A Puzzle

Tuesday 26th June 2012

What do these things have in common?

If you leave a comment, please only give hints, not the answer!

(Answer in a couple of days if you've not already got it)

Sex in the strawberry bed!



Monday 25th June 2012

Two worms become one!
Amazing. Never seen this before.

Given the title of this post, it'll be interesting to see the number of page views I get (and the search criteria)!
If you're coming to this site for the first time, this may not be what you were expecting. But please take time to look around.

Swallow families
Back to more usual comings and goings.
It can be tricky to work out which swallow nests are occupied in the stables. It's too dark to see the nests well up in the rafters and the adult birds rarely visit their nest when I am present. They tend to sit on the doors twittering and tweeting (not in the modern sense of this word) until I move on. However, there is one way to be sure. Look underneath the nests, and while you're at it you might want to move any machinery or tools before they become covered in guano!
So, I think we have four nests. The swallows have fledged from all of them and can be seen and heard wheeling around and chattering over the garden and stables. The young birds can be easily told by their lack of tail streamers.
Presumably the adult birds are teaching the young a trick or two, though the one that flew through the patio doors and couldn't find its way out again may not be the best teacher!
I caught it and released it back in the garden, where it flew off without even a glance back. It was a privilege to get to hold such a delicate and beautiful creature.

Presumably it won't be long before the swallows are back on their nests ready for a second brood. The same applies to the Yellowhammer which today started rattling out its song from atop a hawthorn bush. He has been silent for over a month.

Oops!
Today was like a summer's day...oh...forgot...it is summer.
I spent a lot of time on chicken affairs before turning my attention to the veg patch. In the sunshine, and with time to peruse progress in the various beds, the general prognosis for vegetable production this year has improved.
More on these matters tomorrow as I took a whole series of photos today, including some very funny pig photos, only to discover the memory card by the side of the computer when I got in this evening!

So tomorrow, if the weather holds, a re-shoot.

Chicken Diary Pt II. Meet the girls.



But first, meet Cocky, the leader of the gang.
A gentle and attentive cockerel.
Peace and harmony has broken out under his reign.



Sunday 24th June 2012

The most exciting thing about today's sunrise was the three hares out on the path through the meadow. Unfortunately it was so dull that I took the photo of them on 1/4 second exposure. Good job they stayed quite still.










In the first Chicken Diary I talked about how some of the chickens had names and some didn't. But they all need names if I am to keep careful track of who is laying eggs.

So here's an introduction to my laying hens. There are eight of them in all, though that should increase soon.

Chick of Elvis.
The egg that Elvis hatched out in the early days.
Seems as if the broody characteristic
has been learned from mum!

Speckledy.
The same breed as Cocky.
Independent, often roosts on her own.
Just coming back into lay.

Yesterday Chick of Elvis was very clucky and paid a lot of attention to the six eggs she is still sitting on. This morning Sue found a fully developed, but dead, chick curled up in half a shell. Our guess is that if any more eggs hatch Chick of Elvis will see them as a threat. So we'll be happy just to watch these two fluffy little bundles grow up.


Hazel.
Feathers in a right mess. Seemingly in complete moult.
But has started laying again.

The imaginatively named Mrs Brown.
A very friendly lady. Has been moulting front to back. Back in lay.

Chestnut.
Used to be our friendliest chicken but has become more independent with age.
Has almost completed her moult and, I think, just started to lay again.
Medium, dark, speckled eggs.

Elvis.
Our Silkie. Always going broody.
Guards eggs bravely. Possesses a sharp peck.
Very friendly when not sitting on eggs.

Honey.
Only just named, for the benefit of the chicken diary.
Recently sat on eggs for a while, but kept stealing the other eggs.
All failed when I tried to move her.
Waiting to come back into lay again.

  


Snowy.
Another girl with a new name.
And this one's in a right mess. Hardly any feathers!
But just starting to grow some decent feathers back in,
so hopefully will start laying again soon.

The Teenagers.
Fate unknown.
The female Indian Game is guaranteed a long life of laying eggs.
Some of her eggs will be reared as meat birds (Don't tell her).
So friendly, she jumped on my back yesterday then sat on my shoulder!
Will get a name when she starts laying eggs.

The male may well be used to breed with any females we get from the next batch.
That way we can produce our own Indian game birds.

As for the two Cream Legbar cockerels. Well...only one of them has much of a future. The other will hopefully taste very nice. Real characters, so choosing will be difficult. Whoever lives will enjoy a future as a breeding cockerel so we can produce more chickens to lay blue eggs.

