I'm sure, like me, you all enjoy a bit of Countryfile on a Sunday evening. It's my cup of tea and a cake programme...
Anyway, if you watched it this weekend you would have seen my little town on it. Box Hill and Denbies Vineyard are literally right on my doorstep and while I couldn't really care less about the Olympic cycling, wine...wine I like.
While I was watching the programme, I just thought, wow I really am lucky that I get to live here, surrounded by all this beautiful countryside. So when Alf the dog and I went for our walk at Denbies Vineyard last night I took some photos to share...
This weekend has been busy, busy, busy- despite the rain! A mini digger delivered on Friday night has had all the boys busy all weekend, smashing...I mean landscaping...the front garden- I will post photos once it looks like less of a war zone and more the wildlife haven it is meant to become...
I also managed to tame a few tonnes of weeds at the allotment and begin the installation of my wildlife area- the wild flowers already growing along the boundary fence are a good start. Again photos to follow (we got rained off on Sunday unfortunately)
Luckily we managed to leave with some allotment bounty which The Boyf decided to get all Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall on. He made a delicious allotment soup, one of my most favourite tea time treats with hunks of fresh bread, with red cabbage, broad beans, mange tout, marrows and anything else he could get his hands on. Despite the very 70's looking photo (blame the lighting and the dodgy car boot crockery!) it was lovely and I've got about 10 portions frozen too...so frugal if you don't mind!
And also a delicious pie using the teeny tiny first harvest of blackcurrants and a few bits of fruit harvested from around the allotment and garden...there's not quite enough of one thing to specialise yet- so we'll call this allotment pie!
I promise to update some more photos later in the week- weather permitting! Hope you all had a lovely weekend too...
Yesterday The Boyf and I went to visit an old friend. Rosa the pigeon. Bear with me here...
I’m sure you remember the very cold snap we had at the beginning of the year- when it was minus 10 degrees and snowed for a week- seems like a million years ago now doesn’t it? Well on a particularly blustery, snowy evening as The Boyf was walking home a pigeon literally flew into his arms. He put her down on the ground and tried to walk away but she flew to him, this time landing on his head. Well what’s a boy to do? He bought her home of course! Well that was the story I got when I opened the front door to a snowy boy with a pigeon on his head.. (seriously NOTHING surprises me with this boy!)
She was starving hungry and munched her way through handfuls of bird seed and bowls of water before settling down on The Boyfs lap in front of the TV. We decided to keep her over night, feed her up, keep her warm and let her go in the morning. She had other ideas. Over the next week we tried to release her about 20 times, each time she would sit at the back door looking at us. She stayed with us for two weeks, flying around the house, pooping, eating everything and her favourite activity...sitting on the arm of the sofa watching TV with us...
We would have loved to have kept her -she clearly wasn’t going anywhere- but the set up with her in a cardboard box in the spare room just wasn’t working and my mum was not loving her new TV buddy as much as the rest of us, despite Rosa’s attempts to snuggle up with her, so a friend offered to take her off our hands to live on their farm...and that is where we went to visit. Rosa is now living the life of a rural farm pigeon, up at the crack of dawn, doing the morning checks, following our friend Tom around the farm as he feeds the animals. She then spends the day fluttering around the garden before coming to the back door to go back into her cage at bed time. It’s made me see pigeons in a whole new light, that’s for sure!
Sorry I haven't posted for a while- I've been busy at that horrible place that takes up all my chicken cuddling and veg munching time- work.
However, while I've been tucked up in my concrete prison cell I have been keeping abreast of all your lovely posts and comments and have gained some new followers! Thank you guys, lovely to have you on board- I'm still a bit of a newbie and I still can't quite believe that anyone would want to read about my little bit of green, so thank you!
I thought I might share with you our triumph of the wet rainy weekend- my fat girl Maude laid another whopper! She does occasionally pop out a double yoker, but this one was a record breaker. 110grams- and boy did we know about it! Thanks Maudey! Mildred still only manages little pale eggs but I think it's because she's a bit of a worrier- she hasn't got time for eggs when there's grass to scratch, nest boxes to rearrange and me to chat to.
I also wanted to get some opinions from you guys. A friend of mine who works for a rescue centre has had a few chicks bought in recently who have been left over from class room experiments. Living Egg are a company which provide fertilised eggs and incubators to schools so the kids can learn all about the life cycle of chickens etc. The problem is that when the hens hatch, the schools don't want to keep them. The company promises that they will end up on free range farms but what about the boys? It sits very uncomfortably with me that children are essentially being taught: look at these cute little chicks, as soon as we're bored of them we can get rid of them and we don't have to take any responsibility for where they go. Surely a better lesson would be to re-home some battery hens and teach children about animal welfare, where their cheap chicken nuggets come from, as well as sustainability and responsibility. I'd love to hear your thoughts....
Now I'm sure a lot of you lovely, conscientious readers are familiar with the One Little Egg website and Sophie McCoy's mission for the British Hen Welfare Trust.If you're not then it's time to get involved! Sophie is on a one woman mission to raise a huge amount of money for the plight of battery hens by doing a massive online swap- starting with one little egg.. the swap is currently a 2 night stay, including breakfast in the luxurious Townhouse Suite at the Ramada Solihull. If you fancy this and have something bitter, better or wackier to swap it for then head over to the website!
There are currently 16,000,000 hens in the UK living in battery conditions. For those of you who have chickens, try to imagine your girls living in a space no bigger than a size of A4, no scratching, no digging, no sunlight, no cuddles, no treats...It really is heartbreaking. We need to stop it now so do your bit, help Sophie to help the BHWT. If you can't swap then donate. £3 can save a hen.
The always wonderful Bee Strawbridge has written a post this morning which is not so much of a blog post but a call to arms. It's time to wake up, be inspired, make a difference,and "roar for the earth".
This weekend it rained. Real, proper, hard, wet, rain. It was wonderful- I could practically hear the vegetables cheering in the allotment. I had to call off preparations for my mini wildlife sanctuary at the allotment, feeling that it would be better to do the rainy Sunday afternoon thing and curl up with a good book and a cup of tea.
While the courgettes and I were celebrating, the chickens were looking less happy. Within a few hours they were soaked through...it didn't seem to slow them down at first but soon they retired to the warmth of their eglu to fluff up and dry off. I stopped short of giving them a blow dry- but boy did I want to!
Here are some photos of a very soggy Maude and Mildred...
