welsh hills again

Well we survived 2014 and all that it threw at us and here we stand at the dawn of 2015.  Today I am not going to look back or look forward.  Let us just be in today. It is cold and crisp, the sun is shining.  Now, approaching noon, those fields which face the sun have been  washed green.  Those in shadow still hang on to the grey frost which silvered all the landscape as the sun came up this morning in a wash of pink and grey. Ian is in bed with the worst flu I have seen in a long time.  I take him a sweet tea and another blanket and go outside to check on the hens. There is ice on the pond and I break the ice on the hens' water drinkers.  The hens are congregating on the roof of one of the houses to catch the sun. This is the point of the year when I feel the need to poke around, searching for signs of new growth.  Yes, the yew tree is full of birds.  Yes, the holly shines and the ivy flowers catch the sun.  Yes, th...

I love keeping hens.  I love the eggs, brown and speckled with vivid orange yolks and a taste which beats even the best shop bought free range eggs.  I love the way they are a presence in the garden, rushing and clucking and shouting to each other and bustling about.  Watching them always makes me smile and the garden would feel empty and dead without them, although it might be quite a lot tidier. But it's time to lift the veil on the less pleasant side of chicken keeping.  Those of a squeamish disposition should look away now. One of our older hens is a Welsummer, a dark brown hen who lays dark brown eggs.  She was given to me by a friend because she was being mercilessly bullied in her flock and my friend wondered if a new flock would let her have a new start, a bit like sending a bullied child to a new primary school! It took her ages to settle in when she came.  She didn't seem to be bullied here, partly I think because she clearly knew her place...

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 lo...

At this time of year I always think I should feel to have extra time.  Yesterday was the longest day and, after a day in Manchester, we still managed to spend an hour or two in the garden, watering, tying things up, putting things back in the cold frames after resiting them in order to extend the hen run.  The moon gleamed like a small pale sun.   The sky was still light at 10 o' clock. Across the valley the clouds held the last of the sun. I love summer and last night I had a profound attack of how lucky I am to live here. When I woke this morning to another green and gold day I thought I might manage to do some work, go to the hairdressers, and  paint in the kitchen, now beautifully plastered and revealing its smooth curves. Not yet what you could call a working kitchen though is it?   Am I the only one who always hopelessly misjudges what I can do in a certain amount of time?  I look at the bits of my day that are committed and assume that the res...

Things that make me smile: Chickens, the one left behind suddenly realising and running after the others like a cartoon chicken, suddenly panic stricken, legs akimbo, all flap and silliness. Cockerels shouting at each other, calling and fussing, gathering their girls to them for a particularly tasty morsel. Hens in a dust bath, settling, fluffing their wings, scratching and dousing themselves in dust as if it were water. My grandson, serious, silly, three years old, all blond hair and blue eyes. We are driving. A voice comes from the back. "Grandma." "Yes, love." "I'm beautiful." "Are you, love? That's nice." What is going on here, a very young narcissist? "Yes, and my mummy is very beautiful." "Well you're a very lucky boy." My father in law, telling me yet again, both amused and indignant, at his horror on discovering that the chocolate chip ice cream he had bought was green. "Green! I thought it was...

There has been an outpouring of comment today about Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's programme on free range chicken. Reading through the comments about the choices people make in the food they buy made my head reel: organic, free range, local or none of these. There are environmental issues and animal welfare issues as well as questions as to how much money and time you have. There are health issues and class issues and issues about how well travelled you are or wish to appear to be. It is a nightmare. So here is my attempt at what I do and why I do it, in the hopes that writing it down will help me to see the inconsistencies and that other people's comments will help me to work out whether I would like to do anything differently. I have bought only free range eggs for years and now we get about two eggs a day from our own chickens. There is no doubt that there is a difference in the freshness of using newlaid eggs and I love the fact that the chickens who are a pleasure to have ...

Here are my mood lifters as promised to Cait: An hour in the garden, not working too hard but poddling:deadheading roses, watering my lavender cuttings, picking some sweetpeas; inspecting the kitchen garden, looking for snails and throwing them over the hedge into the field next door (hope you don't mind Peter) and looking at crops, deciding what to eat tonight, just gentle pottering. Half an hour watching the bantams clucking and busy in the hen run, their contented little noises seem to soothe any angst and I bet if anyone measured the effect of watching chickens would be to lower the blood pressure. Taking a cup of tea outside onto the bench in the sun and watching the view and the birds coming and going (I feel I am getting a theme going here, hadn't realised how many of my mood busters were connected to being outside). Sorting and putting away laundry. There is something about matching socks and making piles of clean, sweet smelling towels that is soothing and satisfying. ...

I arrived back from London last night tired and cross and with lots of work to do today. There is an email from my friend who is hatching the chicks: fifteen out now, would I like to come and look? So this afternoon I left my computer muttering to itself and went up to see. A few weeks ago we had a beautiful drive through the spring green and the trees down the Welsh border to a farm near Chirk where we chose four breeds of chicken. We came back carefully nursing egg boxes on my knee with twenty six fertilised eggs for hatching. Fourteen went into the incubator in P's dining room and the rest went under a broody Buff Orpington and we held our breath. Ten days ago they began to hatch, the eggs shaking gently and cheeping away like little toys. The ones in the incubator did better than the ones under the hen as the hen was inclined to get up and wander away, not the most attentive mother. One of P's Welsummers also became broody so she took some of the eggs from the Buff and now ...