And finally...

Who laid this? The world's longest chicken egg. This is the sort of freak egg that comes out of chickens as they come back into lay.



Up with the larks, down with the slugs.

Saturday 23rd June 2012
A lark soars into the air as the sun rises.

As the sun breaks the horizon, so up rise the skylarks. They sing unseen on the ground but as the sun pokes its head into the Eastern sky a magical moment occurs as, within a minute, five or six larks soar up belting out their song. They are nesting in the meadow at the moment. Don was lucky enough to find a nest on his side of the fence this week.

After a wet night, not such a magical sight met my eyes as I passed the potato patch. I just couldn't ignore it, so I spent the next two hours exterminating the munching little slimeballs. The weeds have run amock too, giving them a perfect little jungle in which they can hide during the day, emerging at night to do their damage. So another hour was spent pulling up sowthistles and fat hen. At least they come up easily from the wet soil. The pigs and chickens appreciated it. 

It looks as if the dwarf beans and beetroots we sowed in the lanes between the potatoes face being eaten as soon as they push their first leaves into the air. So I have now sown spares of all my beans into paper pots. It's worth a try and will give the plants a start. Who knows, by the time they are ready to be transplanted into the soil it may just be a bit drier and my slug hunts may be taking their toll.

I am now even considering ducks as an anti-slug measure too. Cayugas look good.
http://slatehousefarm.co.uk/Cay.html

By late morning I had achieved a great deal, but it felt like the one step forward that goes with the two steps back.

So I decided to spend the afternoon and evening doing something new. The herb bed has been a triumph this year, and I have filled any gaps with pot marigolds, lobelias, alyssums and tagetes, as well as transplanting in a drift of pot marjoram and a seedtray of anise hyssop.

The herb bed has been a triumph this year

I have been growing trays of annual flowers in the greenhouse and nursery area, but without having anywhere to put them! The plan was for lots to go into the veg patch, but for the moment I'm just trying to make the best of a bad thing there. At least I'm not the only one experiencing considerable difficulties growing veg this year.

So, instead, I decided to finish digging out a flower border in the lawn. Next year it can accommodate some of the cottage garden perennials I have been growing - delphiniums, hollyhocks, lupins and the like. But for this year it can house the annuals. At the end of the year I will be able to take a monster harvest of seed for next years extravaganza! 

Seedtrays are good, but dry out all too easily or, at the moment, become easily waterlogged. Hopefully the plants will survive and flourish in the open  ground.

A dozen or so barrowloads of turves later and I had myself a border. Several hundred seedlings transplanted and I had this... 

It's a first expedition into the world of raising annual flowers and I'm hoping this bed can come close to matching the herb bed for colour and beauty.

All we need now is for the sun to come out!

How (not) to install a farm gate..

I've been gradually adding to my fencing this week. But every now and then a fence needs a gate and this is where things can get a bit tricky. I start off by digging a deep hole for the hanging post. For these I use sleepers for large gates or telegraph posts for smaller gates. These work brilliantly and are far cheaper than the 'proper' gate posts. They have a bit more rustic character too.

The most important thing is that the edge where the gate will be hanging is completely vertical. I don't use concrete. I just ram the soil back in, throwing in the odd brick and lump of rubble. However tired your arms, make sure you do a really good job of this. Come back to it if necessary, for when you strain the top fence wire it's amazing how it can pull that post over slightly.



I am making a point of this as I somehow didn't get the sleeper completely upright! From then on I was having to make compromises and change things to accommodate. In fact, I nearly had to take the post out and start over. Anyway, I eventually got the gate hung to my satisfaction.

This picture shows the gates after I've put on the

metalwork for hanging them.
The only tricky thing about this is making sure
the holes are drilled straight,
otherwise the bolts don't go through the holes on the other side!

A nice, tight-fitting spring latch.

When I fitted my first gates, I hunted high and low for a decent image of a spring latch so I could work out exactly how to fit it. Eventually, I just had to work it out for myself. I'm hoping these images will help anybody in a similar situation. My essential piece of information is to put the fixings on the gate and hang it first. Only then, right at the end, hammer in the giant staple to hold the latch. You'll have to hammer pretty hard to get the staple in, so ram the base back down again to resecure the post.

DO NOT HAMMER THE STAPLE IN TOO FAR. You'll never get it back out.



As you can guess, I was overzealous and hammered it in about 1mm too far. It took me the next half hour of prising and hammering to sort it out.

