Well I had a quiet couple of days after Pattie. And thanks for all the comments, it’s the most I’ve ever had on my blog and it’s good to receive supportive messages. To some people, it’s ‘just’ a chicken, but to us she was a little beauty and a valued pet.
I’ve had a couple of tearful moments, I probably will do for a while. I miss her little chatty noises and sweetness. It’s very quiet out there, so Rich and I have decided that we’ll probably get another couple of hens. Yoko isn’t as busy and venturing as she used to be, so quite often Maureen is off scratching about on her own. I think giving another couple of hens a retirement here is something I’m keen to do. We’re not sure when the next hen rescue is, so we’ve been wondering about getting a couple of hybrids to begin with and then introducing another couple of ex-batts.
The only thing is, despite her weight and egg size, for all intents and purposes Maureen is quite a small hen. She was always second in the pecking order (Yoko still firmly rules the roost) though and is more than capable of looking after herself. But the hybrids we looked at yesterday would stand taller than her, and we don’t want to stress her out with having to introduce two new birds that could threaten her position as Yoko’s Number Two. Either way, we’re not sure about financing another couple of hybrids at the mo – they’re £13 each (fully innoculated) so it might be that we just wait and get a couple of ex-batts a bit later on. It just depends on Maureen really, she’s been getting a bit clingy and is louder than normal. I just don’t know if I’m reading too much into it and humanising her behaviour.
On the veggie front I’ve been mostly harvesting, and I’m going to do a bit of a show and tell here. Every few days I’m able to pull up some onions. I’m still getting pathetically small ones out of the row nearest the edge of one of my onion patches, but I’m keeping them for pickling a bit later on once they’ve dried.
I’m told summer onions are best for storage, whereas Autumn onions tend to be meant for use straight away. As I only have summer onions at present I’m going to be trying to braid them together to store them. I think Mum has a couple of old onion nets that I might see if I can pinch too.
I was really really pleased to be able to harvest my first ever cabbage. It’s a kilaxy (round) cabbage, and I thought I ought to pull it out whilst it was whole and untouched. The cabbage whites have got in and laid some of their eggs, and a couple have got a bit rotten underneath. This one though is a beauty and hopefully the remaining ones that are forming hearts will follow suit. I can’t wait to eat some of it tonight. If you want to try cabbages, I really recommend this variety from a growing point of view. Obviously jury is still out on the taste because I have yet to sample it, but it seems very crunchy so I imagine it’ll be good.
My tomatoes are also finally ripening (see top pic), I’ve already started offloading them onto Mum and anyone else that’ll take them. My whole greenhouse has been taken over by wild, widthways-spreading tomato plants so I’m expecting a bumper crop. So far, so good. As I’ve said before, it’s a real shame I don’t like raw tomatoes. Somehow can’t help but grow them though…
