A Life Less Simple

Quail chicks have started to hatch, I moved 5 chicks into the brooder before I came to work this morning and there were more hatching.

The weather has been really good this weekend, yesterday I managed to get out into the garden and sort another bed and do some clearing. On Thursday I was having a nose at the plants that are already in and things are going well:

The first small heads of Romanescu

Pea and garlic coming up in paper pots, the paper pot maker was part of my Christmas present and it’s great, you cut strips of newspaper wrap them around the pot maker and push them into shape. I’m going to get a bulb planter and start all the plants of in them and have a low dig garden.

Not the best picture because of the sunlight but this is of the first small pieces of white sprouting.

I took some leeks up from the garden as well and made them into leek and potato soup which wasn’t my best ever as I’ve had a cold and couldn’t smell the potatos burning. It still tasted ok though.

Primrose has a very nice little udder now but it looks like she returned to the bull so won’t be calving until the 25th of Feb. 

 I found these yesterday evening, still no sign of buds of any kind at home but less than 10 miles away… 

2008 is the International Year of the Potato www.britishpotatoes.co.uk/year-of-the-potato there’s some interesting stuff on the website.

B&Q have two sacks of seed potatos for £5, very nice timing given my idea the other day, I just wating for pay day now… 

Cerys wasn’t looking very well on Friday, she’s not ill just looking off colour, so she’s now living in the kitchen with Lucy. Just before Christmas, or it might have been Christmas Day itself, me and mother were standing looking at Lucy Lamb and Baby Berry happily chewing their cud in the dinning room and mother said, "This is only normal in our house." A few minutes later ‘Da Boy’ came in and said "what you looking at?" and mother repeated herself and ‘Da Boy’ said "What?!" and mother nodded at the sheep and ‘Da Boy’, the one who out of all of us trys to be as ‘normal’ as possible, said "They’re just f’ing sheep." Yes, and I’m sure there must be someone else out there who finds having half grown sheep living in the kitchen/dinning room of their house something to not even worth giving a second thought to.

I’ve moved the quail chicks out of the brooder and into an indoor cage, they seem more than happy with it. They could be laying from any day now really, they still seem a little bit small to me. I tried giving them some cress but they didn’t understand that it was food and have just kicked it around the floor of their cage. Mind you Mable (the guinea-pig) didn’t eat hers either. I’ve order some more eggs to incubate to hatch at the end of this month.

B&Q have seed potato’s on special offer, very nice timing considering my idea the other day. I really do need to find some time to do some gardening some time soon. I brought a load of garlic from the supermarket to plant out the other day, yes I know that’s something that you’re not meant to do but I’ve never understood why, there is already some started off in the ground and a few in pots. There’s loads of onions to go in and a load of spring onions to go in as well.  

It’s just hit me what I should be doing with all the sacks of well rotten (and I mean well rotten, it’s like compost in places) manure from the cow shed, growing potatos in them!

Well, Christmas and New Year are finally over. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy them, it’s just I find the week in-between so odd. It’s like being in limbo and nothing you do seems to have any weight to it.

I have found some interesting looking websites in the week off www.backyardhive.com and http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/index.php I haven’t had time to go have a really good look at them yet but they seem a good read.

Primrose is due to calf on the 4^th of February, she’s starting to look really big now. I spent yesterday morning bagging up manure (with Rhys’s help, of course) now there’s just the other half of the house to go.