The finished product. I'm happy with it.



Friday 22nd June 2012
Oh, nearly forgot this morning's sunrise. Easy to forget!
Can you spot the hare in the picture?

How much to feed a pig.



Daisy relaxes while the piglets play.

First, a point of order.  I have decided that if the sunrise is a mass of grey sky it will not get star billing at the top of the page. This is for two reasons. One: to punish the god of the sunrises for making me get up at silly o'clock just to see what grey looks like. Two: the first picture is often what appears in links to posts - who's going to follow a link with a picture of grey sky??

Thursday 21st June 2012
It's summer!
... really.

How much to feed a pig?

Most importantly, never ask the pigs. There are many sayings about pigs, not all true, but the one about beady eyes is, and so is the one about being greedy!

The books tell you how much to feed your pigs, but of course it's not an exact science. In general, if they are not squealing as if the end of the world is upon them, then you're feeding them too much. For pigs are ALWAYS hungry and will attempt to eat whatever you put in front of them. The extent of the squealing is the only clue you will get from them.

This is actually quite a useful feature of pigs, in that there is most definitely one way to a pig's heart. Make it skip a meal and it will follow that bucket of food wherever you lead it. In fact, it will switch allegiance from you at the drop of a hat if it's someone else holding the bucket.

I found a quote to sum this up:

 "If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.."

And that brings me onto the subject of what to feed a pig. Well, they'll eat pretty much anything, though mine don't like onions or orange peel. They're also very strictly not allowed to eat anything that has been in the kitchen, so these days the slops bucket is a no no.

At the right time of year, my pigs get lots of apples. Caution is required here, as I have heard of pigs getting drunk on apples!

They also get lots of potatoes. In fact, tons of potatoes, literally. All those that are the wrong size or shape or that have blemishes. But potatoes are not the ideal food for pigs and are only really of much value if cooked. But of course, not in the kitchen, and probably not with gas and electricity costing as much as they do these days. So most people go ahead and feed raw potatoes, unless they've got endless supplies of wood and an outdoor cooker.



Personally, I see potatoes as a filler and as a means of providing variety for the pigs. I like to chuck them all over the place and encourage the pigs to hunt for them.

I also have a very scientific way of knowing how many potatoes is the right amount to feed. For this I'll need the photo at the top of this post again, to illustrate my point.



Can you see the four tyres? Well, at feed time I grab a handful of spuds and take aim. When I've managed to get one potato in each tyre, that's enough. So there you have it, my scientific way of measuring how many potatoes to feed. The best feature of this system is that the potatoes bounce off the tyres and end up all over the place. The downside is that I think the pigs have worked out my system, as the tyres keep moving and there's always one or two which are impossibly distant. They also stand in the way of the tyres, seeming impervious to the occasional thump on the back by a flying spud!



Pigs do, undoubtedly, have their favourite foods. They will methodically pick out their favourites from a pile of vegetables and will always pick out the clover and dandelion roots from a mound of weeds.

Unfortunately their absolute favourite is pig nuts. These are not some delightfully natural food dug from the beech and oak forests of England, nor the seed of a country herb found growing wild in the fenland dykes. No! This is the rather romantic name for the manufactured pellets which are their standard food. Coming in 20kg or 25kg sacks, it resembles giant layers pellets, fish food or even cat litter! And it goes up in price by about twice the rate of inflation!

These sacks of sow and weaner pellets are what makes keeping pigs such a marginal enterprise. They are also the perfect package of protein and nutrient and somehow the pigs know this, as they'll leave all other foodstuffs in favour of their pellets.

So back to the title of this post. How much to feed them.

Well, there's no easy answer! But in general, if they look like they are getting podgy, cut down a  little bit. Within a week you'll notice them looking leaner.

I'm not sure how to know if you're not feeding them enough. I guess they've always managed to hoodwink me into feeding them plenty!

A country kitchen

Wednesday 20th June 2012
Summer Solstice.

Rhubarab, rhubarb, rhubarb...

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb! Rhubarb crumble, rhubarb and custard, rhubarb and ginger jam, rhubarb and vanilla jelly, rhubarb chutney. Yes, Sue has been busy plundering Don's rhubarb!

And the latest? Rhubarb vodka and rhubarb leather. The last of these is thin sheets of rhubarb juice and puree dried on a low heat in the oven. The end product is packed with flavour and the tartness of the rhubarb adds a tangy bite.

Sue's been getting boozy too. The cider has been siphoned out of the demijohns and is all bottled up ready for consumption. It just needs a gorgeous, hot summer's day to provide the perfect opportunity to christen it.

