LEON JANE

It’s a sad day for our daughter as we are taking back to the store one of the chickens that we have raised from three weeks old. The chicken is now thirteen weeks old and ‘she’ came with a rooster guarantee which means we can return ‘her’ if ‘she’ turns out to be a rooster - which ‘she’ has. Yes, ‘Nancy’ the Gold Laced Wyandotte is a rooster. Gold Laded Wyandotte Rooster is at the back We can tell ‘she’s’ a ‘he’ because his growth was quicker than the other chicks, his colours are more brilliant, his comb is larger in width, his neck feathers are longer and brighter and his tail feathers are starting to show more height. He hasn’t started calling/crowing yet - which I am sure the neighbours would be glad about. But our daughter isn’t too sad because we have a substitution plan as I’ll be buying a new chick at the same time as returning our little rooster. She’s picked out either a Light Sussex or a Rhode Island Red as her preference. I’d personally like to get the ...

Today we were busy picking mulberries which have come on in abundance. Two of our mulberry shrubs have exploded with a mass of fruit, possibly due to receiving a good cut back in winter or from our prolong cold and dry weather. We are collecting a punnet or two every day. Punnet of mulberries It’s great to take our daughter down to the mulberry bush (or shrub) in the afternoon and pick the fruits that have turned from red to deep purple. She loves eating them as we pick them, which we don’t mind as they make for a healthy snack. Mulberry bush in fruit We think the fruit isn’t getting attacked by insects (who usually drink the juice from the fruit) because a colony of Green Ants (or Weaver Ants) has found the shrubs and seem be protecting them. We are lucky to not have any birds discover the sweet taste of mulberry either. Fruiting mulberry plant So spring at our place has definitely sprung as the fruit trees are flowering and the birds are nesting. ...