Tales from the farm

It's been a busy few weeks on the 'farm'. Our first clutch of chicks hatched, so now we have ten balls of fluff bouncing around the chicken pen. Momma Chicken managed to hatch 10 out of 12 eggs, which is pretty good going in my book. Another of the chickens is currently sitting on 18(!) eggs, so we're expecting our second clutch to hatch in about ten days. We're now at the stage of collecting eggs for eating, so I'm looking forward to my first home-grown scrambled egg on toast any day now.

In the end, we named the sow 'Strawberry', which isn't quite as Shakespearean as I had initially intended, but it seems to fit. She's having a great time. Currently we're testing out which leaves she likes to eat; so far: pumpkin, soy bean, potato YES; cow pea NO.

As we're keen to get some piglets, we've been on the hunt for a temporary boyfriend for Strawberry. We managed to track a suitable one down in a nearby village yesterday, and we've now hired him for the week at a cost of £6. Upon delivery of a healthy litter of piglets, a further £10 will be paid. I've called him Roy.

Roy's definitely keen on Strawberry, who is playing hard to get. Strawberry is also bigger than Roy, which complicates matters. To stop Strawberry running away we may have to shut them in their little house and let nature take its course over an intense - and no doubt rewarding - couple of days.

Roy 

Strawberry left, Roy right

Roy (back) and Strawberry in a quieter moment

We're still expanded the space for vegetable growing in the garden, and have planted a number of new crops in recents weeks, including watermelon; cassava; sweet potato; and fish bean - which, ground-up and mixed with water, can be used as an organic pesticide. We've harvested our first crop of white beans and in the new year I'm hoping to start using our produce for cooking and preserving.

Oh, and we've acquired a 'top-bar' beehive...

Putting up the beehive