A jolly time was had last week, when a friend came over to help with some fruit picking. We managed to get a load of elderberries and damsons off the trees, and together with a large bottle of vodka that she kindly brought, I now have the start of 2 demijohns of elderberry vodka, as well as a carrier bag of damsons in the freezer. When I can get some more vodka I'll top up the 2 demijohns and hopefully a kind friend will bring me some gin so I can make a batch of damson gin. Unfortunately, the damson gin needs at least a year to mature!!
I'm hoping that I'll get a few more damsons and some more elderberries in a week or two, so should have enough fruit laid in to keep me going in alcoholic beverages until next autumn/winter. It's well worth doing, very easy, and downright delicious. In fact, I think my friends come round as much for the food and drink as to see me!!
The ducklings are getting bigger, so hopefully before long I won't have to cage them overnight. The baby chicken still roosts with its 'mum' on top of the door to their run, so that's quite safe. If it's a cockerel it will find a new home on Anglesey with my good friend Bo and her hens, but if it's a hen I'll be keeping it. As far as the ducklings are concerned, the females will be kept but I can't have more than one male so any males will be for the freezer. I can't believe how easy these Muscovy ducks are to keep, and thoroughly recommend them. If you have a field or large garden where they can forage for food, they pretty much look after themselves. All they need is a safe place to spend the night, and a bit of food every day, and they'll just wander around picking up small beasties and eating grass. They don't need a pond, but do appreciate something to bathe in and drink from. They're also supposed to be very tasty, and I can happily eat them knowing they've had a good life and a quick and painless death.
Martin
Wildlife & Countryside Services
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Sooner than expected......
It's autumn, the days are shortening, the nights are lengthening, it's getting wetter and colder, the wildlife and the forager are gazing fondly at the bumper harvest of wild fruit, from blackberries and wild plums, to sloes and hips and haws. And then along comes the farmer with his tractor-mounted flail and trims the bloody hedges!!
No wonder the wildlife around here is so drastically depleted from what it was, when farmers are so ignorant of the effect of their actions, that they don't spare a thought for the wildlife, or indeed Mrs Jones and the kids who want to collect blackberries.
Why, oh why don't they wait until late winter, when the berries have all been eaten, and before the hedgerows wake up and start producing their flowers? Is it just that they'll be busy with the lambs then and would rather get it done now while the ground is (relatively) dry? Probably.
There should be a directive telling all farmers that hedges are to be cut in January or thereabouts, and then maybe we'd have some wildlife in our beleagured countryside. Forget predation by magpies, if there's no food, there'll be no wildlife!! Oh well, who needs small birds anyway??
Martin.
No wonder the wildlife around here is so drastically depleted from what it was, when farmers are so ignorant of the effect of their actions, that they don't spare a thought for the wildlife, or indeed Mrs Jones and the kids who want to collect blackberries.
Why, oh why don't they wait until late winter, when the berries have all been eaten, and before the hedgerows wake up and start producing their flowers? Is it just that they'll be busy with the lambs then and would rather get it done now while the ground is (relatively) dry? Probably.
There should be a directive telling all farmers that hedges are to be cut in January or thereabouts, and then maybe we'd have some wildlife in our beleagured countryside. Forget predation by magpies, if there's no food, there'll be no wildlife!! Oh well, who needs small birds anyway??
Martin.
Monday, 6 September 2010
I think I'm improving!!
It's less than a year since my last post, so a slight improvement there!! Must get better organised and keep up to date with the blog!!
It's blowing a hoolie outside, and we had to cut some branches off a fallen tree and repair the chicken and duck pens, that had been flattened this morning. Still the chance of another poplar tree coming down, as there are several in the field, and they do tend to drop branches, or worse! Hopefully the copper beech on the edge of the field will be ok (it has a large crack down the trunk below a major fork).
The saga of the livestock continues. I now have a pair of Muscovy ducks, and a clutch of 14 eggs was laid a while ago. I think 10 hatched successfully, but only 8 duklings were seen subsequently. Then, one night, one disappeared, and the following night the same happened, leaving 6. They were then caught and put in a secure cage (actually a badger cage) every night, but last evening I returned home to find one more had disappeared, so now there are 5. I do hope the mother manages to rear the remaining ducklings to adulthood.
