I’ve now added another piece of foraged food to the list (and will be writing it up in the Wild Food section shortly. Day lily buds. We don’t have many lilies but after watching several school groups grab pieces for their nature bling activity I decided that I may as well have one.

It was quite good. Fresh-tasting, a touch of onion and a flavour of something else I can’t quite place. I would, I thought, be happy to eat them again, particularly sauteed in butter or tempura style as often recommended. However, when I sat down to look at some websites I noticed as phenomenon I’d seen before.

Before you eat something all the websites are glowing, positive and eager to tell you there’s no possibility of misidentification.

After you eat it they are all more cautious. It’s a story much like the dahlia story – there are so many cultivars people are no longer sure what is edible and what isn’t – though in the case of dahlias this revolves around taste rather than possible side effects.

The general feeling is that they want somebody to sit down and eat all the available cultivars, making notes as they go. Sounds like my dream job – eating stuff in an attempt to cause illness and not being paid for it. I wonder why nobody is doing it as we speak…

I’ll cover this more in the Wild Food section

We’re now bottle-feeding a kid. It won’t take a bottle so we’re using a tube at the moment. It seems to be perking up but I’ve learnt never to expect too much from these situations. That’s the best bit of being on the farm without being part of it so we can take the benefit of cute animals without the emotional investment of sitting up all night feeding them. I say “we” but I am absolutely brilliant at delegating. Or lazy, as my wife would have it. She still hasn’t forgiven me for the dik-dik incident.

I spotted this unusual sprig of variegated mint while I was walking round with the camera. Can’t make up my mind whether to try and breed from it (in case anyone wants to grow anaemic mint in the garden) or leave it. So far I’ve left it. In due course I will probably read about a plantsman who is running an Aston Martin on the proceeds of breeding “Ghost Mint”. Then again, perhaps not.

We’ve also viewed piglets, spotted butterflies, captured a mint moth and evicted it from the kitchen and, finally, given Tim (the Xmas Elf) his going-away card. He’s off to work in Europe, though at the moment he’s finishing cleaning up the bee equipment. This involves flame, scrapers and a cloud of wasps.

The cloud of wasps isn’t strictly necessary but it came along anyway.