Far Lands

One of our chickens has been very unwell - not eating, and not coming out of the chicken-house much. Often she just sits somewhere dark with her head on the ground. The end seemed nigh. Sarah did a lot internet research and diagnosed the chicken's problem as being egg-bound; she was hunched and producing nasty faeces. So with a pair of rubber gloves, and a little KY jelly, we inspected. I say 'we' - team operation: Sarah was in charge, and I wore the gloves! But nothing - we were expecting at least a couple of eggs. Clean as a whistle. Hence, my latest theory of Munchausen's.

The whip and tongue grafts that I did in March are starting to grow. Rather amazingly I seem to have had about a 95% success rate. There is only one that is yet to sprout properly, and I am still hopeful. This first photo shows a scion that I took from my favourite wilding tree (in Reading), and which I have called The Big Purple (the apples are large purple globes, and the flesh has swathes of red / purple). However, my guru at the NFG (Northern Fruit Group) told me that I cannot count my chickens (to grab a metaphor from just over the fence) until next year. However, there is nothing like a bit of success to spur me on . . . I have started digging another tree nursery!

Well, kind of. They now have a run (fox, badger and jumbo-jet detritus proof) and a door from their house leading into it. So, they can put themselves to bed, get up when they want, and generally run their own lives a bit more. We like it because we can now go away for a night or two and not have to bother a neighbour, or leave them cooped up without any outside space. It's only for a night or two, because longer than that and they decide to try an egg or two themselves!

Living on the Pennine Way, we decided to walk the first 3 days of it. Made it to Sarah's cousin in Keighley - 56 miles, we think (second photo shows our wild camp on the first night - only 3C in the tent, freezing outside, but a beautiful morning). Meanwhile, back on the smallholding nothing was on hold, and everything needed doing on Monday afternoon - grass, chickens, bees, potting on and planting out. We decided to inspect the bees; Sarah now has a suit and with the added pressure of one bee finding a hole in mine, we opened the hive up. They are doing OK - we found the Queen, don't think we have any Queen cells (which suggest they might swarm) and the colony is growing in numbers.