Bee arrival

We couldn't manage to wait a whole week to inspect our bees, particularly as we were concerned that one of them had very little coming and going.
We opened them up and were not impressed with what we saw. A bee keeping friend came round to look also after we sent some photos. It seems there are fewer bees than there should be for what we bought - much more so in one hive than the other. The less worse hive is also not the sort of bee we bought it is a black bee rather than the buckfast. The black bee is a lot more agressive - though they can be very productive and are more hardy.
Looking at activity from the outside. The better but more agressive hive is on the left and the weaker but calmer on the right.

Preparing some insulation to go in the lid. It is useful in summer as much as winter as it helps stop the hive overheating

The frames where the bees should be laying eggs and keep their stores

There should be lots of sides covered like this but there are only 2 and a scattering of bees on a few other frames

Brood (baby bees). This is not a good coverage

Quite a few empty frames

We don't know yet whether the problem is just the number of bees the person we bought from put in to the hive or whether there is also a problem with the queen.

Growing squash up a frame

Last year a lot of the squash got eaten by rodents. The best way to keep them down is to keep the area weeded and short so they don't have anywhere to hide. This is tricky with the squash plants rambling all over the place, so this year I decided to plant them to grow up a frame.
They will be planted at the side where the ground is higher so they grow forward towards the sun.

There is also a courgette planted next to them (out of shot) as this soil is nice and fertilised with chicken and rabbit poo.

Yummy Chinese aromatic duck

I find the ducks even more fun than the chickens. They are more friendly and come running up to my feet when I go in to the enclosure. But sadly we cannot keep them all, so all the boys have been processed in to the freezer.

These two at the back of the picture are the two girls, we are keeping them for now. Perhaps we don't really need more ducks but I am hoping the male will be a bit less hard on the female with more to share his advances with.

We had home made Chinese aromatic duck with home made pancakes (haven't found anywhere round here that sells them and they are not too hard to make)

Planting things

I managed to get things in a bit earlier than last year but a couple of weeks earlier would still have been better. It is always v difficult in the spring with so much going on and then spells of bad weather to get it all prepared and then things planted.
This year we added to the challenge by having a massive tree clearing bonanza early in the spring and then changing some of the borders round the beds. They old were raised, but the new are not - they are correlated aluminium buried round the bed, the idea being that they will be easier to mow around, possibly they will disappear altogether, we will see.

Tomatoes

More tomatoes (and there are two more in pots by the house)

Cucumber

Melon (I have planted one many years and they have never come to anything, but NEVER SURRENDER!)

Chili (or pepper really as we still have many dried chili from last year)

Brocolli and 'German Cabbage' which I bought by mistake as it was hiding behind the brussels sprouts (which I failed to buy)

Lettuce

 Needs mowing

Beet root.

Chinese leaf

Looking very neat and weed free for a moment

  Protection for the brassica

Runner beans have gone in round the tripod and peas on the other supports

Chicks hatched

Last year we had issues with eggs hatching when the temperature in the room was too low, so we put them on a bit later this year once the weather was warmer. We will also hopefully be able to get them outside sooner as they are smelly little beggars, so not ideal in the house.
They are Wyandotte and Sussex/Wyandotte cross.
Twelve out of twenty hatched (four didn’t develop at all and 4 failed to hatch, I think they had not fully developed). They hatched a day earlier than expected which suggests the temperature in the incubator was a little higher than it should be. I have adjusted it ready for the next use. Might do more this year or more likely wait until next year as we have some chicken in the freezer already and hopefully we have some more ducklings coming too.

Super Easy Cookie Recipe

115g butter
1 large egg
1tsp vanilla essence

Dry ingredients
210g plain flour
100g white sugar
55g brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
75g choc chips
50g dried cranberries
1/2 tsp salt

Pre heat the oven to 175°C
Melt the butter in a pan large enough to hold all the ingredients until it is just melted, not hot.
Mix together all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
Add the egg and vanilla to the butter and mix
Add the dry ingredients to the egg/butter mix and stir until it is all just combined. You don’t want to work the gluten in the flour so don’t over mix.
Put baking paper on a tray and form the dough in to 16 (or there abouts) balls. Each ball is about the size of a walnut. Squish each ball a bit as you put it on to the baking trat.
Bake for about 20 mins or until golden brown - they go from not cooked to burnt quite quickly, so be careful. Cook for longer if you want crispier cookies. Also for crisper cookies you can cook a little hotter at 180°C

Another calf! Meet Nathalie.

