Day 5 of egg incubation

The chicken eggs have been incubating for 5 days now. The sample set of 5 eggs weighed 291g at the beginning and now weigh 279. A loss of 12g as water evaporates from the eggs. Over 20 days they should lose between 32 and 37g (11-13%) but at the current rate they will lose 48g. If they don’t lose enough weight the chick drowns as it hatches, if they lose too much the chick is shrink wrapped in the membrane inside the shell and can’t hatch! 

I have added some water to up the humidity and slow the rate of loss...  On the outside the eggs look just the same as when they started, but inside you can see a little blob less than a cm across with veins coming out of it. The little blob moves a bit, it has started growing a heart, a spine, a nervous system, eyes, ears, nose, legs, wings and a tongue. It was during day 5 that reproductive organs and differentiation between the sexes started. It will soon start on beak, feathers and claws. A few haven’t grown - there can be a number of reasons, the egg isn’t fertilised, the genetics just aren’t viable, there is something wrong with the egg itself...

You can see the little blob and veins.

Growing things

We are tired after visits to the vet with the sick ewe, but still managed to do a variety of useful things.

Planted some comfrey as I read it is good to feed to chickens - they turn their enclosure in to a wilderness where only nettles and brambles grow and it is a nutritious green for them.

Put some chicks on to incubate

Planted various seeds

Stacked some mini wood for the ozpig

Wandered around the potager

Sprayed some naughty greenfly on the roses. It seems very early for them!

Chicken Thai red curry for dinner as a reward after all the hard work (chicken to celebrate the new chickens that will hatch in 3 weeks!)

Mini Banana Cake Recipe

70g butter
70g sugar
70g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder (added to the flour)
1 banana (or half a banana and some raisins or choc chips)
1 egg

10cm round tin

Spoonful of icing mixed with a bit of water to make a drizzle icing.


Cream butter and sugar
Add mashed banana and egg and mix roughly
Add flour (and baking powder) and mix until smooth
Stir in raisins or choc chips if using
Put in a tin and bake for about 30 mins at 170°C until a toothpick/fork/whatever comes out clean.

When somewhat cooled drizzle the icing over the cake.
Serve still warm! Yum!

First ever problem with a Ouessant giving birth

We have had a sad few days. One of the Ouessant had problems giving birth. The lamb died and even the vet couldn’t get it out. Seems likely it was breech. 

Eventually after a number of injections the vet did manage to get it out, but it was a bit rotted and gruesome by then. Pretty unpleasant experience for the ewe (and us!). She has recovered after antibiotics that I had to inject for a few days.

We will probably cull her in the autumn as we don’t want a repeat of this problem (birthing problems are rare in Ouessants and she has had other lambs ok, but we don’t know what the effect of these problems will be on her). Seems sad to have gone to the effort of saving her just to kill her, but that is life, we can’t have one we don’t want bred as they all live with the ram.

Cornbread waffles

60g plain flour
75g corn flour
25g melted butter
115ml milk
1 medium/small egg
30g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Mix together the dry ingredients
Mix together the wet ingredients
Mix the wet in to the dry until just combined
Cook in a tin for 30 mins or use a waffle iron!

No Knead Sourdough Bread

Start in the evening so it rises overnight and is ready for baking during the morning
400g Bread Flour
300ml Water
45g Sourdough (100% fed in the morning)
1tsp salt

You can also make with plain flour, but as this has less gluten you need to prove it a bit less long and use more starter. Generally you need to use less water too as the flour seems less absorbent.

Mix everything together in a bowl. Leave overnight, it should double in size.
Shape and prove a second time.
Bake in casserole dish/dutch oven for about 40 mins (put in to cold oven) at 180°C and then out of the dish for another 15 or 20 mins  until well browned.

This is a plain flour loaf, I find a tin works better as the dough is less strong and needs help holding its shape.

Planting potatoes

We haven’t done potatoes for some years because I find them too much effort. All the digging and mounding up and weeding of such a large area - and then the bastard voles eat a load of them anyway!

But this year we decided we had better make more efforts at self sufficiency. I had to ask specially for the seed potatoes at Point Vert as the lock down rules had closed that part of the shop (no selling flowers)

We started a new bit of ground for them. Here it is roughly rotovated

This is the main potager area and it is off the end of this to the right on a slope

The potatoes

Beautiful! Two beds of them.

Here is Doug rotovating another bed in the main potager. I didn’t get a photo of him doing the bit for potatoes

Yet another fallen tree

The fallen trees are getting dealt with in a priority order depending on how much they are in the way.

This on is on the grassy area behind the house and fell on a fence that we needed to free up to be able to put the sheep there. We’d been considering cutting it, but it probably wouldn’t have been this year as there is too much to do already!

We can leave it like this for now as it isn’t in the way of the fence any more

Nice dinner outside to relax afterwards... Sangria, popcorn and pizza - we normally have pizza on a Friday, but the weather was forecast nicer for today and we wanted to use the roccbox. So Saturday pizza it was. Crazy huh?!

This is the candle holder Doug made for my birthday from a bit of one of the many fallen trees. Cool huh?

Rye Bread Recipe

400g rye flour

270g water

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

Sunflower seeds (optional)

I have tried baking and steaming the mix. Both are great. To bake you can do it in a tin or free form. To steam you need something like a heatproof wide neck canning jar that you can put in a pan with water. People also use old catering size metal tins (from beans or whatever...). The one I use is 1l.

Mix everything together and knead. I find I have to do it by hand as it just won't come together in the kitchen aid and it all ends up splatted on the edge of the bowl. The dough is very sticky compared to 'normal' bread dough. You just have to struggle on. I putting a little oil on the work surface and doing it on that works best.

Leave in a warm place to rise until nearly doubled in size (rye doesn't rise as much as normal bread).

Knock  back and put in to your cooking container or shape the loaf.

Leave to rise a second time until nearly doubled in size. About 45 mins.

Cook in the oven at 180C for 30 mins or put it in the pan of water and simmer for about 2 hours.

For sourdough I do the same recipe but with 40g of starter instead of the yeast and leave overnight for the first prove and then a few hours in a warm place for the 2nd one.

Normal oven loaf

Boiled/steamed loaf

Sourdough loaf