8. The first snow of the Winter

The snow came overnight; the first snow for Farlands this year, and the first snow ever for the turkeys!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6th October...Autumn is here...

Image
Autumn is here - very wet and windy this week! Our bench (at the front of the house) will not stay upright, and one day I found it halfway down the bank. The wind and rain mean inside jobs! I've been in the loft - insulating it. It's 140m2, and involves taking the boards up (some take 15mins or more because of so many nails), then laying 200mm of insulation, then a spaceboard (polystyrene worth 100mm), then re-boarding it. I reckon this job will take me 30 years. I found some money today for the 1st time - a coin much larger than a 2p piece; an old 1p. Turkeys doing ok. They went free-range after a week or so, and generally understand that they should stay in the orchard (top paddock). But, I do spend some days chasing them about and yesterday broke our broom doing it! Generally entertaining the walkers as they go by. The orchard is about to grow in meaning - Mum has just ordered our 40th birthday present: trees. Includes sweet chestnut, hazel (a cob...
Read more

143. Walnuts update...

Image
It's been a good Summer for our walnut trees - the photo shows both whips that we bought. They have been in the ground 18 months now. The ones I grew from seed are much smaller but growing. What is really heartening is that when Mum came to visit a month or so ago she found a couple of walnuts growing on a tree only two hundred metres from here. So, walnuts at Farlands are possible! You can see the four turkeys if you look closely; they are (turkey)-lurking in the background.
Read more

228. One big happy family?

Image
The chicks were 11 weeks old at the weekend, and we decided that it was time they were moved, along with their surrogate mother, the white bantam, into the main chicken house . . . . . . and into hell - as the 2nd photo suggests. So, on Saturday afternoon we caged the three of them in the main house, alone, and let them explore, and hopefully roost. Then at dusk we let Flash and the 5 hens back into their house. Chaos ensued. Bloody chaos. And ever since; Flash has been patrolling up and down, the (larger) white sussex hens have been pecking and baying (almost wolf-like) and skirmishing has been breaking out all over the place. Two days later, it is still not much better. One hen has a facial injury, the two chicks roost as soon as there is any trouble and egg-laying is becoming a case of  'drop-it-anywhere, quickly and run'. The only bright note is that the black bantam has laid her first egg for 18 months. (I half-expected an ostrich-sized egg after a...
Read more