A strange twelve months

Its a long time since I last posted to my blog, such a lot has happened to us in that time which has made me realise how precious our time is.
We started 2008 with high hopes for the coming year, a new grandchil was on its way and everything seemed to be going well in our world.
We had lots of new chicks which are in the pictures, we were well and enjoying life.
At the begining of May, a neighbour decided to complain about our fox deterant in our field were are chickens lived, and he did this by shouting at us which was very upsetting for us and for my elderly mother. Three days later my mum had a stroke and passed away. Then as we had removed the fox deterant to keep our neighbour happy ( a real towny) all our chickens were killed by the fox. By the end of June I was living in a daze, a bit of happiness came when we became grandparents again, swiftly followed by our cat being run over and killed.
When September came we could see that there were signs of recession and so I tried to get a job as our money was not going as far as it was. lots of interviews, second intyerviews, but by now we were in recession and I still feel that my age was not helping. In the end, we could no longer afford the petrol to keep going for interviews.
By November our little cottage started to need major work, which the landlords agents new about but did nothing. Very depressing.
Christmas 2008 and the ceiling fell in in one bedroom. We had had enough.

January 2009 and we were looking in earnest for a new home nearer our family. It was not easy as we had horses, dogs, cats and four chickens to move.

Fate played our hand and we found a farm in February where we could put our horses, and were also offered a cottage. We jumped at this and moved in in March

The last few months have been about sorting out, but now we are in July and I shall be updating my blog on a regular basis

A Good Crumble

If you are like us and enjoy a good old fashioned crumble then try the following recipe. Always keep half fat to flour.

16 ozs self raising flour
8 ozs margarine or butter
2 ozs caster sugar ( this can be increased or decreased according to taste)
pinch of salt

Mix together the flour and the salt and then rub in the fat until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Add the sugar to this mix and then spoon over the filling of your choice.
Bake and then sit back and enjoy

here they come!

The eggs have started to hatch, as I write this thread three of the eggs have now hatched and the little chickens have been placed in the brooder unit that we have made. so far so good.

Who's Who

We have 14 chickens mainly ex battery, they have been with us a while now, we also have two leghorns, two black rocks and a welsummer, they are laying very well. We have Thomas our Rooster he is a White Star We also have a trio of Yokahammas. With the exception of the Yokohammas the rest free range our field but go away at night.

Hatching Eggs?

20 various eggs were placed in our brand new incubator 19 days ago. On day six they were candled and four were removed as infertile. Again they were candled on day 16 and as this is our first venture into hatching we left well alone. They have been in the incubator for 19 days, just a few more days to go to see whether this first project of hatching and rearing our own chicks will work. We should have 4 Cochin's, 2 White Star x White Leghorns and 12 Brahmas.

Today we made the brooder and we are keeping a close check to make sure it maintains a 37 c temperature.

Easter Monday 24th March 2008

Cold, rainy and damp, this is what its been like every day this Easter. A very early Easter holiday, I believe that it will not be as early for over another 100 years.


The daffodils are all up and adding a bit of colour to this very gray day. Today I have been out riding with two friends, not as quiet as usual as everyone normally at work on a Monday is out either walking, riding horses or bikes or just driving the lanes around where we live.

We've just had a full load of wood delivered for the wood burning stove, seem to have used a lot more wood this year than last.
This afternoon we are just chilling out around the TV before seeing to the animals later on