As for the chickens, I have 3 hens remaining, including a black bantam from the original group. My large black speckly hen went broody and was sitting on 5 eggs for a while, but unfortunately only one egg was fertile, and that was from the bantam. So, the large hen is raising a little black bantam chick, whose father is the light Suffolk cockerel who patrols the grounds. As for the other hen (copper-coloured speckly), she isn't doing much at the moment, unless she's laying elsewhere. I get maybe 1 egg every 2-3 days from the black bantam, if I'm lucky.
The vegetable production was much better this year, though most of it was a bit late, for various reasons. I have tomatoes in the porch, runner beans are still flowering, peas are starting to seed, and the carrots and beetroots are slowly growing. Together with a few broad beans and chard in the front garden, and potatoes and onions in various containers and old wheelbarrows, I've not done too badly for veg so far! The mulberry tree is covered in fruit, as is the damson tree, and my little plum tree is doing pretty well too. Together with blackberries in my field, and dewberries, and sloes in the hedgerows, as well as my elderberry trees, things are looking pretty good for a big harvest this year. Just need to buy a few gallons of gin and vodka and I can get cracking on the alcoholic beverages for the next year. Might need to get some more demijohns!!
The garden and field have been teeming with wildlife, especially the pond which now has well-established yellow flag iris and bulrushes, and was full of newts, tadpoles and well-patrolled by broad-bodied chaser dragonflies with their beautiful pale blue abdomens. The boundary hedge has been neglected a bit, so was swamped by goosegrass and nettles, and the fallen tree took the top off one of the field maples. Hopefully next year I can keep a closer eye on it.
It's time to start clearing the front garden of veg and cornfield annual wildflowers, then sort things out for the winter. Will leave the borage to keep flowering for a while, as they're so beautiful and the insects love them.
Anyway, hopefully I'll get the next blog entry done before the end of the year!! ;o)
It's blowing a hoolie outside, and we had to cut some branches off a fallen tree and repair the chicken and duck pens, that had been flattened this morning. Still the chance of another poplar tree coming down, as there are several in the field, and they do tend to drop branches, or worse! Hopefully the copper beech on the edge of the field will be ok (it has a large crack down the trunk below a major fork).
The saga of the livestock continues. I now have a pair of Muscovy ducks, and a clutch of 14 eggs was laid a while ago. I think 10 hatched successfully, but only 8 duklings were seen subsequently. Then, one night, one disappeared, and the following night the same happened, leaving 6. They were then caught and put in a secure cage (actually a badger cage) every night, but last evening I returned home to find one more had disappeared, so now there are 5. I do hope the mother manages to rear the remaining ducklings to adulthood.
As for the chickens, I have 3 hens remaining, including a black bantam from the original group. My large black speckly hen went broody and was sitting on 5 eggs for a while, but unfortunately only one egg was fertile, and that was from the bantam. So, the large hen is raising a little black bantam chick, whose father is the light Suffolk cockerel who patrols the grounds. As for the other hen (copper-coloured speckly), she isn't doing much at the moment, unless she's laying elsewhere. I get maybe 1 egg every 2-3 days from the black bantam, if I'm lucky.
The vegetable production was much better this year, though most of it was a bit late, for various reasons. I have tomatoes in the porch, runner beans are still flowering, peas are starting to seed, and the carrots and beetroots are slowly growing. Together with a few broad beans and chard in the front garden, and potatoes and onions in various containers and old wheelbarrows, I've not done too badly for veg so far! The mulberry tree is covered in fruit, as is the damson tree, and my little plum tree is doing pretty well too. Together with blackberries in my field, and dewberries, and sloes in the hedgerows, as well as my elderberry trees, things are looking pretty good for a big harvest this year. Just need to buy a few gallons of gin and vodka and I can get cracking on the alcoholic beverages for the next year. Might need to get some more demijohns!!
The garden and field have been teeming with wildlife, especially the pond which now has well-established yellow flag iris and bulrushes, and was full of newts, tadpoles and well-patrolled by broad-bodied chaser dragonflies with their beautiful pale blue abdomens. The boundary hedge has been neglected a bit, so was swamped by goosegrass and nettles, and the fallen tree took the top off one of the field maples. Hopefully next year I can keep a closer eye on it.
It's time to start clearing the front garden of veg and cornfield annual wildflowers, then sort things out for the winter. Will leave the borage to keep flowering for a while, as they're so beautiful and the insects love them.
Anyway, hopefully I'll get the next blog entry done before the end of the year!! ;o)
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