We have been thinking for years that getting an extra foster calf to put on Buttercup would be a good idea. We saw a Normande calf available from a dairy that was shutting down and fell in love with her. The plan is for her to be a milk cow alongside Buttercup when we sell Venus and Myrtle.
We have a tendency to want to keep ALL the (female) cows, but grass supplies are limited.

Buttercup wasn't super impressed on meeting her and tried to smush her quite a few times.
Experts tell us that if we persist with feeding both calves together with mum tied up she should eventually relent. Nathalie was just over 2 weeks old when we got her which is just over a week ago now.

Venus is less anti her but doesn't have nearly so much milk

To allow us to manage her feeding we have to be able to lead her on a rope so we can guide her around and help her get enough milk. She wasn't impressed with this initially and threw herself to the ground several times in a big sulk. Going better now though.

Cute pic with Dorne

Night time sleeping quarters. Our calves normally spend 24hrs a day with their mums but Dorne and Nathalie are sleeping together in the stables overnight to make sure that Nathalie gets a good feed in the morning

They then spend the day with the herd, Dorne gets milk during the day but as yet Nathalie does not, so she gets another feed in the evening before bed. This is her first time outside as at the dairy she was living in a little stall. She had a nice run around and was then quite exhausted as her legs weren't used to that much activity.
She is a sweet little thing (actually she is huge compared to the Jersey calves, she is already bigger than Stu who is 6 or 7 weeks old) and we really hope Buttercup accepts her soon.

Things are slowly getting better and she can now feed when Buttercup isn't tied up as long as she sneaks in alongside Dorne. Dorne is a feisty little character which is good because she is smaller and younger than Nathalie, but as Nathalie is quite placid she has no problem holding her own.

Cow herd all together.

Disbudding calves

This is a controversial subject in some circles, but we believe it is worth a little pain now to make sure the cows are safer to handle when they grow up which means a safer and longer life for them as well as being safer for people handling them.
We use caustic paste on the horn buds before the horns develop which kills the cells that are eventually going to grow the horn. They have to be separated from the other cows for 30 mins until the paste has done its business and kept out of the rain for 6 hours. We normally separate them overnight though to be on the safe side as we really don't want the paste on a cows udder.
We have just done Wellington and now Nathalie and Dorne. We haven't managed to catch Stu, but we are thinking of vealing him at 6 months so it doesn't matter too much.

This is Dorne and Nathalie while the cream is working.

Duck harvest time

The 6 'ducklings' (1 died when they were a few months old as the male kept chasing it and it got stuck in the electric fence) are about 14 weeks old now and they were eating LOADS between them so I harvested 4 of them so we could eat instead. We have kept two females, but may sell one or both depending how we get on.

The males plucked a lot more easily than the females, I think because their feathers were more developed. They were also quite a bit bigger.

The smallest weighed 1.8 kg all prepared and the largest 2.5 kg

Mrs Duck is sitting on some more eggs so perhaps we will have some new duckings in a months time.

Bees are here!

We decided to get bees nearly 9 months ago which wasn't a good time of year to be starting out with them so it has felt like a long time coming...
Here they are on their special patio below the house.

We have seen them on the valerian outside the kitchen (well we presume it is them as we didn't see honey bees before they arrived)

This one is a bumble bee

We gave the hives to the bee man and he filled them with bees (somehow!). He said we shouldn't look inside for 2 weeks and that looking inside too often is one of the most common beginner mistakes. We are not sure we can wait that long :)
During this time they should be getting in stocks of honey and hopefully when we inspect we will be able to put a super on top which is the part of the hive we will eventually be able to harvest from.

First outing of the roccbox

The weather has been quite variable, but we took an opportunity to fire up the roccbox pizza oven for the first time this year. I had forgotten some tricks so the pizza was a bit smushed but basically ok and v tasty.

Buttercup's calf finally born

We were convinced for a week that she was about to drop her calf ANY MOMENT. 

She finally decided to go in to labour on Friday evening just as we were thinking of setting down for a nice glass of wine.

The weather set in really cold and wet so we moved her to one of the stables with plenty of hay.
She finally finished the job at 2am! We were quite tired by that time but very happy all had gone well.

The calf is a girl called Dorne, though it wasn't actually dawn she was born. We nearly called her Daenerys (Stormborn). You can tell we just re-watched the whole of Game of Thrones and then watched the final series. Overload! She is a cross between Jersey (her mum) and Gasconne which is a small beefy local breed. She is chunkier than full Jersey calves already.

Discovered quickly where food comes from

Here are the rest of the herd lining up to say hi to the new arrival