Then there's this...

Elderflower champagne.

It's best to pick the elderflowers on a hot, sunny day, but if we waited for one of those there'd be no flowers left! The potion was mixed in a large cauldron (aka large, plastic bin) and left for a day. Then into bottles to ferment. We did try some of the liquid and it was pleasantly refreshing. Another drink for a hot summer's day.

We now wait a week and hope the bottles don't explode. We'll keep an eye on them and release some pressure if need be. We've tried plastic and glass bottles to see which work best and they're all packed in a bin with pillows on top just in case they blow up! We'll let you know how it turns out.

Meanwhile, this could just be the beginning of the next glut...

Strawberry wine anyone?

Geronimo is back

Gerry is back in fine fettle.
He's got his appetite back and put on a lot of weight.
I'm not sure if it's a coincidence, but the racing pigeon seems to have moved on!

We think maybe he got stung in the mouth by a bee. No evidence, except that he's being much more careful catching flies in the house. He normally eats them (yes, I know, it's disgusting) as soon as he catches them. But today he seemed to be a bit more wary. Would explain why he seemed so scared that day we thought we'd lost him, and why he's not been eating.

Today was a warm day, so Gerry stayed cool under a parasol.

But what's he looking at?

He can't reach these babies. If he could, he would.
But he does enjoy watching the adults going to and fro.

Chicken Diary

Tuesday 19th June 2012

Thinking it was the longest day, Sue got up especially!
Tomorrow darling.
(Yes, that is a dressing gown under the coat.)

In an effort to get to the bottom of what's going on with the eggs, I've decided to be organised and keep a chicken diary. I can't keep an eye on them all day, but I can take note of who's laying and the size, colour and strength of their eggs (if I can pinpoint who laid them.)

Now it may seem like favouritism, but some of our chickens have names and some don't. It tends to be the ones with character that get named. But for me to keep an egg diary, it will be easier if all the hens have names. Cockerel is just called Cocky and any young cockerels won't be named for obvious reasons!

This young Legbar cockerel looks shocked
by that last sentence.

 

Our Indian Game hen will get a name
when she starts laying.
Now there's an incentive!

Anyway, today Elvis was to be found sitting tight on her egg. She lays small, pale eggs. If I let her she would go broody again. Chestnut was also sitting and had a darker, medium-sized speckly egg under her (presumably hers) . This is good news as I've not seen her near the nest boxes for a while now. And the newly named Hazel (the scraggiest brown hen) I think laid an egg too today. Anyway, three intact eggs is an improvement at least.

As you can see in the two piccies above, the teenagers have grown up. The four of them are the friendliest chickens we have, which is a bit of a shame as three of them are cockerels. It may be that two get to live, as we could use them for breeding. So those two Legbar cockerels had better start being nice to me before I choose the lucky one!

When they were let out into the big wide world, the teenagers took readily to the new chicken house, which the established chickens have mostly ignored, but two days ago, following a sinister and heinous crime, they were evicted.

For this was when three baby chicks became two! They're still allowed back in to roost, but during the day they will have to start mixing with the others a bit more if they want to use alternative accommodation.

It's not that I suspect them of the deadly deed, though they are not totally out of the picture, it's just that Chick of Elvis and her two babies need their own pad.

In fact I do have a suspect in mind. For the past few days a dark, shadowy figure has been lurking around the chicken pen. So far I've only seen it taking corn and drink, but it would not be averse to a bit of murder and theft. It evades being photographed and keeps a weary eye.
For crows are clever birds indeed. It is entirely possible they would learn where to find easy pickings and venture inside the chicken houses to plunder a meal.
I've read that a CD hung in the doorway will keep them away. I guess it depends who the artist is?? Maybe something by The Eagles.

If this fails, a couple of the local villages hold scarecrow competitions later in the year. Maybe one of them could be kidnapped and find it's way into my chicken pen.

In a couple of weeks this lot can go out and
Chick of Elvis can move into this coop with her chicks.

Elsewhere in the chicken pen, the two French Black Marans are big enough to go out now, but they seem to like being with the younger chicks. The five Welsummers could go out too, as they've grown at an amazing rate. Two of them were even squaring up to each other today, chests flung out and neck ruffs on full display. But the four Indian Game chicks need to grow a bit more or they won't be safe from the crows or, for that matter, from Gerry who has brought in sizeable young pheasants in the past. It'll be good to let them all out together, then they won't get picked on too much.