At home in the snow....

As I type the snow is beginning to fall again. We haven't had it bad here and it is only a few inches as yet. I secretly want it to be much deeper as do the children but I don't think my chickens do!


They are very unhappy about it and I have to go out three times a day to check on their water and even have to bring it inside at night to stop it freezing.


I have a three day old chick as well born to a particlularly silly hen called Stoopid2. I keep expecting to find it dead but so far every morning I see it. I cross fingers it survives.

The moat is frozen but I dare not try it for strength yet. The Boys are desperate to ice skate and having heard tales from Roger are up for a dash across it. I have told Roger off roundly now every time I take the children out I have to be like  hawk in case they spirit themselves off and have a go! A few Rookyard inmates have ventured forth albeit they are duck and chickens and I must admit it is funny to watch.

Have to brave the ciold in half an hour to get everyone tucked up and warm for the night. Even the ferrets as Ferry can't make it to look after them. They have fresh water and the remains of a rabbit to feast upon for the moment. I fear I will have to give them stew shortly as it is the only meat I have in the house. Not sure I want to share it with a load of ferrets perhaps they'll opt for cat food instead?

House Hunting: When you have to play tough

It’s pitch black at past 9.30pm and there’s a farmer sitting in his cab on the tractor doing God knows what to the field outside merely by the light afforded from his headlamps.

Where once these 200-odd acres supported eight families now there is just one: a father and son set up (plus grandsons under 18) and this is not their only land holding. In fact they farm ten times as much – it’s no wonder none of Roger’s sons wanted to take on the tenancy from the family.

However, that did allow us to get our dream – although sometimes it can feel like a nightmare. In fact it chops and changes between the two with alarming regularity. After I made my dreadful gaffe and basically told the estate agent what we could afford, it was definitely nightmare time. Not least, because it was decided that the whole sale would be done by sealed bid.

There was only one word for it: “SH*T”

We’d been here before and lost.

It is very difficult to find a home when you have so many restrictions: Dear Charlie can be a little unrealistic at times. He wanted land; an attractive preferably old house with water, woods, out buildings, within a 10 minute drive of a station on the mainline to London and definitely not timber framed.

Now I don’t know if many of you know Suffolk but this is the land of timbered houses. Every house we looked at was timber framed. A point I laboured frequently in the nine months we searched.

Me: “So just tell me why you don’t like them??!!”

Him: “I just don’t.”

Me: “Then why pick this godforsaken county then – everything is timber framed.”

Him: “They’re scary.”

Oh god! It turned out as a child he had been sent to stay with a family who lived in a heavily timbered house full of spiders – something that clearly had affected him deeply. And, however much I tried, I could find no sympathy, as I was the one who had to keep looking and vetting and I was so desperate to stop. I was willing to compromise, buy any old house, just unpack and have my life back again.

We’d been married nearly two years and I still hadn’t opened all our wedding presents. In fact I hadn’t seen the majority of my things since before we were married as I had moved in to his house and there had been no room for my pictures, knick-knacks and furniture.

And of course there was one other thing, a little niggle which P kept reminding me about – babies. How could I possibly let myself get pregnant when we didn’t have a home?

So finding out that we had to go to sealed bids was bad, very, very bad.

So there we were in the kitchen just days after P had told me the good news – pissed off and pitiful.

P: “What do you want to do?”

Us: “Sod it say we won’t play.”

P: “That’s helpful… no in fact that IS helpful!”

Dear Charlie and I looked blank. Now I love P but I do find him just a little difficult to keep up with. Never have I known a person who has had so many businesses from Kites to the estate agencies, property development to hypnotherapy. So perhaps you can forgive us if we were a little bewildered.

The next thing we knew P had got on the blower and informed the agent that his clients would not be participating in the sealed bid and that the agent would be doing his client a huge disservice as P’s clients were quite obviously the ones who had the most cash.

Me: “But I thought you said we weren’t meant to tell them that on pain of death!”

Him: “Do you want the house?”

We nodded dumbly.

And I wish it had been that simple. We won battle but the war was far from over.

House Hunting: Down right Puck like impudence!

