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.

It's that time of year - the days are getting warmer, the vegetable garden is beginning to look busy, fruit trees are in blossom - when anything seems possible . . . . . . including flying carpets? Well, yes and no. The secret of this carpet is underneath it - part of a cunning plan. Last week was St George's Day after which the St George's Mushroom is named. We are lucky enough to have a large ring of this edible mushroom. However, it grows in grass and we lose most of the tasty shrooms to slugs. So, this year I have had a carpet in place since November to discourage grass. I also put down a layer of wood chippings to clean the mushrooms as they grow. We lifted the carpet at the weekend and found some success! Some mushrooms were growing nicely - cleanly - but my carpet was not big enough and some were in the grass. Next year, I need a whole roll of carpet!

We are through (well I am through) the hungry gap in terms of both veg and fruit. The rhubarb is coming along well (although not as well as my brother in Llangollen who is fashioning walking-sticks out of his), and the lovage has also arrived. Sarah will eat rhubarb but is not a fan of lovage. I, of course, love my lovage - although it does have to be boiled. I eat the whole thing as there is not much other green stuff (here, at least, at the moment). Technically (ie Furnley-Wittingstally) you are meant to use it to delicately to flavour soups and stews. That's no good! I need to consume great bunches of it, if I want to try and be (more-or-less) self-sufficient.

Bees are back at Farlands. I had reached the top of the Cheshire beekeepers list as wanting a new colony, and last week I got the call. A colony was ready. You may remember that our last colony died during the Winter of 2012/13 due both to a very poor Summer when they had not made enough food for the Winter, and naive beekeeping because I did not feed them enough (they need 20 kgs plus of honey to last them through the cold season). Sarah was a little nervous about travelling in the car with them, but only a couple seemed to get out, and thankfully they preferred to stay in the boot. Yesterday was a warm day and they were busy checking Farlands out. I hope there is enough pollen and nectar for them - the plum blossom is just coming but the horse chestnut is still a week or two away, and there is not much else. To tell each other where the food sources are they do the famous 'waggle dance' (amongst others) and I am watching carefully to see if they flick me a ...