Down on the farm....

Everything's getting bigger...

 
mmmm - look at those pork chops!!

Jube the gosling is living full time outside now, eating grass like Juicy and Lucy, and looking like a real goose.  He/she seems to grow an inch every day.  Even the soft yellow down is starting to turn white on his/her backside though there's no sign of feathers yet...

Training in the ways of goose v dog.  Barney is pretty nervous of them as he gets pecked even through the wire netting...

But there's a sad end to the tale of two young green woodpeckers that decided to leave their nest in the poplar tree.  They flapped around on the ground all day yesterday squawking and trying to attract their parents attention, but today there is no sign of them.  One (at least) is still left in the tree and is being fed, but I can't help feeling sad about the likely outcome of the other two.  They were so cute and defenceless.  Nature seems so cruel sometimes  :(

Meadow update....

The meadow is at last coming into bloom.  It's been slow this year with the cool weather and the flowers having kept their buds closed.  Here's what I found today - plus a surprising number of bugs, bees and butterflies (most take off too quickly for a photo)....

Bugle, buttercup, trefoils, ribwort, yarrow, self-heal, wild caraway, cow parsley, sorrel, knapweed, red and white clover....

  

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......and lots and lots of grasses.

A few butterflies turn up when the sun comes out..... 

Meadow brown

Five spot burnet moth 

Large skipper

Small tortoiseshell

I'm learning!!

More chicks....

We got a lot of fun out of hatching Jube the gosling so have decided to have a go at rearing some bantam chicks.  I bought fertilised eggs on ebay for about £5 which were sent through the post like this..... 

I then put them in the pre-warmed incubator (borrowed from our lovely neighbour Jane) with the required water, and bars to hold the eggs in place....

The incubator is placed on a 'rocker' which slowly tilts the eggs continuously from side to side - I suppose to mimic the way a hen would turn the eggs while she is sitting on them to 'cook' them evenly all over....  They will hatch in 21 days - the 9th July.  Can't wait!

 And while on the subject of chicks of all kinds, this beautiful woodpecker has been feeding her three chicks from the bird feeder in the garden.  

She pecks the peanuts herself then feeds them directly into the mouth of the young birds....she knows exactly what to do.  

It's great to notice all the tiny fragile things in life - and amazing to see the fingerprints of God in all that he has made.

Monster mushroom....

We've created a monster... it grew from this....

 ....to this in 4 days.  I hope the others catch up.

At least it looks like mushroom now!

Self-INsufficient living....

If we were trying to be self-sufficient we would be starving to death this year.  Our attempts at saving our lives are rocket seedlings in a pot, all other salads having been eaten by rabbits,

....peppers, aubergines and tomatoes grown on the windowsill in the kitchen.  I resurrected the old plastic 'greenhouse' we had in Chedzoy, bought a new cover for it in Chaplins and potted up the survivors this morning.

The herb garden is mostly intact with chives, thyme, parsley, mint, fennel and oregano despite occasional prunings by the odd rabbit that should be brave enough to come so near the house where the hairy black thing lives.

The highly prolific little apple tree by the back door seems to have survived my pruning efforts in the winter.  Hestercombe put on a really good apple-tree pruning workshop back in January.

The beds in our supposedly 'rabbit-proof' patch in the field should be green with sweet peas (sown twice), french climbing beans (sown three times), sweet corn, cabbages, purple sprouting, broccoli and lettuces by now but alas the rabbits got them all.  Apparently they have bitten a hole in the wire netting itself - I'm worried Ian might be turning into Mr Macgregor and is on the lookout for a shotgun.....

It's not all bad.  At least our pride and joy, the strawberries - are still ok.  Thanks to Ian's ingenious re-use of heating pipes, roof battens, netting and old plastic bags.  I'm proud of his 'making good use of the things you have lying around' attitude to gardening.

The rhubarb has at last taken off and the asparagus has started, not to mention the raspberries behind.  At least we did manage to harvest some potatoes before the blight got them all, and broad beans have been delicious despite getting rust.  So, having written it all down, I don't think we'll starve after all!  Gardening is definitely a battle against nature though.

I'm rather proud of our compost bins...

....and the mushrooms!  They came in a kit.  After at least 8 weeks of keeping them damp and warm the compost looks like someone's dropped miniature polystyrene balls on it.  I think it could be mushrooms.

This one's a funny shape...... but it could be a mushroom!

A week in the life of Jube the gosling - cheesy but cute ;)

Day 1 - Chick-lit

 (These 2 photos by Megan Forshaw)

 Day 2 -  Billy no-mates (sadly the other egg never hatched so Jube is all on his lonesome)

Day 3 - helping with the A level revision...

Day 4 - first trip out into the big wide world....

"Do I have to let this thing peck me?"

 "Have you heard the news?"

Day 4 - "I'd better be careful - see what they did to the duck?!"

 "Go on - JUMP - I dare you!"

 Day 5 - "DADDY!!!"

 (actually Juicy the big gander isn't his real dad, but they bonded quickly)

By the end of the first week, Jube (short for Jubilee...?) is eating chick-crumb and grass, drinking just like a big goose, and can run behind me the full length of the garden cheeping continually to make sure he doesn't get lost.  I guess we're 'imprinted' on his little goose-brain, but hopefully it will transfer to Juicy and Lucy in due course.  He still lives indoors with us at the moment but had 20mins in the goose run today as an introduction.

Hatched!!