housed two swarms and moved back up to 8 hives, any we collect from now will be given to fellow beekeepers. This swarm has gone off to Thorney, about ten miles down the road.

Our turkey hen who has been sat on eggs under a patch of borage and flowering rocket started clucking three days ago. I suspected that either chicks had been born or the eggs were pipping.
Sure enough, the next day a little head was poking out from under her feathers.

Our first view of our turkey hen's offspring

She sat tight for two days but was thinking of moving off the nest this morning. With the local crows loitering, we decided to catch her and any chicks and transfer them to a vacant poultry pen. There were just three chicks and three unhatched eggs. Sue retrieved the chicks while the hen slipped my grasp and proceeded to defend her family quite resolutely!
All are now settled into their new home.

Meanwhile, after three Silkie chickens only succeeded in constantly swapping the four ducks eggs they were sharing, we have put one of the Silkie hens on her own with four new eggs. Hopefully we'll have some success. Two of our Muscovy duck girls have now vanished. The optimistic side of me says that they may appear at some point with ducklings, but it is surprising that we have not seen them at all.

Finally there have been more night time capers. It seems tawny owls have moved into the neighbourhood. I regularly hear them when sat outside at night. This may be at the expense of our barn owls as I rarely see or hear them now.
A couple of nights ago as I sat outside under a wonderful full moon I could hear a female tawny nearby. I speculatively imitated a male hooting and within a minute the unmistakable silhouette of an owl flew up into one of the trees in the roadside paddock. Then it flew right over my head and into one of the large ash trees in the garden. It may have been one in the morning, but the full moon meant that it was easily visible against the moonlit sky as it passed over. Then another!
The pair started duetting really close by. Amazing stuff.

And final finally, a couple of lockdown images. One of my new lockdown hair and one my Google timeline for the month of April which tells its own story.

Ducknapped by Priscilla

Monday 11th June 2018
The Cutest Hatchlings
Right on cue six little ducklings appeared under our Partridge Silkie today.
We put nine eggs under her exactly 35 days ago, not sure if she would manage such a difficult brood.
For chicken eggs only take 18 to 21 days to hatch. It takes a dedicated broody to stay put for an extra two weeks.
But Partridge Silkie only appeared outside her house once a day to do her ablutions. Other than that she stayed stubbornly tight on the eggs. Today is her reward. She won't mind that they have funny beaks and like to go paddling. A broody hen's maternal instinct is quite enchanting.

The other three eggs were left in the nest. I removed them and any empty shell so they don't attract flies or predators. Unfortunately they all contained fully grown ducklings which did not make it out of the shell. This is sad but nature has a way of weeding out the weakest.



I spent quite a while rearranging the pen for the new ducklings. They needed a tray for their food, a special duck crumb, and enough water to drink and paddle in without drowning. For this I use a strong plastic tray. I just needed to make sure they would be able to jump back out once they were in. This of course necessitated just sitting and watching them for an hour or so.
They might eventually be bound for the table but they are still very cute right now.



Happy that they were safe, I moved onto the sheep. The grass is growing well this year, though I have fears that we are in a mini-drought situation having had virtually no rain for almost a month now. I wanted to put the adult sheep into the lushest section of pasture a couple of weeks ago but realised this may not help the ewes to dry up, for I had just separated them from their lambs. Instead they had to eke it out on short grass for a while until their udders subsided.
I have been giving them treats too, throwing the branches from pruning the stone fruits, as well as some willow and hawthorn from trimming overhanging hedges. They devour unbelievable amounts of leaves and strip the bark too. For a Shetland sheep this is all much more preferable to lush grass.

But today they finally were allowed onto the other side of the fence where they quickly set about tidying the paddock up for me.
I want them to grow quickly now as last year's ram lambs need to go off in late July before their testosterone starts to rise too much.

Wednesday 13th June 2018
Ducknapped!
One extra Muscovy duckling today. One of our hens moved up into the stables over a year ago and she has lived there ever since. She has been joined by Priscilla, Elvis's daughter and the Cream Legbar hens often make their way up from the chicken pen to the stables for the day, but they return to roost with the rest of the flock.
Anyway, our stable hen decided to construct a nest behind the goose stable door so we gave her two of the Muscovy eggs to sit on. Today I entered the stables to find a tiny little duckling wandering around under the close stewardship of... Priscilla! Yes. Prescilla has avoided all the hassle of sitting for 35 days and just somehow misappropriated the duckling when it has hatched. It is firmly imprinted on her so we have moved the pair to their own accommodation in the chicken pen. The other egg was another failed hatch so poor stable hen has done all the work and ended up with nothing.

