The new house

Having spent some time there today, I thought I would share a bit about the new house. We are moving approx 2.5 miles from our current home, to go and live in hubby's late grandmothers house. She sadly passed away in January, and will be much missed. The house has been the family home for 50 years, and so it is nice to know that it is going to stay with us.

The house has lots going for it. Although it has fewer bedrooms, it is comparable to our current abode in terms of living space, but it is set out better, having a separate utility room, a double garage, 2 reception rooms, separate toilet and bathroom and, wait for it, a pantry. I am so excited about the idea of a pantry! The other very attractive feature is the garden- 300 foot long, with fruit trees and plenty of space for the chickens (and hopefully eventually bees), space to grow veggies and generally to be outside, den building, having bonfires... It is going to be great.

Small Boy and Small Girl are going to love it. We have spent lots of time there in the past, and so they are used to going there to visit and have fun, which should take some of the trauma out of moving home. Small Boy is going to have the bigger bedroom- mainly because he is older, but also because he has bigger toys. Small girl will be very happy in the small room- is is lots bigger than where she is currently, and she will get a bigger bed.

How do I feel about moving? I guess it is mixed emotions to an extent, I have worked so hard to get this house how I would like it, and now we are going to move. I am sad that all of the time I have spent planting soft fruit here will be wasted, but am excited about having fruit trees and lots and lots of space to grow things, for the chickens to have more space, to have a hot tub under the stars (that's the plan anyway)... It will be a whole new way of living, trying to grow what we can, spending as little as we can to do what we want to.

New house, new start. There is a long way to go yet, (we need to sort out the new house legally) but hopefully we will get there soon.

Spring has sprung

Well, it's been a while hasn't it. I could make lots of excuses, but basically I couldn't be bothered to blog. To be honest, nothing worth blogging about has happened until now, so this is where I will pick up and promise to be good in future.

One thing I might have written about but didn't- we had a death in the family. I found Camilla chicken dead in pink Eglu on Christmas morning, which rather dampened my enthusiasm for cockerel on Boxing Day. It was completely unexpected, no signs at all that this might happen. It was very sad :-(

The other downer is that hatching quails hasn't gone to plan- nothing hatched from the first attempt, and I had 8 from the second, but they have slowly died, one by one. Feel gutted about it to be completely honest with you, dear readers. So, I have an empty incy, empty brooder and nothing to show for it.

The last big change is that we said goodbye to Au Pair at Christmas time. It was really sad as she was a part of the family, but Small Boy and Small Girl are growing up and are out far more and need looking after at home far less, and besides, I have stopped lots of my work and have no reason to have help. I miss her, and hope that she is having lots of fun whereever she is now.

However, laying all these things aside, things are looking up. We are planning to move house, I have a new sewing machine on the way, and I am starting a beekeeping course 2 weeks today.

In chicken news- we have had a couple of eggs, but not many at all. Will worm with flub soon. Quails Rosie and Jim (Jim is a girl in case you were wondering) are laying every few days.

So, animal count is as follows:
6 Chickens: Elizabeth and Kate (Eglu Pink) Blue, Green, Yellow and Nandos (Eglu Rouge)
2 Quail: Rosie and Jim
2 Guinea Pigs: Woolly and Tig (forgot to mention them- they came at Christmas)
1 Giant Snail: Bob
Lots of worms

The livestock market

Yesterday, Au Pair, Small girl and I went to our closest livestock market to buy birds for the freezer. Before now, Husband has always bid on what we want, so I haven't needed to pay too much attention, but yesterday he was working, so off we went, ikea bag in hand.

I love the market- full of older country types, I stand out like the proverbial sore thumb in my colourful hat and scarf, carrying my ikea bag, but I still love it. I love how people think I am the eccentric one, when they are dressed head to toe in tweed with flat caps on in the 21st century.

Anyway, to cut a very long story short (I have had a glass or 3 of wine tonight) I bought 10 pheasants, 4 partridges and 3 cockerels, which I then brought home an prepared. 2 pheasants went into a red wine and tomato casserole, and one cockerel was eaten for dinner tonight when Husband's aunt and uncle came over.

The smell of game, after processing that lot is going to make me feel slightly ill for a long time. Shame, as I now have a freezer full of the stuff...

An egg! A real-life hens egg!

We haven't had chickens eggs for over a month now thanks to a combination of decreasing light and rubbishy weather. I was getting increasingly frustrated by the amount of food that the chickens were eating for no reward (and the fact that the cost of grain keeps rising), and was seriously considering rehoming some.

