Horn trimming

 

Perky had his horns trimmed this week. One was heading to being in-growing if it wasn't cut. He is now looking as elegant as usual.

Bath time

 

4 ducklings hatched in our incubator recently. We added them to the duckling run where they were adopted by the slightly older ducklings we got a few weeks ago. As you can see, they rather like bathing together in the seed tray we use as a water bowl. They have a paddling pool as well which we use as a duck pond.

Cod!

 

A friend has been fishing in the Shetlands. He caught this rather nice cod and has now swapped it with me. I will be providing jams etc in return. It's rather nice to have fish back in our diet. We have so little of it now as the two people we previously traded with for fish are no longer in a position to go fishing.

Gooseberry and raspberry gins

 

It's not just jam we've been making with our gooseberries and raspberries. We've been making fruit liqueurs as well.

Gooseberry and raspberry jam

 

Plenty of gooseberries and raspberries to pick at the moment. They go well together as a jam. The gooseberries supply tartness and pectin while the raspberries supply the sweetness. I made 16 jars the other day.

Goat food glut

 

Lots of hedges in our area are being cut at the moment and people are giving us their hedge trimmings to feed to the goats. We have an enormous glut but the goats will be feasting for some days to come.

Dinner tonight!

We are having a duck egg and goat cheese flan for dinner tonight. Home produced and home made. Yum!

Self-sufficient salad

 

A rather pleasant salad for lunch recently and most ingredients were home produced: potatoes, quail eggs. lettuce, herbs and goat cheese. The mayonnaise sadly came out of a bottle purchased in the local supermarket.

Making butter

 

Now that we are milking the goat, we are able to make butter from the cream. And Mabel's milk has lots of cream in it!

Milking Mabel

 

Mabel is now producing far more milk than her baby needs so we are milking her to take off the surplus.

Slow move forward to a sloe crop

 

It has been years since we have had a decent crop of sloes but I spotted a blackthorn in a local hedgerow recently which had lots of fruit on it. Not yet ripe but it could be that we are heading for a decent crop this autumn. Fingers crossed.

The baby is named

 

Our new Anglo-Nubian billy kid has now been named. We asked local residents to come up with names and we would choose the best. We chose one with an Egyptian theme (the Nubian desert is partly in Egypt). To find out the new name, click on the video!

Is she or isn't she

Over the winter, our Anglo-Nubian nanny, Bubble, was in with Perky, one of our billy goats. She did not get pregnant. But more recently she has been in with Sunny, our other billy. And now there are signs she may be pregnant. We are not entirely sure, but we are hopeful. We are keeping an eye on her. We'll keep you updated.