It has been a while since we posted, sorry, Hannah has gone full  time teaching and I have been finishing off my degree. We have been really busy with all the rain and the storms, mud and repairs have become the norm recently.
All the birds are getting ready to start breeding soon. We bought a pair of Muscovy ducks last summer (Darth and Padme) they had seven beautiful ducklings hatch last September and all are doing very well. We have therefore decided to use Padme to hatch the West of England eggs this spring. Speaking of West of England’s we lost four to a mink in October 3 girls, it got in through the gaps in the corrugated roof, I wouldn't have thought that possible. All it did was
bite them on the back of the neck and drink the blood what a waste. Therefore this year we will only have very small numbers of eggs and no birds available until I replace the lost girls. I am grafting some apple trees from our cider
apple tree in February; I will post a video on how I do it, when I get a minute. Better get back to it while there is a gap in the rain.

It’s a glorious sunny day here in Cornwall, and dust bath central for the chickens they seem to be making up for all the soggy wet ground that we’ve had over the last few months.  It really is one of my favourite things to see a group of hens flapping, scratching and rolling around in the dirt sending it flying everywhere!

We’ve also been busy potting on our seedlings ready to be put in to the greenhouse – don’t you just love the smell of tomato plants!? Mark has been planting some new fruit trees in the goose enclosure; much to the delight of the geese as they immediately began to gnaw on the tree trunks (cue a horrified Mark speedily trying to protect his new trees from their wrath)

Its almost felt like spring this last week no sign of rain and we have seen the sun every day. We have been really busy catching up on jobs you can't do in the wet and the ground is getting a well deserved break from the rain. Its been all hands on deck seeing as its half term and as a result we are ready to start hatching chicks and goslings. The new West of Engalnd geese are laying well and have fitted in with our existing flock, our two ganders looked very pleased to see them. We already have some fertile eggs in the incubator, I will try and get a video or some photos of the new goslings hatching as long as its not in the middle of the night. As promised I have attached a photo of one of the new girls (Florence).

Really excited this weekend as part our drive to refresh our  breeding stock this year, we are travelling to Dorset tomorrow to buy two more  POL West of England geese. We are going to make a new breeding trio with one of our unrelated ganders this will allow us to have two lots of unrelated breeding flocks. Isabel is so excited, she can’t wait to go and collect them. I will post pictures of our new arrivals when they are settled in. If both flocks are still laying when I have filled in incubator we will be selling the remaining eggs.

Well the summer is well and truly over, it's not stopped raining here all day - in fact it's rained, and rained and then rained some more!  Everywhere is like a bog, oh well isn't that what wellies are for?  The weather is supposed to improve over the next week, so fingers crossed there's lots to be done...as always

In a rather exciting (for Ollie anyway) and unexpected turn, we have acquired some unsexed silkie chicks at a local poultry auction.   They were unwanted by anyone else there;  you can always rely on an 8 year old to tug silently and pleadingly at dad's heartstrings, thus causing him to place the one and only, and therefore the winning bid.  Lets just hope they don't all turn out to be boys.  Silkies are notoriously hard to sex so hopefully he's in with a chance of getting a girl or two.  We've got one very happy little boy!

It's also one of my favourite times of year, blackberry picking season.  There's something very satisfying about foraging around and collecting tubs full of the juicy, ripe fruit and making jar upon jar of jam with it to see you through the winter months.  There are few things better than your own home made jam on toast and a cup of tea in the morning.  

If you are planning on making your own blackberry jam, be sure to not pick fruit that is growing next to busy roads and once picked soak your blackberries over night in water.  It is also important to use a specialised jam sugar, which you can easily pick up at your local supermarket. As blackberries are a relatively soft fruit, they're naturally low in pectin; this means that jam produced from blackberries alone will not produce a firm set.  It is possible to buy pectin (again from your supermarket) and add this to your fruit, but to be honest I find this a real pain in the proverbial.  Instead I simply add apples to the pot, as they are naturally high in pectin.  As a rule of thumb the softer the fruit the lower pectin content.

Happy Autumn, and happy blackberry picking 

We are really excited and very busy at the moment. We have our new west of England goslings growing well even though we lost one to a mystery illness, even the vet was at a loss. It was hard when we lost Bill, "named after Bill oddie from the goodies, as oliver loves the jack and the bean stalk episode with the flying geese." So it looks like we have two geese and two ganders. The Norfolk bronze turkeys have just gone in the incubator, so hopefully free range turkey not goose this christmas. All our fruit and crops are growing well and our first batch of blackcurrants are nearly ready. Trying to work out how to stop the crows and magpies stealing the hens eggs at the moment. We have lots of advice but they only work for a couple of days, it feels as though mother nature sees us as easy pickings be it mice,rabbits,crows,foxes and then there is the weather. At least all the water butts are full. The pigs are growing well and are acting like very naughty three year olds at the momnet, they have escaped a couple of times and caused chaos. Hopefully the rain will stop soon so I can get on with building the new goose house.