So, this morning when I checked on them imagine my surprise to find one lonely egg in Eglu Rouge.

I am a happy hen keeper again- I just need to decide what to do with my one egg.

My Ikea 'hack-stack wormery'

For my birthday, I was given (as I am every year) a crisp £10 note from my Grandmother (known hereafter as 'Nan').

I didn't really know what do do with it- I am losing weight so don't want/need clothes, I lready had my incubator and most of the stuff for the brooder... then, on my birthday trip to IkeaI had a brainwave- I could buy stuff to make my own wormery.

I have always wanted a stacking tray wormery, but have always thought that they were big and/or expensive. Then, on a day out to Ryton Gardens (the home of Garden Organic) I saw one made from Ikea Samla boxes. So, I did what anyone living in 2012 would ahve done, and I took lots of pictures on my cheap iphone substitute. Fastforward a month or 2, and I was in Ikea, and I bought what I needed.

I decided to go for a very small wormery to live in my kitchen next to the sink. To make my wormery I used:

6 5L Samla boxes in Black
1 Samla box lid
1 water butt tap
Black electrical insulation tape
1 block of Coir

I also utilised an old screwdriver and a fondue fork for melting holes into the boxes, and a snap off stanley-a-like knife for deburring.

After building the wormery, I went online and bought 250g of composting worms from Bakefield Worms, which I added along with part of the coir block and a handful of bokashi bran. A couple of weeks later and the worms are thriving and I am getting a very tiny amount of very good looking, sweet smelling compost.
It actually looks quite smart too- and it is working, which is the main thing.

Husband is quite puzzled that this is how I would choose to spend my birthday money, but hey, it was my money and I enjoyed the project.

I am not sure of the total cost- I don't get change from my £10 note, but it wasn't much more than that before I bought the worms.

Why quails?

Why quails I hear you ask? (well, I don't, but for the sake of this feeling like I am not talking to myself, I am going to pretend that you did) Well, it all started when the chickens had an egg laying break in the summer. I started reading about different sorts of eggs, and quails seemed like an easy way to get eggs (even if they are tiny).

So, I trundled off to a garden centre and bought 2. As I said before, one died quickly, and it has just gone on from there. Long term plan is to keep some Golden Giants for eggs, and to eat the others.

Eat them?

Indeed. When we got the chickens I had an urge to go all vegetarian. Although this has passed now, the longer term affect is that I quite like to know where my food has come from and how it was treated. In the future I would like to raise chickens for the table, but quail seem to be an easy way into to my new 'hatch it, raise it, kill it, cook it, eat it' philosophy.

I want Small Boy and Small Girl to grow up in a slightly simpler way; slightly slower paced, with a real awareness of how simple things can be. I want us to grow our own seasonal fruit and veg, to raise birds for eggs and meat, make our own yogurt and preserves, and, as of Christmas, I am going to make our wine and beer too. Thats a whole new post though ;-)

A bit of a catch up...

I confess, I have been a very lazy blogger. Last update was in June, around a month after the arrival of Camilla, Kate and Elizabeth.

Lots of things have changed around here since then...

1. Au Pair went back home to Switzerland in July. We enjoyed the rest of her stay, and I know she misses Small Boy and Small Girl very much.

2. We have Au Pair Mk 2 until after Christmas.

3. A Giant African Land Snail called Bob has taken up residence, using electricity for his heatmat and munching through lettuce like the end of the world is nigh.

4. We have 4 more ex-batts chickens now- they have leg rings and are completely unimaginatively called Blue, Green, Yellow and Evil. Evil should, theoretically be Red, except she pecked me and made me bleed and I never got her leg ring on.

5. We also have quail now. I started with 2 japanese quail called Rosemary and Annie. Annie died 3 days after purchase from a well known garden centre chain. I then bought 6 chinese painted quails to live with Rosie, called Jonnie, Oscar, Hannah, Ellie, Sarah and Clare. All named after Paralympians except Clare, who is named after Clare Balding, because when we got her home we noticed that she was bald :-) I then rescued 3 more large quail- to cut a long story short, one is still alive, one was eaten by a fox, one died after being attacked by the living one. Rosie was attcaked too and now lives inside in a large cage. She is really tame and will happily and calmly sit with me.

4. I got an incubator for my birthday.

5. I now have 21 Golden Giant quail eggs in my incubator.