Meanwhile I have started letting the meat chickens out of their pen during the day They don't wander too far but appreciate the opportunity to peck at greenery and to stretch their legs a little more. They have already been put in their place by one of the guinea fowl as evidenced by a smattering of white feathers all over the place!

Something's Brewing

edit - some parts of this post have been somewhat superseded by subsequent events, which account for the delays in posting.
19th March 2018
Something's Brewing
My new hobby is to be making country wines. I have bought all the gear, which is surprisingly inexpensive as far as hobbies go.

Sitting in  a cupboard for about 6 years has been a beer-making kit so I decided to start with this. The kit was well out of date, as was the yeast, but I thought I might as well give it a go. If it fails to ferment I have purchased a new sachet of brewers ale which I'll throw in to save the day.



The can of malt surprised me. It was just like the malt extract I used to take as a youngster. I don't know what I was expecting really.
So with a bit of luck I'll have 40 pints of tasty beer quite soon. If it works, it could become a regular feature. As for the wine, I am going to start off with mangel wurzel wine. It should be ready in about two years.

20th March 2018
Tending to the sick
Sick animals take up an awful lot of time. I spent much of the morning tending to Ewe 004 and Wonky the Wry-necked Silkie hen. To be fair, I was actually tending to all the sheep and chickens. On the whole the animals don't take up too much of my time, but when things go wrong then I need to be able to give them all the time they need.

It's a bit tricky to see in amongst the mass of black feathers, but Wonky

is the one on the left. 

Things are hopefully looking up for Ewe 0004

The Ewe is, I think getting better, though we are still not out of the woods. We continue to hand feed the hen with a mixture of scrambled egg, sunflower seeds and cider vinegar. Every day we pierce a vitamin E tablet and tip the contents into her beak. As yet we are seeing no change in her condition.

It was almost gardening weather today, so I spent most of the afternoon doing general trimming and tidying, cutting back perennials and taking out dead growth. The dogs came out with me too and Arthur in particular busied himself trying to flush a rabbit out of one of the compost heaps.
In the end he was actually successful and Boris got lucky being in the right place as the rabbit ran into the wire fence.
I know rabbits are quite cute, but not when they constantly destroy your work in the garden. Besides, they are a good free food source for Gerry our cat and for the dogs. They usually steal Gerry's catches rather than hunting their own.
Boris didn't quite know what to do with the rabbit once he had played with it like a toy. All he knew was that Arthur wasn't allowed to take it. Once he got bored I threw it to Arthur who did what Arthur does with rabbits.

21st March 2018
Lamb Surprise
I got home to find the young brown ewe lamb nose to nose with the two rams. It had made its way up towards the stables!
I decided to put it in the stable with Ewe 004, who is looking much better now. It will give her some company. I will move them both back outside at the weekend, when I can keep an eye on them.
Hopefully a bit of company will help Ewe 0004 to make a full recovery.

22nd March 2018

The beer yeast, despite its age, has finally started working. It just shows there's life in the old dog yet!

The Silkie hen seems to be on the mend too. She is still holding her head to one side and occasionally goes into spasms, but she is now able to feed unaided. Fingers crossed.

Sue is camping with school children tonight. Only on the school field, but I am sure she will be shattered come the morning. Meanwhile I am looking after everything on the farm.

Felt Flowers

17th March 2018
Cooking and Crafts for a Cold Day
More snow and biting cold easterlies again. It wasn't the best day to choose to move a new house into the turkey enclosure, but they have started laying now and need somewhere to sit.
That was it for outdoor jobs. This was a perfect day for cooking and crafts.

First up was a parsnip cake - a bit like carrot cake but, you've guessed it, with parsnips instead. Easy apart from the grated parsnips!
I had dug up too many parsnips so made parsnip and potato hash browns for the freezer too. It's astonishing how much mess grating a kg of root veg can make!
The parsnips are lovely and sweet now - reputedly they sweeten up if left to stand a few frosts.

