They have most of their feathers now. Indian Runners are so funny, the way they stretch their necks up and look around.
Doris, the resident brown hen, doesn’t think much of them and pecks at them if they come too close. Grace (other hen) is quite indifferent to anything going on around her and wanders around in a dream most of the time. I don’t think she’s really noticed they have arrived. The other day she pecked at something really close to the Dorking chicks – and one of them pecked back – and made Grace jump – she looked so surprised it made me laugh.
I am hoping I have a drake and a duck – I think I shall call them Oliver and Isobel – I never name anything until they have settled in – then, when I’m out with them, the names will just come to me. I always make a bit of time each day to sit and watch – the poem (by W H Davies) “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare,” often comes to mind. No point having animals and birds if you don’t get time to enjoy them.
Early June – Indian Runner Ducklings and Dorking Chicks
I decided this year might be my last chance to breed some Indian Runner ducks and some Dorking hens. Earlier in the year I had put a ‘wanted’ advert on Preloved for Dorking hens to go with Dillon, my Dorking cockerel. I had received a reply from someone in Yorkshire saying they had hatched some Dorking eggs and I replied that I would be interested when the chicks were a bit older.
By the time I got around to replying, the fox had got Dillon (I was really upset as he was a wonderful, placid, gentle, friendly cockerel.) It was during the day and I was around outside most of the day – I just couldn’t find him at bedtime – searched everywhere and all I found was one tail feather.
Anyway we went to Yorkshire to get three Dorking chicks. When we arrived, in the pen next to the chicks were some Indian Runner ducklings – so we came back with two ducks as well.
I am so scared of losing them that they have been in a pen in the hen house at night and painstakingly moved to a pen outside each day.
One of the chicks died – not sure what happened but one morning he just sat all hunched up and within a few hours he had gone. The other two are thriving, not sure yet of course if they are boys are girls!
Now the ducklings are bigger I have let them have free run of the hen house but they are not going outdoors until I am sure they know where home is and I’ve checked that there are no gaps they can get through! The first day, they stood poking their heads out of the door and looking all around. Can’t wait until they go outside and find the pond! They love the water bowl and try swimming in it but they are much too big to even get their heads under the water now.
Summer took so long to arrive, it was so cold – and so wet – for so long, we seemed to miss Spring altogether and, when the sun finally did come out, summer crash landed with a profusion of flowers, all blooming at the same time. The daffodils slowly struggled into life, then the sun shone and the tulips rapidly joined them, celandines and coltsfoot dotted the hedgerows and then they all quickly faded away, giving way to bluebells and buttercups.
All the flowers came out in rapid succession with hardly any time to savour their individual colours and scents. The apple blossom was amazing, a profusion of apple white touched with pink, raining down confetti petals in the breeze. Now lilacs and wisteria vie for attention with their delicate mauves and sweet scents.
The clematis climbing up the ancient barn surprised me one morning with an array of flowers which seemingly opened overnight and, trying to catch up with weeding the vegetable patch I looked up and suddenly noticed that the irises were all out, flashing their yellow flowers at the sun.
And the roses – they all seemed to bloom together, to open in a rush, to catch the sunshine, before it disappeared again. Clouds of petals, sweetly scented, creating a beautiful archway that saturates the senses with perfumed peachy petals, a paradise for bees.
I almost despaired of ever planting the onions and potatoes this year, it was so cold, and the garden was so wet you couldn’t tell where the pond ended and the garden began. A veritable smorgasbord for slugs and snails who have proliferated everywhere, I like those little banded snails which are so pretty but not the slimy slugs, you would need really big frogs to eat some of the slugs I’ve found this year.
I was really worried about the frogs, they were very late arriving in the pond to find a mate, then when the first frog spawn did appear, the pond froze over again and I thought the tiny eggs would all die – but they didn’t and the tadpoles have had lots of rainwater to grow up in.
The fields are now full of buttercups ‘the little children’s dower’ I often think of William Wordsworth languishing abroad and am so glad I live in England – even with its precocious weather.
This article was published in the June edition of the Whitchurch Gossip
Freezing mint ready to make mint sauce later in the year.
There’s nothing like fresh mint sauce, made with freshly chopped mint – and freshly frozen mint is almost as good. If your mint bed is is thriving, now is a good time to pick some and freeze it. Just chop it and seal it in plastic bags. You can do the same with parsley ready for parsley sauce. I also freeze small quantities of basil, oregano, marjoram, coriander and tarragon for adding to meals like spaghetti bolognese and curries.
I have two varieties of mint in my garden, apple mint (on the left) and spearmint (on the right).
I find apple mint is the best variety to add to early potatoes to get that ‘new potato taste’ and to make mint sauce. Spearmint leaves are delicious with Pimms, mixed with lemonade, lemon slices, cucumber slices, strawberries and ice.
To make mint sauce:
Mix together in a jug:
1 tblsp chopped mint leaves (fresh or frozen)
1 tblsp malt vinegar
hot water (ideally cabbage water)
1 tsp sugar
Often you don’t have to go very far to find Today’s treasures
June is a delicious month, a time of strawberries, new potatoes flavoured with apple mint, and the first broad beans melting with butter. And the gardens are alive with colours – yellow flag irises decorate ponds, azaleas brighten up patios, rhododendrons mist the hillsides with a purple haze and poppies startle you with their brilliant red blooms.
