What a weekend......

Wow...what a weekend.  It was a short one for us, usually Lovely Hubby is off Fridays as well but for the last two weeks, due to pressure of work he has had to work long five day weeks, he works a ten hour day so they were long weeks indeed.  This meant that by Saturday we were both ready for a day off the farm relaxing.  We headed off to the CLA Game Fair, held at Blenheim Palace, as we are members of the CLA we had free tickets and Member Enclosure passes which made for a very good day.

We took the dogs and they had the time of their lives.....because everyone else took their dogs too!!  Lots of doggy friendships were struck up and of course it meant that strangers didn't stay strangers for too long as one thing all dog lovers do is talk to each other. 

 It was a three day Fair and we had chosen to go on the Saturday, and we were really glad we did, as on Sunday the temperature shot up and the sun shone on the farm all day, it would have been simply too hot to do all the walking we did on Saturday in the heat and the dogs would have suffered too.

As it was we spent Sunday tidying the farm, strimming, mowing, deep cleaning two of the chicken houses and watering the animals on a regular basis.  Maud, who is due to farrow in a week sensibly stayed in the shade and slept the day away.

The younger pigs found quiet corners and snoozed between mad games with each other.

We decided to let all the birds mingle from now on.  Now that we have no large cockerel, we thought it was about time the chickens learnt to get along with each other.  Many little skirmishes went on but nothing too serious, until a Welsummer decided to take on Caldwell, the cockerel.  Surprisingly they were an even match and both backed down in the end, although poor little Caldwell had a few sore bits!!  The Welsummers are at least twice as big as him and so tall, she definitely had a height advantage.

The Lavender girls were all a bit intimidated by the large hens and ran to Caldwell for reassurance over and over, he was very good and each time would take them into the group and stay while they helped themselves to some food.  Already things are settling down and mostly they all keep to their little usual groups of friends.  The latest hatching of eight boys and one girl still run around together, she feels safer with her brothers for now, but I'm sure she will join in with the other girls soon.

Off course their small size means they fit through the electric fencing and through the stock fencing into the orchard, so young Pekin met young pig for the first time and they had lots of fun getting to know each other.  The piglets chase the little birds who waddle off at great speed.  Lots of fun to watch, but not caught on camera yet.

One of the young Middle Whites cooling off in the shade.

For tea we picked ourselves a Cauliflower.....

...and a couple of the sprouting Broccoli's and had a wonderful Cauliflower Cheese (with broccoli), followed by home-grown Rhubarb and cream, a lovely end to a very nice weekend.

Sue xx