Coming home to roost

We have added a new, large roosting perch to our large hen house. The chickens love it! There was no space left on it tonight for the chickens going to roost late.

Strawberry and gooseberry jam

Both the strawberry and gooseberry crops are now in. They make a good combination in jam with the sweetness of strawberries balancing the tartness of the gooseberries. The latter provide the pectin necessary for the jam to set. I made these jars a few days ago. I still have strawberries and gooseberries left to use up however, so I'm not free of the jam-making duties of the kitchen yet.

Goat cheese flans

These two flans were the result of a decision to use up some of the ricotta goat cheese we have frozen in large quantities. We are also trying to be a bit more organised with our meals so we can make steady progress with using up the huge stocks of food we have in the four freezers we have. We will have to eat our way to victory in this battle!

Gooseberry crumble

We have gathered in our gooseberry crop. We have an awful lot of them! Some have gone into making crumble. I felt quite decadent having it for breakfast this morning!

Putting the kids to work

Recently, one of the neighbouring allotment holders asked us to put a couple of our goats onto a corner of his plot so they could clear the weeds. So in between making rhubarb chutney I moved them over. A free meal for them and a cleared space ready for planting for the allotment holder!

Two fairs and a swarm

The bees have been on swarm overdrive this summer. Inevitably, on the day we were due to attend two local fairs, one of my hives produced another swarm that needed capturing.

Another swarm

I'm a bit behind with my video editing. This was filmed at the end of last month - another honey bee swarm collected and housed.

Stripped bare!

We went to the Whickham Community Fayre on Saturday to sell our preserves and eggs. Froma nearly full table at the start, we were almost stripped bare by the end! The goats and ducklings we took along with us also proved to be popular.

Georgie fully recovered

Georgie, our youngest billy goat, had been hobbling around on 3 legs recently. We took him to the vet and he was found to have an infection in one of his toes. I'm pleased to report he is now fully recovered and is back to his old ways.

Ducklings now moved

We have now moved the 4 ducklings from the chick run in the back garden to the much bigger chick run on our livestock allotment. They are sharing the run with 22 chicks but they have their own duck house which we built from rescued wooden planking which was due to be burnt by the builders due to move onto a building site down the road from us. We had permission of course!

The ducklings have settled in well though they are a bit nervous of the chicks, some of which are bullies!

Clearing the weeds

Yesterday we lent out Danny and Sandy, our two goat kids, to one of the neighbouring allotments where a patch of ground was overgrown with weeds. They chomped their way through them for a couple of hours before we took them back home (a journey of about 10 seconds!) Today they will return to finish the job.