the birds and the bees

Watching the hen and chicks gives me so much pleasure.  It’s nice to have specific breeds, but I get a lot from raising our own mixed breed – as the results are so variable. We have four of our own out of the fourteen, and they are all welsummerxmarans of some sort.  One is completely black with a brown face, one black with white edges to the feathers that are emerging, a fawny coloured one and a grey one.

Chickens seem to have three stages of colour, the chick fluff, then the feathers that grow out – which can be markedly different, and then somewhere as they become adults there is another change. So the fawn coloured chicks, became speckled light brown chicks, and eventually red cockerels.  So what we shall get out of our mixed breed is a guess at this stage, but my favourite, and I always have one, is the little grey chick – the feathers are growing out grey too, and I suspect it will be ‘blue’ like the blue maran that was probably it’s mother.

The best thing about watching the chicks at the moment is when they jump on her back and ride around, and then she goes through the pop-hole into the house part, and they get scraped off and land in fluffy chick heaps.

The runner beans are setting and a couple of days of nice weather has brought out lots of bees to the flowers.  I noticed a lot of the bees were not entering the flower frontwise, but instead making a hole in the end and attacking it from there.

I remembered something about this  – a bad habit in bees leading to lack of pollination.

But according to the royal horticultural society, this is normal:

Short-tongued bumblebees cannot reach nectar from the front of the flower, and so bite a hole in the flower base to gain access. This allows bees to get at the nectar but, because they do not come into contact with the reproductive parts of the flower, such bees play no part in pollination. There is no way to prevent this but sufficient bees usually visit the flowers in the conventional way for a good crop if other factors, such as water availability and temperatures are favourable.

We seem to have lots of beans setting, so I guess if they fail now its not because of the way the bees are feeding, but we don’t have enough of the right, long tongued bean lovers!

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sheep husbandry

Dry today, so we took this island of dry weather and did a little work on the sheep. 

Everyone got a pedicure, with particular attention paid to Arthur who has developed a   limp over night.  No sign of foot rot, bit swollen.  I’m thinking maybe he knocked it. He feels a bit sorry for himself and not his usual bumping into our legs self.

The ewes got a drench and moved into the big field, and the lambs came into their place in the orchard.  We have far too much grass at the mo. And we have booked the lambs’ special trip next week too. Hopefully Arthur will be back into shape by then.

I now have some additional purple freckles on my arm from the violet spray… lovely.

Picked yet more French beans – only recently discovered the plants were supposed to look a lot better than they do, but we don’t care as they are cropping fine. Also dug some spuds.  Still watchful for blight.. this is the first time since we have grown potatoes on a serious scale that we have had them in the ground so late – the last few years blight has resulted in us digging them early, and therefore washing and storing. So far we are digging them as we need them.

Snuck a barbecue in at the end of the day too – ha! – have to steal them when you can with a summer like this…

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blackberry meringue fool

All these experiments with blackberries.. I’m am in danger of becoming a blackberry bore.  Sorry. But it’s been worth it, as I am finding great ways to use them, just as well as we are picking this year’s blackberries already.

The latest success is the blackberry meringue fool.

The idea being a way to have blackberries without the annoying seeds, and use up some of the egg white mountain we also have lurking in the freezer.

I tried it out when we had guests, and it was a huge hit.

Next time I will measure exactly how much coulis to use, as I can see that making the blackberry coulis is a great way to reducing freezer space, and is useful in so many recipes. 

What can I do? – I shall have to make it again!

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some days..

… everything seem stacked against you.  No sooner had I got the washing out, two loads, and the pegloomed rug on the garden table to air, then the rain started.

I went to check the animals, and the wind blew the hen house door shut on me with a thump..  as I stepped back a screw poking through caught my jeans and tore them… across the bum..

I went to visit the lambs, and decided to sneak a feel of their condition score, with a view to them going to slaughter next month. They are very friendly with us, partly because we had given them extra feed after removing them from their mums.  It’s been a few days since we stopped but they are still hopeful. So I was able to lean through the gate and pat each one. Only Arnie was last and he wanted attention, so he jumped on the back of one of the others, made them step forward, and the gate smacked my forehead.

Then I had to walk back up the the house, as the chick crumb had not made it as far as the meal shed yet, and bring food back for the chicks and broody, clutching head and torn jeans.

Still, the chicks were reviving, and I can spend far too long watching them, and I do.  We still have fourteen, they all fit under the hen, and it is entertaining watching them scurry under, and heads pop out of her feathers, some prefer to ride on her back, and nestle down.

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devonshire dumpling

In my quest to search out old Devonshire recipes, I have been wondering what is a Devonshire dumpling? 

Clearly a name for girls from Devon,  I recall my grandfather, a Londoner himself, referring to the girl he later married (my grandmother) as his Devonshire dumpling, in his infamous stories.

