New To You

What a week!!An acquaintance of ours came to us with an offer/request. He had chickens but was down to only two, for various reasons, so had decided that he wanted to call it a day.  He was looking for a new home for these last remaining two so asked if we could take them on.

Of course we said yes!

He has no idea what type they are or anything, they could easily be crosses but they are apparently very friendly and great layers.

They seem to be getting on fine with our bunch!

That takes us to seventeen......

 

Meh! Meeeeehhhhh!!!

It's official, we can call ourselves a farm, smallholding, general cool place! 

We have goats!!

After much preparation for goaty arrival, ad searching, paddock making and all the other fah-de-lah, we managed to find the perfect pair.  These two lovely ladies are Angora goats who were in need of a new home as their owner really didn't have the space for the two little escape artists!  They are eight years young and have beautiful personalities!

It all happened very fast, as I have noticed things do for us when it is the right move!  We heard about them on the Wednesday, visited on Saturday afternoon, showed their mum and dad what we had to offer them Saturday night, discussions and chatting and Sunday morning they arrived. 

They are keeping out of the fabulous Scottish summer at the moment, in a cozy stable, which also gives us all a chance to get to know each other better.  

Their paddock needs a fence propping up as a Shetland Pony decided that if the fence is too high to lean over to get the grass, squish it!  As soon as we have a new fence post in then the girls will get their first glimpse of their new field!

They are very friendly, especially if you have a carrot or two and Farm Toddler (the artist formally know as Farm Baby!) adores them, with an announcement of 'Goats.  See um! See um!' Every few minutes.  At which point a carrot is prepared and visit ensues!

We hope these two ladies enjoy their new forever home and give us many years of pleasure!

Among The Weeds

We had summer here in Scotland, I think it was last Wednesday, about 12 o'clock! Apart from that it has rained pretty much solidly since time began! As a result my trips to the veggie patch have been few and far between - big mistake! All this rain is prime weed growing weather and in our patch in particular this is not good! (For those new to the veggie patch, we reclaimed the area from a field and have been fighting the decades of established weeds ever since!)

Well, at the first sight of sunshine down the patch I went and the weeds were chest high, you quite literally pushed through until you unceremoniously dropped out into the actual veggie garden patches!  These had stayed surprisingly weed free, our laborious weeding had paid off, just the rest that may contain tigers!  The raspberry patch I had basically given up on this year.  Essentially, right it off and try to save it later, but through the dock leaf plants, which grew higher than the raspberries (see photo), I spotted red and went in to investigate.  Our little raspberries had persevered through the weedy onslaught and were producing like crazy.  I spent an hour digging them out and hacking through weeds and old raspberry canes (hangs head, I didn't prune last year  :O(  ) and came out with over a kilo of raspberries with the promise of more!!!

Well done little plants!  Goes to show what I have always thought if I just leave plants well alone they get on a whole lot better than when I faff about with them!!!!