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All The Eggs
All the (adult) girls are laying now, so we're getting four or five eggs a day, now:
The ducklings are also doing well, and I think just starting to get their proper-coloured adult feathers (Dark Duckling in particular has a couple that are noticeably black, rather than grey). I went to take a picture of them, with Agnes and Letice, but Light Duckling decided that she wanted to hide in a plant, so you can only see the edge of her bum:
If it weren't for the fact that I'm still keeping them penned in while they have breakfast, I think that the ducklings would spend most of their time with the adult runners. Zu Zu is in full-on "Ok, something went wrong with that batch, must try again" mode, so keeping her penned in with the ducklings in the morning is also a good thing, as it means that she lays her egg in her super secret nest in the corner of the stable, rather than somewhere in the garden where I can't find it.
The swallow chicks have also hatched, so mum and dad are busy with feeding duty (to the extent that they've gone "Ah, sod it, just ignore the humans" rather than trying to avoid going into the stable if we're in there). They are less easy to photograph than the ducklings, but there are at least four small white blobs in the nest:
Fortunately, the nest is above an empty patch of floor, rather than, for example, the saddles!
The boys moved to their summer pasture this week, and are having a lovely time stuffing themselves silly. We always keep an eye out for orchids, Mrs Ex-Up-The-Hill having once seen a bee orchid in the field, but have never seen anything other than a couple of lady orchids until last year when The Bee Orchid deigned to flower. I put a post in the ground so that we could keep an eye out for it this year, but there's been no sign of it.
On the other hand, in the last couple of days we've found two patches of pyramidal orchids, just coming into flower, and at least three (probably four) different bee orchids:
I guess having the horses grazing in there is a good thing for the flowers! We popped up this afternoon and put some temporary fencing around the bee orchids, to stop the boys from trampling them. Benny came over to see what we were doing, and very nearly did step on one.
This afternoon, I took a break from the weeding to do some pruning. Must have a bonfire soon:
Hopefully it's going to warm up now, and the veggies will start to grow as well as the weeds.
The ducklings are also doing well, and I think just starting to get their proper-coloured adult feathers (Dark Duckling in particular has a couple that are noticeably black, rather than grey). I went to take a picture of them, with Agnes and Letice, but Light Duckling decided that she wanted to hide in a plant, so you can only see the edge of her bum:
If it weren't for the fact that I'm still keeping them penned in while they have breakfast, I think that the ducklings would spend most of their time with the adult runners. Zu Zu is in full-on "Ok, something went wrong with that batch, must try again" mode, so keeping her penned in with the ducklings in the morning is also a good thing, as it means that she lays her egg in her super secret nest in the corner of the stable, rather than somewhere in the garden where I can't find it.
The swallow chicks have also hatched, so mum and dad are busy with feeding duty (to the extent that they've gone "Ah, sod it, just ignore the humans" rather than trying to avoid going into the stable if we're in there). They are less easy to photograph than the ducklings, but there are at least four small white blobs in the nest:
Fortunately, the nest is above an empty patch of floor, rather than, for example, the saddles!
The boys moved to their summer pasture this week, and are having a lovely time stuffing themselves silly. We always keep an eye out for orchids, Mrs Ex-Up-The-Hill having once seen a bee orchid in the field, but have never seen anything other than a couple of lady orchids until last year when The Bee Orchid deigned to flower. I put a post in the ground so that we could keep an eye out for it this year, but there's been no sign of it.
On the other hand, in the last couple of days we've found two patches of pyramidal orchids, just coming into flower, and at least three (probably four) different bee orchids:
I guess having the horses grazing in there is a good thing for the flowers! We popped up this afternoon and put some temporary fencing around the bee orchids, to stop the boys from trampling them. Benny came over to see what we were doing, and very nearly did step on one.
This afternoon, I took a break from the weeding to do some pruning. Must have a bonfire soon:
Hopefully it's going to warm up now, and the veggies will start to grow as well as the weeds.