Yet more produce from the garden

I went outside to check on Fleck the broody Serama hen and give her some fresh food and water.

I then spent 5 mins in the veg garden and Orchard

This is what I picked. 

And the peppers and tomatoes which are from an earlier 5 min trip into the polytunnel.

8 lb of Tom Putt apples, 6 lbs of Beth pears, 6 lbs of Victoria plums, 3lbs of Runner beans (Lady Di) 3 lbs of Climbing French beans (Blue Lake)

8 lbs of Courgettes (Black Beauty, Yellow Zuccini and Nice du Rond)

4 lbs of Red Peppers (Sweet California) and 5 lbs of assorted coloured Tomatoes.

I need to make freezer Soup/Chutney/Jam to clear out the freezers of last year's produce, so we can have room to start to process this year's produce.

And get the Dehydrator out of the loft! 

Fleck the broody hen escapes!

After shutting Fleck safely away last night (cue much outraged squarking and pecking me and bok bok bokking when I removed her from the ivy covered nest on top of the wall where she'd hidden herself) 

I put her in the top of the double decker hutch she and Chancellor live in at night.

This morning I went to check on her and give her fresh food and water and she rushed at the door, squeezed herself through the gap and legged it. Bok bok bokking, as only a Broody hen can. 

Chancellor tried the "dance of love" around her, prepatory to mounting her, but she was having none of it.

Her single minded intention was to get back in that ivy!

And so, she did.

A Broody hen, who I thought was past it!

Fleck Serama hen has gone broody, and was hiding in the ivy on top of the wall.

Fortunately she was only sitting on one, very old egg (we marked it and kept removing the new laid eggs)

Now safely shut in the top section of the double decker hutch she and husband Chancellor the Serama share.

 He's now downstairs, and NOT happy!

Fleck is at least 8 years old, if not older, and I thought was well past all this hormonal nonsense!

Razor Blade of Life Blog party

Had a lovely long weekend away at Z's Blog party, over in Norfolk.

I have really struggled to do very much for the last few years, since getting Covid in March 2020 (then Long Covid, then getting Covid again in 2021, and July 2022, despite being multiple jabbed as a "vulnerable" person)

So it was fab to get away on the train, (can't drive that far any more)

Left Ledbury at 10 am, arrived in Norwich at 3.15 pm

Z and her sister Wink were as lovely as I remembered, the house is as fab as Z described, and the whole weekend was just amazing. 

I also met blog friends and Fb friends in real life, and it really cheered me up. 

And reminded me just why I used to blog, and made me want to revisit blogging, although maybe not as often as I used to. 

I hope I was a helpful guest, as well.

Still v tired from train journey back, but felt I wanted to start blogging again. 

Major ground works PT 1

After a rough couple of years with fairly major ill health scares, we have finally come round to recognising that there are some jobs we can no longer do with ease, and are finally employing people to do the hard work we used to be able to do. 

And some jobs, that we paid for many years ago, need re doing. 

One of these was the gravel drive. We had this done by an excellent local contractor more than 12 years ago

We have never used any chemicals on this place, so we don't spray weeds. We kept the weeds out of the gravel drive for many years by hand weeding, flame weeding and raking, but over the last few years it's got weedier and weedier, until, quite frankly, it looked an eyesore as you drove into the garden. 

So, we employed an another excellent local contractor to come and remove and redo the gravel drive, laying down heavyweight geotextile, then a crushed, compacted stone layer, then top gravel. 

What a difference! It looks fabulous! Mat and Luke, who did this work during the hottest week of the year so far, were amazing.

They are coming back to do more groundworks in a few weeks, so watch this space.