I have never been generous with the farm eggs. I was relieved when Pete who helps out with the animals, said he hated eggs when the chickens had been eating garlic leaves (phew!) and Tim who does our farm tours, experiences and safaris has never forgotten the look I gave him when I overheard him dishing out freshly laid free range eggs to a yurt group on a Hen party farm tour - I know.
So, I had noticed the absence of the pretty blue eggs religiously laid every day by my very intelligent Cream Legbar hen. Yesterday I decided the empty rabbit hutch was the perfect place to put a broody hen, when I opened the door to see this!
Mystery solved, but how does she open and close the door? One for the camera - and scrambled eggs for breakfast again.
After my absorption with watching the young House Martins face lift off from the window sill, I am now worrying about a late brood of Swallows who look a long way from leaving the nest. I am quite keen to park my car under shelter again, but I do need to see out when driving so I’ll leave it out for now to avoid the mess.
Carrying on with my two-legged friends, my young Lavender Partridge Brahma cockerel has a new home in Hornby. Having been chased by the older hens all his life he can’t believe his luck - beautiful surroundings and some stunning company too! He will enjoy telling everyone of his new joy around 4.30am.
We will now have to educate his older, but less sensible father on where the best dust baths are but his days could be numbered if he insists on using the car park!
Tiger the Kune Kune pig is back on form after looking his age a bit. He insists on checking my wheel barrow for any morsel left covered up, which makes the walk to his barn in the evening drag out a bit.
The South Devon calving has been slow this summer; the bull had an abscess in his foot this winter and it has clearly taken his mind off anything else.
Judging by the amount of straw heading up the Dale it looks as though most of the cows living in these parts will be on a diet of straw this winter, with supplements. Hay is in very short supply and everyone is guarding their supplies.
Nearly forgot, I have a huge announcement! The name of the new Billy goat is to be ……. Gav! There will be a prize for Megan, who came up with the name.
Gav, our chef, is sadly leaving us next week on promotion so we will be reminded of him constantly as our new Gav gets up to his tricks.
The courtyard is full of fans today for little Alf, the Berry’s team have definitely taken a back seat. Once Alf had overcome his shyness he went down a treat and his owner, Hannah Russell signed her latest book about him, which were flying off the shelves.
Rolo would have enjoyed half the attention that Alf got in a few hours.
The garden is full of colour which was planted for the wedding but sadly arrived 3 weeks too late!
But nothing will go to waste as the marquee in the Berry’s courtyard will need plenty of colour for the Heather and Honey run with 50 classic cars coming on 23rd August and then the Music in the Courtyard in the evening of Friday 24th August – still some tickets available!
The silver birch trees from the wedding marquee are waiting patiently to be allocated a plot of land to be planted in, they will be a lovely reminder of a special day for us all.
With the drought continuing, it is hard to tell the difference between Aysgarth Falls and our very own Redmire Falls, both are just slabs of dry rock, luckily, we didn’t plug the swimming too much this year.
We are off on a sleep over now, our lovely daughter thought we might be a bit tired after all the wedding fun and has treated us to dinner and some spa attention in Swinton Hotel, how lucky is that!