Next up was my first ever felting. Sue purchased a box full of different coloured merino wool for her birthday. One day we hope to be able to prepare our own wool from the Shetland sheep and dye them with natural dyes from the farm.
The actual process of felting is somewhat magical. You simply arrange tufts of wool as you want them, which is hard to judge when you've no idea what's going to happen, then agitate them with increasing vigour sandwiched between layers of bubblewrap. The fibres of the wool intermingle inextricably until felt is formed. And that's it.

Mine is the best one. 

18th March 2018
Things are Looking Up
A busy day ahead. It started well with Ewe 0004 finally standing up and looking a little stronger. I am still feeding her the bright pink glucose liquid. I think she actually quite likes it, but I can tell she is getting stronger by her initial resistance. Up till now she has been too weak to protest.

Today was the Grow Your Own group, hosted by some members down in Ramsey. I had arranged to visit a smallholding on the way with a view to it opening up for a summer smallholders meeting. I had also arranged to pick up a meat slicer which I had jumped on when it came up on Facebook. Three birds with one stone.

The smallholding I visited was delightful, even in the harsh weather. I was greeted by four very large, barking dogs. A few years ago I would have buckled and turned away, but I am now a dog lover (once I know they are definitely friendly). They no longer smell the fear in me.
Then it was time to meet the goats. I have not yet kept goats (note the 'yet') but I am always surprised by how friendly they are and how soft their coat is. I am co-ordinating a Goaty Day (nothing to do with funny little beards) for the Smallholders Club late in the year. Hopefully I will be able to resist their temptations. Seriously though, they are one of the trickier species of livestock to keep so I don't think we'll be getting one any time soon.
This is a shame, for I do fancy the idea of our own dairy products. A cow is out of the question and I am pretty sure the Shetland sheep would strongly object to being milked.

I stayed longer than I should have on the smallholding so was late leaving for the Grow Your Own group get together his wasn't helped by the total absence of mobile internet signal in Ramsey. Maybe I am too reliant on my smartphone.
Anyway, the meeting was most enjoyable as usual. We discussed perennial vegetables - ones that you just plant one year and reap the harvest for many more years. Asparagus, rhubarb, globe artichoke, Jerusalem artichoke to name a few. Oh that all vegetables were like this.
Everybody brings food along to these get-togethers. There is always way too much to eat and plenty of cake!

It was late afternoon when I returned to the farm. Time to give Ewe 0004 her last dose of glucose and to hand feed the wonky-necked Silkie hen. She is not yet showing any signs of improvement but we will persist for a while yet.
Her twisted neck causes her occasionally to completely lose her sense of orientation. It shouldn't be funny, but after feeding her, if you put her outside her little house facing away from it, as soon as you let go she quickly retracts backwards into the house. It is hilarious to watch. You have to have a sense of humour when things go wrong (paired with a strong sense of compassion).

A bad day on the smallholding

Tuesday 13th March 2018

Peace and Quiet

What a lovely, quiet, peaceful day. They can shut the road more often if they like!

I cut the dogwoods back today. It's always hard to know how much brightly coloured growth to keep and how much to chop away, for it is the new growth that will look good next year.

I went pretty drastic this year, so we'll see how they are looking come next winter.

The fresh new growth offers a lot better material for taking cuttings too. Again this year I took about 30 cuttings and would expect to end up with at least twenty healthy little shrubs from this.

I took this lovely photo of the river on the evening walk with the dogs. 

On a more worrying note, one of the pregnant ewes is limping really badly. Oddly one of the electric fence posts was lying on the floor and another was way out of place. I do hope she has not been the victim of dog harassment.

To be on the safe side, I moved all the sheep a couple of strips down toward the house. I had to lead the ewe very gently indeed, letting her take a few steps at a time. 99% of the time a lame sheep will be completely better within a couple of days, but this looked different. She was only just able to walk and was clearly in difficulty. The thought of those electric fence posts worried me too. Occasionally they lean over or the wires come unfixed, but never before have I found one just lying on the floor unattached to the fence. 

