April

At the moment I can hardly bear to come inside, or to go to work, or to do anything which takes me away from the garden.  Everything is growing: seedlings, perennials, bindweed, chicks.  The sun is warm, the grass is green.  I want to stop time and hold on to the moment but, since Professor Brian Cox himself says you can't - something about the Arrow of Time. I thought I understood it when he was speaking but it is gone, like so much  in my over full brain - my inadequate camera will have to do.

I plant tubs of tulips every year.  Last year was the first year I have ever been really pleased with them.  That was largely as a result of admiring some gorgeous pots in mountainear's garden and discovering that she used far more bulbs than I did.  This years are even better.

Out in the field the little orchard is looking more orchard like and these tiny tulips, tulipa linifolia, are spangling the grass before the wild flowers get going.  I love them.  They make my heart lift.

The cherry blossom in out in the orchard. 

The wild cherry is almost identical with just a little more delicacy in the flower.

The Light Sussex chicks which Ian hatched in the incubator, patiently turning the eggs three times a day, have gone outside today, leaving their cardboard box for the small run in the lush grass of the kitchen garden.

Here is the rogue black one, the classic black sheep, ugly duckling, odd one out.  I do hope it is a hen but it is too soon for us to tell.  They huddled in the house when moved outside, looking out through the pophole at the big world beyond.  Slowly, one by one, they ventured out for food and water and when I went to shut the popholes tonight they were all hanging about in the run like children reluctant to go inside.   Perhaps the freedom had gone to their heads.  The older hens in their own shed were already neatly lined up on their roost.

I love to see hens pecking about outside but it will be a while before the new chicks are let out of their run.  We have buzzards overhead here every day, wheeling slowly, mewing and soaring on the thermals, hunting the valley.  The chicks need to be a good deal bigger before they stop being a possible target for hunting buzzards.

There is so much to do.  It is good to stop, look, feel the sun on your shoulders watch chickens for a while.