As you can see, after the foxes visit the remaining Goose and Gosling are settled in their new evening quarters its not ideal but they are safe from the fox. I then let them out in the morning and herd them back to their paddock. The Gosling is growning very quickly and although they are mainly grazers I give them some growers pellets each morning as well.
You will be pleased to know that She Who Must be Obeyed has come on leaps and bounds this week in her Sheep Dog Training I have taught her to 'come by' 'away' and she is responding well to the whistle, Im not sure she is ready for One Man and his Dog yet but I think she shows great potential. (only joking dear)
Between us we can now get the geese from their paddock to their bed in only a few minutes, Sharons nimble dartings and frantic arm waving leave the Geese no option but to go in their pen for the night, plus they are getting use to it.
I wasnt going to phone my Mum till Sunday but I couldnt wait so I called up to see if her new anti-squirrel operation was working. Some of you may recall that a squirrel had been stealing her Sungold Tomatoes everytime one turned red. She had put a kind of Smallholders typical DIY style greenhouse aruond them.
Mum was pleased to report that she & my Dad had been feasting on her tomatoes most of the week she says they are very sweet & juicy and a million miles away from shop bought stuff. As the plant supplier I am very pleased for them.
The 2 Saddleback weaners continue to do well they are 5 months old now so they have about 2 months or so to finish clearing the paddock of weeds a task which they seem to be revelling in. This week they have had all kinds of supplementary goodies stale cakes, bread, lots of small falling apples, carrots, courgettes, potatoes and other things beside.
Willy and Jenny (aka the Woodentops) our 2 Twin Pygmy Goats are also doing well they have become very affectionate and will readily eat out of your hand. Talking about eating I have noticed they seemed to be getting a bit on the fat side, but as we are new to Goatkeeping I wasn't sure if this was natural or not, any how I went down to see them the other day but they were nowhere to be seen, I immediatly started panicking and called for she who must be obeyed to form a search team however just as we were about to start we heard a little Goat crying upon investigation we found both the Goats in the Chicken shed eating the layers pellets, I thought no onder they look a little fat, they had got in through the pop hole.
The laying hens continue to lay well and I must say keeping track of where some of them lay their eggs is becoming a full time operation. You go to all the trouble of providing good comfy nestboxes and we have a hen who lays one each day in the rabbit hutch also another under the rosemary bush in the herb garden, one on top of the skip in the yard and even on top of the feed bins, in fact almost every corner of the smallholding and thats just the ones we know about.
The new Raised Bed Vegetable Garden is coming on, the Runner Bean Plants are covered in beans and so far we have had around 6 pounds the onions are swelling up nicely but sme of the kale is not doing so well. Sharon has sown some carrots & parsnips outside in tubs both are doing fine, its early days for the parsnips but we have had some of the carrots allready.
In the polytunnel with the recent good weather everything is shooting away so far we have beetroot, lettuce, cucumbers, squash, carrots, peas, sweetcorn, broccolli, peppers, chillies tomatoes and my rare experimental tomato patch (more about that next week).
Life at this time of year on the Smallholding is petty good but we are allways ready for the next kick in the teeth.
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