June 2006 The easy times are over

June will be the last of the easier months I fear! It seems to have gone in a flash and as usual so much has happened.
The sheep and their lambs are all on the summer field now and apart from the odd hobbler seem to be thriving well. At the beginning of June I decided to take a few weeks off to make sure jobs, which, needed done before the game keeping takes over my life were done.

Mum came for a 'working holiday'

As the sheep were doing so well and the weather was really treating us to some good sun burning temperatures I decided to shear the sheep sooner rather than later. All went well doing one each night until the penultimate ewe when I discovered small maggots on Rose.
We were really lucky; as I had thought her shearing was finished but saw a small area of fleece at the back of her udders. The kind of tuft generally I think nothing of. I clipped a small piece of fleece away not out of necessity but rather a cosmetic touch only to find what seemed like hundreds of small maggots bursting from where I had cut. Fearing the worst that they had eaten into her udder I cleared away the maggots I could see to find that they were infact living in between her skin and the matted piece of fleece. After a good clean and thorough shave the maggots were off and another big lesson learned. Luckily we have never had a serious case of fly strike but this experience showed us just how easy it can develop and how vigilance really is the most important protection as well as fly strike preventative spray.
We had 4 of the 7 porker gilts back from the abattoir during the month and filled the freezer to the brim. These are the first Tamworth Large Black cross pigs we have tasted and they taste superb. The bacon made from them is not as good as the pure Tamworth but is fine for us and after all Large Blacks are pork joint pig rather than reared for bacon.
Bonnie continues to grow well and is hopefully getting to her full-grown size or I hope she is as going in to stroke her recently she is some size now. Some of that will no doubt be due to the piglets growing but still she is some size now but as docile as ever. She is due to farrow at the end of July and shall shortly go into the field vacated by the sheep, hopefully farrowing in the field shelter and producing our first litter of pedigree Large Black pigs.
I think we have had a further three hatchings to our hens but admit I have lost count now as at times we seem to be over run with mother hens and their chicks. We had 2 hens sitting very close together and noticed that although one hen hatched out 3 chicks the other hen managed to steal them although she is rearing them well. No doubt she got tired of waiting as what seems to have happened is that other hens have been laying in the same area resulting in eggs having widely differing incubating times.
The remaining hen who was in no mood to move has had a fresh supply of Pekin duck eggs popped under her and all other eggs removed. We have also made sure that other hens cannot lay next to her to avoid differing incubation times. She is sitting on four eggs from 2 dozen we bought in after having no luck finding adult Pekin ducks to complement the two we already have. The other twenty eggs are being incubated in an incubator we recently bought. Up to now 18 of the 20 we have are growing but we shall have to wait until mid July to see how many are actually hatched.
During June we seem to have gone a little mad with our poultry plans as we also bought six Bronze turkey chicks some of which we hope to breed from after swapping stags and some who are destined for the table.
Also bought some peafowl eggs as Debbie has always wanted some and they are currently being incubated by one of our broody hens and lastly I bought some turkey eggs for another of our broody hens. The reason for the turkey eggs is that they are a different breed to the Bronze chicks we have and I found them very striking in their colour. They are sold under the name of Slate turkeys so we shall wait to see how they turn out.
The veg patch is really turning out fine up to now and we are regularly able to get small amounts of fresh veg in the form of salads for now but in the near future cauliflower and cabbage will be in good supply along with sweet corn, courgettes, cucumber, beetroot, peas and beans. Up to now watering has been maintained to the required standard, which proved to be the downfall last year and along with a change of heart should mean we have some bumper crops to come. The change of heart? Well quite simply I decided that after finding evidence of slug damage yet again this year despite our best efforts to use slug-killing pellets. I never have been a great lover of chemical use but as I said to Debbie what is the point of saying I use no chemicals and yet have no food for the table. Any gardener will tell you how much hard work is required and to see the effort wrecked almost overnight is soul destroying so slug pellets it has to be.
I remember during cold and wet days during early March planting potatoes with Debbie and thinking I really hope we have a crop off these after the time and effort of planting them and it is so pleasing to see that almost all of the potatoes planted are growing well in the paddocks. We should have enough potatoes for the rest of this year I hope and whatever we miss I am sure the pigs will find later on in the year.
Although we have had good crops from the strawberries fruit has been lacking a little. With this in mind I replanted some black currant bushes last year and most are nearly at the stage of their berries turning black so having learned from the previous two years I need to get them netted as the birds generally have a field day.
I also liberated a few rhubarb crowns and these are growing well although I think the first sticks cut when replanting them will be our only crop this year. Most pleasing from a fruity point of view is that we seem to be going to have a fair crop of apples later in the summer. I planted the 3-year-old standards late last year and although in the brochure it said to expect a small crop I didn't really think we would get much in the way of apples. We have in all about 5 different varieties specific to this areas climate and it looks as if they are happy with the weather up to now.
For now all seems well, hopefully next time we have a healthy Bonnie with her piglets and yet more new arrivals!