Category: Ideas
cluck cluck, chirp chirp
Posted by stephaniewm on September 8, 2009
It’s hard not to be happy when your life is dominated by funny dogs, friendly (productive) hens and beautiful chick maidens. This morning, first thing, I brought in the washing (2 huge bedspreads from St Leonard’s Bank) which had been blown hard all night under the canopy of the massive sycamore tree. I love this weather — warm, windy, fine rain and sometimes almost sun. I like it to wet my hair and let the wind blow through my clothes.
Next thing was to feed the broody hen and her 4 young ones, threading my way through the Bosnian log circles and turning right before the burn onto the edge of the vast lawn under the copper beech. They are called Lavendar Pekins and will lay blue eggs. Three are white and one a pale dusky brown. They all have furry legs. I worry that they are cockerels and haven’t yet worked out what I will do with them if they are..
They are now 6 weeks old and live in the cage Nikita made, with his apprentice, Aidan. Gus took it upon himself a week ago to extend the cage with canes and wire. They love this extra space but when Chris Hall saw it at the weekend he was deeply worried about predators. He had all his chickens and ducks killed by a fox a month ago. His ducks lived in a horsebox and the fox managed to scratch his way in through the wooden floor. So we made an extra guard to put up at dusk when they’re back in Nikita’s cage.
Then up we went to feed the four old egg-laying hens and the teenagers. The 5 teenagers are the Columbines that Jude and I bought near Jedburgh as 3-day old chicks in early July and who spent their first three weeks in my bath. They are 6 weeks old now and almost as big as the old hens but much neater looking with a funny slick of fine black feathers behind their burgeoning combs. They live in the cage and little hut that Catherine gave me from Traquair.
The old hens live in the large runs which are awash with mud. They love lettuce leaves, fresh grasss and bread but I also give them proper hen food and worms as a treat which I feel horrible about. They like baked eggshells too and there is a plentiful supply of grit which was used for young pheasants but now seems to have been forgotten about. There are bags of it in the car park place opposite the village hall.
What else? My vegetable garden is in a mess but I am still picking, in small quantities, runner beans, small parsnips, peas, the end of the lettuces, rocket, chard, chicory and lots of potatoes plus the wonderful land cress at the end of my strip of garden. The leeks are still growng. There are a lot of big fallen apples and of course the plums. Janka and I are going to make plum jam in the big kitchen but meanwhile I have been making rowan jelly. The first lot were amber in colour but my next lot are the red ones which I plan to make with port and Juniper berries, excellent with meat and game.
I have been mulching the area near the black currants. Earlier in the year I planted about 16 strawberry plants there and recently Fi (Kim’s Fi) and I cut off their shoots which gave us a further 52 plants, now in small pots awaiting permament places once the mulch is ready. But the undergrowth persists in forcing its way up through the mulch so this morning I put yet more cardboard over part of it and later I will put on wood ash and the old compost from the garage which might deter the pernicious weeds more than the old grass mowings I’ve been using.
Ah! Such is the life of a peasant smallholder.
September 8th, 2009
Have you started making jam from the vast harvest of plums?
September 22nd, 2009
Loved reading this, as a fellow peasant and smallholder. And chicken-holder and cat-holder (two very smelly kittens the kids picked up in Spain) and dog-holder (YES, after agonising about choosing a puppy, where, what etc, one appeared in the street outside our house). She’s called Saffy (from Saffron, her colour, or Safira) and she’s as lovely, soft and high-leaping as a young deer. She also gets on with the kittens. She’s playing with one now, while he purrs like a small well-oiled tractor and tries to nestle into her chest for a nap. Lots of love, Mxxx