Releasing the chicks

Georgina, our boss goat, broke into the chick run on Sunday, damaging the door and resulting in the chicks and the mother hen getting out into the allotment. We have decided to let them continue to roam rather than convert the fruit cage into a large chick run. In the past we have had mixed results when letting mother hens and their chicks roam freely around the allotment. Sometimes there are no problems. Other times chicks can fall victim to predators such as rats. Hopefully this time they will be fine.

Quail egg and vegetable curry

Our quails are continuing to pump out more eggs than we can cope with so they are featuring in all sorts of meals. This is the quail egg and vegetable curry we made recently. It did for three meals so we were a bit curried-out by the end of it.

Rendering lamb fat

The fat from the lamb joint we had recently was not going to be wasted. We also had some lamb skins, bones and lumps of fat in the freezer from previous meals. All of it went into the pan with some water to boil it and then simmer for a few hours to render the fat. Nothing wasted.

Lamb curry

Some of the meat from one of the joints left over from our recent BBQ was put to use in this rather nice curry. Alas, the curry sauce itself was bought from our local corner shop but most of the vegetable ingredients were grown by us.

Wild gooseberries

Yesterday (Friday) I found that the goats had eaten their way through the whole branch brought down by Storm Hector on Thursday. When I was collecting more leaves for feed for the goats on a derelict allotment on the Whinnies, I discovered lots of gooseberries growing wild. I will be back soon to pick them.

Blown off branch

Storm Hector did less damage yesterday than we feared though one very large branch came off a hawthorn tree in another allotment at the Whinnies. Put it another way: this was a large meal for my goats!

Preparing for Storm Hector

Storm Hector was due to hit us on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. Some preparations were needed, not helped by my having to attend a meeting in Gateshead. Extra bricks were placed around the polytunnel to weigh it down. And extra food for the goats was picked. In the end, we had the gale, but very little rain.