Wednesday 14th March 2018
Bad News Comes In Threes
Smallholding can occasionally kick you in the teeth, usually just when you are starting to think that everything is going smoothly.
I came home from work to a triple hit. One of the dogs had left a mess in the kitchen which was not much fun to clear up.
But things were to get much worse. The lame pregnant ewe from yesterday was sat on her own in the field in exactly the same place as this morning. She had not moved all day, meaning that she had not eaten beyond where she could reach. I took the decision to move her up to a stable - not a decision taken lightly for it is not good to move a heavily pregnant ewe. But with further cold weather in the forecast I felt she would be in real trouble if I left her outside. I was on my own and all I could think of was to lift her as carefully as possible into a wheelbarrow. Fortunately I did not have to tip her upside down and she did not put up a fight - a sign of just how poorly she was.

A sad sight - I've never had a sheep so ill that she couldn't walk herself to the stables.

I set her as comfortable as I could in the hastily prepared stable and surrounded her with food and drink. For the moment there was not much else I could do than to leave her in peace for the night.

I still hadn't given the chickens their late afternoon feed. But as I entered the chicken pen I noticed one of the black Silkie hens flopping around on the floor near the food tray. She appeared to have a broken neck, but I couldn't feel a break. Her neck was writhing around and I can only describe it as her head being upside down! My best guess was that Cocky had been too rough with her and I would surely have to put her out of her misery.
By this time I was beginning to wish I had not come home from work today!

I checked back on the ewe. She was still in the same place but was breathing very heavily. Sue and I decided we would keep an eye on her and make a decision in the morning about whether to call out the vet.

An internet search for Stargazing Chicken revealed exactly what was wrong with the Silkie hen. Wry neck. What an appropriate name. There is actually a bird called a wryneck which does something similarly weird with its neck as a display.
This condition is peculiar to Silkie and Polish chickens. It may be genetic, but probably comes down to lack of Vitamin E. So if there is a solution, it is to somehow administer Vitamin E and Selenium which aids absorption of the vitamin.
Fortunately sunflower seeds are a good source of both. If only we had known, we could have been feeding sunflower seeds to the Silkies since I buy big bags of them for the wild birds. It seems far-fetched that such an acute condition could be caused by  vitamin deficiency, but we'll give it a try. 
For now, the two black Silkies have moved down to the stables too, for this girl will need hand-feeding until and she recovers (if).

One thing that smallholding teaches is resilience. You wouldn't get past the first year without plenty of that particular quality.
Endless optimism comes in handy too!

And just so that the day didn't go completely badly, quite by chance somebody I was messaging on Facebook just happened to put up an advert for a second hand meat slicer, a proper butcher's one. I responded immediately for I have been waiting a long time for an affordable one of these to come up somewhere.
I am picking it up on Sunday.

ELVIS LIVES

When we moved here we asked if some chickens, Daisy the Pig and the tractor could be left for us.
The only survivor after just over seven years is Elvis, our amazing Silkie hen.

Elvis just loves to sit on eggs and likes nothing better than to care for a young family. It doesn't really matter whether they are chickens, ducks or even guinea fowl.

For the last couple of years we have used Elvis to raise clutches of Muscovy Ducks. But Elvis is slowing down a little. There was a time when she would happily raise three broods a year. Sit for three or four weeks. Raise for about 7 weeks. Sit again. From Spring till Autumn.
But her feathers are tinged brown these days (the Silkie equivalent of grey hair) and one brood a year is enough to keep her happy.

It is now over two years since the last of the other inherited chickens went to the big chicken run in the sky, so we have to face the fact that Elvis will not keep going forever.

And so at the back end of last year we purchased three silkie hens. Elvis is actually a Silkie cross, with more obvious feathering than a true Silkie whose feathers more resemble hair.
We didn't intend to get another three hens, but one came free so it seemed rude to say no. Two of our new Silkie hens are black, one is a dinky little brown thing, known as Partridge. They laid their first eggs at the turn of the year and already they are displaying some classic Silkie behaviour. In fact, Partridge has been firmly plonked in her nest box for several weeks now. She does not budge except for brief forays for food, drink and ablutions. Try to retireve an egg from under her and she just clucks and purrs, pecks a little and then tries to settle down on your hand.

But now the little broody house where they live has become home to three broody hens. They spend all day being clucky together, squeezed into the tiniest space. They have not even laid an egg for several days now, yet still they sit.
Taking a photo is not the easiest task though, as all I keep getting is a bundle of furry feather!