Butterflies and damselflies flex their wings and the heady scents of honeysuckle and wild roses fill the hedgerows. Bees are busy investigating every single foxglove flower and the buttercups dance their golden heads in the summer breeze.
The bird table is alive with hatchlings, families of blue tits and great tits vie for space on the feeders – and the swallows return from far off places, wheeling and diving across our skies. Alas, gone are the times when the cuckoo called across our fields and the skylarks sang high above our heads – we need to go further into the wilds of Wales to hear these birds now, but we get more visitors to our bird table – goldfinches, nuthatches and great spotted woodpeckers love peanuts and sunflower seeds.
June is also the time to make elderflower champagne (not really champagne – and in fact not alcoholic at all if you drink it soon enough – but it tastes delicious). Iced elderflower cordial is the perfect complement for summer lunches – these traditional recipes were handed down to me by two elderly aunts – handwritten on yellowing paper, now immortalised on my website: visit www.barbararainford.co.uk/recipes
So quite often, you don’t have to go very far for Today’s Treasures, you can always find something new in your own back yard – a blackbird’s liquid notes heralding the dawn, daisies opening up their petals to the sun’s rays, a glimpse of the first wild rose, the sweetness of strawberries, or honeysuckle’s saturating scent – stimulating all our senses. As our very own Shropshire A.E. Housman said: “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” Take a moment to enjoy Today’s Treasures.
Published in the June edition of the Whitchurch Gossip
New Zealand White Rabbits – all Eny and Holly’s babies have new homes
I had the most wonderful day on Sunday. All 12 baby rabbits went to new homes and will become breeding rabbits. One breeding trio (one buck and two does) will be going to Portugal with their new owner in September. Brendon was telling me about his smallholding and how much he is looking forward to retiring there – and he will be taking Eny and Holly’s babies with him. He said he has had to build a really strong fence to protect his livestock – the foxes are bigger there – and there are golden eagles and otters that eat rabbits and poultry.
This is the first time I have had two litters from different parents so they can be sold as breeding pairs – but I discovered it’s quite complicated working out the best way to pair them off. It sounds simple but one breeder wanted one buck and one doe and Malcolm wanted two bucks and two does (from different litters) to increase the number of wild white rabbits that visit his Manor House garden. He realised that my rabbits would not be used to being outside so he has built a pen for them as an interim stage to ‘going wild’. It was so lovely to see them hopping about on the grass. My breeding bucks and does live in pens outside most of the time but it’s too dangerous for the babies. All sorts of things eat them – not least our cats – Lunar and Sooty – who are the same size as my bucks and eat wild rabbits for fun!
Eny and Holly are both due to have new litters next weekend. If everything goes as well as last time, I shall be delighted.
This year I decided to make a scarecrow. We lost our little Betsy dog last year – she was always with me when I was in the garden and I was feeling a bit lonely. I thought a scarecrow might offer some company – at least I wouldn’t be talking to myself! I was quite pleased with the result – an old mop was perfect to start with and, at first, he looked so real that he kept making me jump.
I’ve called him Humphrey – and, amazingly, he works! I usually have to cover my baby peas with fleece to stop the pigeons eating them but Humphrey has proved to be an excellent deterrent. The peas are bigger now and protected by privet twigs so I have moved Humphrey to the strawberry bed to stop the blackbirds pinching my strawberries. So far it seems to be working. But, strictly speaking, Humphrey is a scare-pigeon or a scare-blackblackbird!
Midsummer – time to make Elderflower Champagne – which is not champagne – or alcoholic – at all – but, according to my family, is every bit as good as champagne:
Elderflower Champagne
4 large elderflower heads
2 lemons – rind and juice
2 tblsp white wine vinegar
1 lb 8 oz of granulated sugar
7 pints cold water
You will need 2 large clean buckets – one to make the champagne in and another to strain the champagne into.
Remove flower petals from elderflower heads (just rub the flowers off the stalks – it’s not critical if some stalks get in as well) and put in a bucket with rind and juice of 2 lemons.
Add water and vinegar and stir well.
Leave for 2 days, stirring night and morning.
Strain through a stocking held over a sieve or colander into the second bucket.
Add sugar and stir well.
Leave 24 hours then bottle in screw top bottles. (Plastic pop bottles will do fine.)
It should be ready to drink after about a week.
If not drinking straight away you will need to release the tops of the bottles regularly so they don’t explode – or you can use old port bottles with corks.
Sailing across Shropshire on a sultry September evening.
Hot air balloons are surreal and it’s lovely to watch them drifting over the Shropshire fields but they are so silent they can be right above you without you knowing. We used to have a Jack Russell terrier who would bark like mad when he saw a balloon but he’s gone now so I have no warning. Totally engrossed in weeding the vegetable patch the other evening, it really made me jump – creeping silently across the sky and then the burner suddenly roaring just above my head!
Butterflies and bees – and other insects – absolutely love buddleia and I’ve spent many hours in the August sunshine simply watching the different butterflies – this is a peacock which is one of our prettiest but our buddleia attracts red admirals, tortoiseshells and commas as well as speckled woods and cabbage whites. The common purple buddleia is quite vigorous and needs a lot of cutting back so choose a calmer variety if you have a small garden. Keep cutting off the dead flowers and it will continue flowering through September.
