We have our first school visit of the year tomorrow. Having misread the calendar, I thought it was next Tuesday. Now, though I’m not exactly in a panic, I’m not quite as relaxed as I could be.
News just in from the allotment, that the comfrey patch has been wrecked, has helped to further elevate the stress levels.
You wouldn’t think it was hard to manage a site where you can see (and even shout) from one end to the other, but it is. You’d also think that most people, knowing that we have a butterfly garden, would leave buddleias as butterfly food. But they don’t – although they haven’t actually pulled any out this year they did try to weed them out several times in the last couple of years.
To be honest, I’m beginning to wonder if I’d be better killing a few of them and burying them in the bean trench. The volunteers, that is, not the buddleia or the comfrey, which, unlike the volunteers, are both useful in the garden.
The good news is that the goats are looking good, that the potato and leek soup went down well, that we are having home-baked bread on Wednesday and that we are embarking on an exercise in scientific poultry management.
I am putting some kit together and by next week we should be in a position to monitor egg weights, bird weights and food consumption. We started by counting the birds today. We’re going to do it again on Wednesday just to be sure (they will keep moving!)
So that’s it, our customary halting progress, with one step forward and two steps back, but at least we’re doing it in the sunshine.
I will leave you with that positive thought, and a selection of goat pictures.
No, actually I’ll leave you with a picture of Julia and her new Diploma in Human Nutrition. I’m suspicious, but she seems to think it qualifies her to pass comment on my diet (apparently “chips” and “fried food” aren’t recognised as food groups by the awarding body) and who am I to argue? I’m at an age where I wouldn’t be able to find anyone else to put up with me if she kicks me into touch so looks like I’ll have to grin and bear it (at least until I perfect the art of slipping out for illicit burgers).
Note serious expression and scholarly spectacles.
Love the goats! What camera are you using? I was eyeing the Olympus cameras when the Fujifilm was last in for repair. 🙂
Olympus SZ 14. My wife had an earlier model and it was by far the best compact I’d used. It’s less solidly built than my previous Lumix, but easier to use and with better features. Only problem we have had (touch wood!) is a broken screen on wife’s camera after I trod on it.
Nice. Bookmarked on Amazon. I have a fujifilm xf1 compact camera. Absolutely fantastic camera ‘when it works’. 19 months old and sensors been repaired 4 times. :-/
Well done Julia! I’d probably listen to the lady with the diploma in Human Nutrition if I were you 😉
We’ve been married 27 years – that wouldn’t have happened if I listened to everything she said! 😉
Hahaha!
Congrats to Julia
Thanks, I’ll past that on when she stops telling me about the evils of biscuits… (sigh!)
Great goat pics. Do human corpses make good compost?
I’m prepared to do the cutting edge research on that question. 😉
🙂