It was three years ago almost to the day, I read in my diary, that we last had to revert to the market to top up our flock of chickens. Don’t bother saying it. I’ve got no pretentions to be Pepys.
They’d done well. I can’t recall any being lost to a fox since we got the lost lot and our lurcher hasn’t gone anywhere near them after I caught her with one in her mouth. An altercation ensued, I confess, that led to me being reported to the RSPCA. A long and ludicrous story. Admittedly two summers ago our flock was temporarily bolstered by the successful hatching of a large clutch of eggs. Alas however, all but two of the chicks proved to be cockerels, who, as I have previously told you, don’t lay eggs. Apart from keeping the hens happy, which requires just the one, they just squabble with each other or jump on the smooth calves of passing Argentinian au pairs. They are essentially good for nothing, but coq au vin.
The unfortunate cockerels aside, by and large our hens have had a happy and generally unmolested time. Latterly a scrawny red one has had cause to feel a bit disgruntled at the fact she met her maker because Sophie pinpointed her as the one that was laying the soggy shelled eggs which made a sticky smelly mess of the hen house. But for the most part it has been the natural passage of time that meant we were down to three hens and we
Something had to be done, albeit that hens are not cheap these days. £13.50 a bird which I calculate, if you include the cost of the occasional bag of corn, means each has to lay about 100 eggs before her value is re-couped ( I love this pun ). Throwing caution to the wind we have added four new members this week. We have carefully introduced them to the incumbent population, tucked them into bed at night, and christened the white one Snowball, another fluffy grey one Barbara ( after Cartland ), Demelza ( a ginger flamed beauty ) and Beyonce who is a darker one and a groovy mover.
Update from South America. Bob is currently in Puno, described by him as “Not the nicest of places but it’s friendly”. On the banks of Lake Titicata he has spent the last couple of days casting fruitlessly for brown trout and has had his hair plaited. He tells me he is blissfully happy and all is good. Don’t really get more detail than that.
A few years back the daughters of friends of ours did the GAP year thing and maintained an hysterical blog account of their trip. I thought I’d see if they’d been to Puno. They had. This is how they described the place…..
Bob has a turn of phrase. Really he does. But he’s yet to fully bring it to bear on this trip!
I’ve probably already sickened you with reference to the unfortunate battery hen (….the red one….), but on a properly sad ornithological note I wandered out of the office at lunch earlier this week to find a woodcock dead on the pavement. I’m ashamed to say I took a photo of it which I’ll spare you, but I presume it had flown into our building’s window. Beautiful bird the woodcock. It is said that it can fly with its chicks tucked under one of its wings. Woteva. It is totally out of place on Upper Thames Street. At least so I thought having never seen one outside of Norfolk or Leicestershire. It never fails to amaze me what you can find on the net….
https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/rspb-news/news/432941-danger-low-flying-woodcock
No comments:
Post a Comment