However, what about the recipe – I’ve searched and I’ve asked..and I’m still not really sure.  My dad remembers they used to have a steamed suet dumpling served with the roast. Devon’s answer to the Yorkshire pudding.  Serving the same purpose too – there would not be enough meat to fill you up, but a suet pudding would do the job. Dad says it was served with the main course, but he would have his slice saved to have with syrup later.

In modern times, it does not really rate as a health food!

I improvised a recipe, based on one I found in Mrs Beeton’s book, and as described by my Dad. It was a lot of fun wrapping it in the cloth and making a round pudding rather than a basin shaped one, and made me think of Dickens’s description of plum puddings cooked in the boiler. Very olde worlde.

Is it the real thing? the actual Devonshire dumpling? I don’t know, but served with roast leg of mutton, gravy, french beans, roast potatoes and garlic cabbage, it went down a treat.

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dry

It’s been positively autumnal lately, so a bit of a shock to have a completely dry day today.. in fact that glowing orange ball thing made an appearance – I’m reliably informed it’s the sun.

So we made the most of it – a productive day, although we did sneak a lie on the blankie  in the sun – it’s been so long!. We weeded, and cut the grass, well some of it, and hoed, and cut some wood,  and picked blackcurrants, blackberries and wild strawberries, tomatoes and courgettes.

Today we killed the first our our light Sussex cockerels – they are eighteen weeks now, and we felt it was time up for Mr Limpy. Although he improved, he wasn’t right, besides which, it sorted out what we would have for dinner.

Although he wasn’t fat -there was plenty on him, and I made a big chicken and mushroom pie which fed the three of us, and a smaller one in the freezer.

Our son is delighted with his new Light Sussex hen, which he has named ‘Whitey’ (there’s a surprise). Unfortunately, I made the mistake of informing him that she was ‘point of lay’ or there abouts, and as her comb is nice and red, maybe she will start laying eggs soon…

Which resulted in our son spending the afternoon trying to encourage her to do the deed, complete with a tempting path of pellets leading into the hen house etc.  I don’t think she is ready… and as it goes, having a lad in there cheering them on actually resulted in us getting less eggs than usual out of the whole flock…  I might have to mention a hen’s need for privacy tomorrow..

Meanwhile the three our broody hatched are now ten weeks old, shown here in a picture I took a couple of days ago:

I’m finding it harder to judge who is boy and girl out of these three, – definitely a cockerel on the right.. not sure about the other two.  I would like them to be hens – more layers, but also the one on the left (‘Buffy) is my favourite. I posted the picture in forum recently and the consensus is they are all boys. Although not from meat stock, I’m not inclined to ‘neck’ the cockerels early, but rather wait and have them later even if they are skinny – its not all about economics for us. So – maybe I should run a book and we shall see if they are, as the majority think, all boys. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, Brownie the broody and her fourteen chicks are doing well, she has been outside with them, fluffs up as big as a turkey when we come near.

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chickens are bad at maths

Just as well too.

This morning, whilst checking that the broody was still looking after the chicks, I noticed, as she lifted her skirts to let the chicks in, she had an egg under there.  She must have laid it after going into solitary.

I figured, she was likely to sit tight hoping to hatch one more egg out, so I snuck in and stole it away (and have the peck marks to prove it too!). The egg was blank by the way (not really a surprise given the cockerel was not in with her!), but one of the foster chicks is actually hers, so it doesn’t seem a bad deal.

By then, some of the chicks had wandered out from under her to investigate the water I had put in, and she got up for a drink too. I managed to count all 14.   You could see her thinking about it..

so.. I had one egg, lost that, and have chicks.  1-1 = 14, hmm yes.. that must be right.

She is doing mother hen things, telling them about the chick crumb found conveniently in the corner (the chicks already knew about it, but were happy to rush forth when mum threw down a bit), and she tuts and clucks.

she has accepted them fine, it’s just predators and disease we have to worry about now, and they all have to face that.

 So she is happy and so are they.And so am I, as they are doing hen things, and I have turned the heat lamp off.

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sneaking chicks under a broody

Well, as wittered about in the comments – we eventually hatched 15 – 5/6 from the exchequer leghorn, 4/6 from the autralorps, 5/6 from our welsummerxmarans and one lone cream legbar.  But one of our crosses was deformed – so we had to cull it.

so 14 chicks.  We took them out to our broody, and slipped them under her. She wasn’t sure at first.. but they vanished from sight, and she fluffed up, so hopefully she has taken them on.  Certainly when we checked later there were no bodies, and no chicks shivering outside… and all was quiet – I hope they are going to be ok.

I’m sure its better for them to be out with a mother hen doing henny things.. and that’s why we are raising our own chickens..but.. if it goes wrong.. I shall feel very guilty.

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