The seed catalogs are arriving; thick,
glossy magazines, full of lots of new plants for the year ahead. It's snowy
outside and although the wind is howling a seed catalog can warm you up as well
as a log fire, in the middle of winter.
At Stoneback farm the growing season
starts with fencing off the kitchen garden. It will be a wooden structure that
can hold a tank, read Molly sitting on it... First I thought a tall net could
do the job but our hens are very good at flying so we would end up with
visitors amongst the lettuce, anyway. So why not make a pretty fence, instead?
We will never keep the happy gardening hens out, but at least they turn the
soil for us. Our dear sheep tend to walk all over things, not really on
purpose, it just sort of happens. They remind me a lot of Shetland ponies, our
sheep. I know it will end up with me fenced in, and four interested woolly
friends leaning on the fence, asking how I am getting on. At least the crops will
stand a chance, that way.
Every year I have big plans, new
varieties of plants to try out and every year I end up with the favourites;
beans, lettuce, carrots, herbs and peas for Mr. Chip. If we don't have peas,
the summer is not complete and our dear dog can't sit and watch them grow. We
did not have a vegetable patch last summer as there was no time. I ended up
buying peas from the market for him. " Not the same thing!", was the
verdict, but better than nothing. So this year will be a bumper crop of peas!
Two different kinds as well, apparently. There will also be tomatoes and
cucumber of course. Cucumbers are Mr. Chips second favourite treat.
Mindy, Mandy, Molly and My will eat
the carrots, the hens will keep the lettuce in place so it will never fully
grow and I will be watering. The trick is to sow Marigold and Pot marigold in
between the peas and the carrots. It looks pretty, keeps the weed from taking
over and the smell makes the hens think twice about coming near them. Oregano
is also good for that purpose; it just spreads so wildly, read everywhere.
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| Credit: Dasha Dimitrova |
The cold has let up a bit and our dear
sheep can enjoy some time outside, again. Darya will have a wonder about,
checking that all is well with her beloved snow. Monty and Eric will look at me
like I have gone around the last bend, when suggesting that they could pop out
for a while to and life will get back to being a bit normal.
The lock on the stable door fell off
in the middle of the worst cold spell, so it's been a bit fiddly with nothing
keeping the door closed. Strings and forks and some interesting technical
details are involved at the moment but the lock is being fixed in town. Small
things that feel like huge problems when everything is frozen are now just part
of everyday life with animals.
We found out that by eating warm soup
every morning, life is easier for hens. Lots of corn is nice, to. It took a few
days to get used to the smell of warm meat soup at 8am but whatever works, has
been the motto around our place for some time now. Hens like their lettuce finely
chopped and our sheep get a breakfast of hay, diced swede, carrots, apple and
cabbage and a few bits of dry bread. The sheep have their own mineral food and
they have their salt and mineral licking stones as well. The hens have their
dry food to help with the egg laying and general health, although our cockerels
love that stuff the most. I seem to run well on coffee and cake.
Today I learned that the blackbird
cocks its head to see what it is eating, as the eyes are on the side and a bird’s
eye can not move in its socket. I always thought they could hear the worms in
the ground, that way. I think the Year of the Monkey came in the nick of time,
as far as I'm concerned. Now I have to go and tell my dear husband about his
upcoming fence-building project before he reads about it here. Then it's time
for a short walk with Mindy, Mandy, Molly and My. We are going to collect some
willow for them to peal. They love that stuff.
Text by Nina
Next blog post on the 7th February.
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