welsh hills again

The dog went home and I raised my head from the world of dogfood, chewsticks and the downstay.  The cat came in again, somewhat crossly, and made its displeasure at its exile clear by sleeping in my chair instead of on the sofa. At the beginning of the week the garden was glowing in summer heat.  Even the roses were throwing a last glorious party.  By the end of it, the temperature had dropped ten degrees and the wind had flattened the cosmos, still flowering their hearts out in the cutting garden. Inside the stripy little Welsummer chicks were beginning to show their first true feathers. As the dog's owner returned, I disappeared off for a weekend with elder daughter, son in law and nearly two year old grandson.  Grandson makes me laugh all the time.  He is obsessed with cars and trains and all kind of vehicles and rides everywhere on his little trike, beeping slowly and carefully every time he goes backwards to show that he is reversing. ...

September can be a golden month, all soft gold light, tawny leaves, rosehips and shimmering dews.  Not today though.  Today there is a cold wind blowing with the faint, steely smell of winter in it.  Grey clouds scud fast on a low sky above the ridge.  Everywhere there are things to do before the cold weather comes. The second hatching of chicks this year produced these three: two Scots Dumpies, with the grey and white feathering now settling as they lose their fluffy chickness and emerge from the spiky teenage stage, and one brown Barnevelder, still a bit scraggy about the neck.  They are going outside in a week or so to a new chicken house which Ian has been weather proofing. I like the design of this one very much, with the area under the house to extend the run for the chickens when they are confined, a ramp down from the house and such refinements as a double nest box, just seen at the side, and a peephole at the back.  Ian tells...

Time for an update on the huge variety of projects which have been going on around here, quickly or, more honestly, slowly. The roof was finished in January.  What kind of fool has his or her roof reslated over winter?  Well our kind, obviously.  The roofers did a great job.  Many days there were three generations of the same family working on our roof, the father coming out of retirement because it was an interesting job to do, his grandson now the fifth generation of his family to be a roofer.  Slate is a beautiful material.   I took this one before the scaffolding came down.  Beyond the house you can see one of the yew trees.  It almost makes you wish you could live up on the roof. Ian built a lovely set of shelves which make the curved end of the worktop in the front kitchen.  Work on the back kitchen has stalled since my father in law came to live with us as the scale of the upheaval would be a bit daunting but the front kitchen is ...

The electricians came.  More of our house fell gently into the kitchen. I planted out annuals into the cutting garden and ox eye daisies into the orchard. The chicks got lost in  the long grass. The state of our house sent us off to our pub for burgers and very good chips. Ian wanted to watch "Dave".  I was snotty.  QI was on and I was wrong. It got, happily and hardworkingly and the days are too short, to bed time.

Go away, can't you see I have chicks to look after? Oh my God, I have lost one.  Nobody ever tells you how hard this mothering business is.  I need eyes in the back of my head. No, it's OK.  All present and correct again.  Why don't you just go away and leave me alone?  I have work to do and you are really not helping.

Our Welsummer hen has been broody for a while and sitting tight on six eggs for the last three weeks.  A hen sits for twenty one days so I had been expecting the eggs to begin to hatch tomorrow.  This afternoon I was out in the kitchen garden inspecting the growth of the gooseberries as an alternative to doing anything more strenuous in the blue, still heat, when I heard a cheeping.  At first I thought it was a bird in the hedge but when I stood very still it seemed to be coming from the henhouse. We went over for a look.  When we lifted the lid the hen was still sitting with the familiar spread wings.  The cheeping fell silent.  Ian gently lifted her to have a look.  The first thing we saw was a couple of empty eggshells and then a tiny yellow chick, already beginning to fluff out. Moving her again there was another chick, this one still wet and flat and two more empty eggshells along with the two eggs yet to hatch.  The nesting box she was i...