Have you ever met someone who is innocently mischevious other than a child of course? Someone the embodiment of Puck from a Midsummer Night's Dream? Well I did just over eight years ago and since then he has gleefully overseen my countryside education.  However, I fear that the temptation to get me to say things, which will make me seem foolish, is just too strong to resist. A bit like teaching a foreigner a few phrases to help them out. They think you are teaching them to say: “I would like two tickets please.” When in fact you teach them to say: “I would like you to call me Dilly and would you plant me in the ground.” Or something equally daft. Hilarious!!!!

As you might of guessed that at 65, Roger really hasn’t got enough to do. Not that A, his wife, isn’t trying to have some control over him but after 40 odd years – odd being the operative word – Roger has perfected the art of seemingly doing as he’s told but in reality pleasing himself. It’s only when A gets really cross, which I might say is a very rare occurrence, that Roger behaves for a few moments.

When Dear Charlie first met Roger to look over the house, Roger was at his most mischievous. I can hardly blame him.

The family farm was being sold following the death of Granny. It was she who had rented her farm to her son while keeping a firm hold over the family purse strings. Her death triggered the division of the spoils between Roger and his siblings. And as none of Roger’s children had been interested in taking on the farm he had decided to retire giving up his tenancy and at the same time as his home.

The farm, too small to be viable, was sold in lots land, farm buildings and house. And it was at this stage that we met him. On this particular day Roger must just have felt he’d test out the prospective buyers of his family home – not maliciously or anything maybe just sorting the wheat form the chaff.

He’d already dragged me through the undergrowth on my previous visit this time I was wised up and so was Dear Charles – I think Roger noticed and may have been a little disappointed but luck was to favour him again in the shape of McVitie, a Golden Guernsey Billy kid.

When Roger’s father  had given up farming, he agreed to share the house with Roger and his family. In order that the two wives could continue to rule their own respective roosts the family home was physically divided into two. Now, some 30 years later, Roger was showing the two halves to potential future owners and on this glorious Saturday morning was where McVitie comes in – literally.

You guessed it, McVitie decided to follow us about the garden and as we seemed friendly and happy to pet him he followed us into Granny's part of the house. Roger must have been quite delighted and I remember he actively encouraged the kid to come upstairs as he gleefully watched the expressions of deep worry and consternation that sped across our faces!

It was about this time when you could see Roger was encouraging McVitie to caper along the upstairs corridor that a sharp sounding voice that brooked no nonsense echoed up the stairs.

“ROGER!!!!!****”

The culprit raised his eyebrows and grinned as the goat was hastily shooed down the stairs and out into the garden. But any hint of contrition from Roger was never aired in our hearing despite being caught red-handed.

Over the years there is very little that surprises me about Roger – his reputation goes before him and he’s fully aware of it!

Despite that it is a privilege to know him and his wonderful family and and I think we get on, actually we have to, as he converted one of the barns and lives next door!

So near and yet so far...(when opening your mouth without engaging your brain can lose you what you really want)

As a year comes rapidly to an end I start to reminisce, tonight I thought about the first time I saw this place; the first time I met Roger.
I love Roger – I think I did from the very beginning. When I picked up Charlie that evening, that golden summer evening you know the type; heavy and hazy and just full. Everything golden from grass to leaves to crops in the fields – OK so it was June but the fields were golden - full of OSR and my husband full of hay fever!
Welcome to the country! I picked him up from the train station and just drove him to the house; I couldn’t contain my excitement and we cruised past backwards and forwards.
We couldn’t wait to get a better look. P brought the details and there she was - pink. Very, very pink. With a red roof. Lots and lots of Georgian windows and large pottery Gloucester pig placed jauntily in front of an elegant wrought iron garden bench. All this framed by verdant foliage and an emerald green lawn – freshly cut.
But that’s where it stopped – where were the best bits? Where were the internal shots of the beautiful drawing rooms and large farmhouse kitchen; the dining room? In fact any room?

Just a bald statement:

The productive Residential and Arable Farm known as … with substantial 16th Century Farmhouse (Listed Grade II); Modern and Traditional Farm Buildings and 248 acres of Fertile Arable Land being of the Hanslope (411d), Ashley (572q) and Ragdale 1 (712g) Associations (MAFF Grades 2 AND 3).
For sale by private treaty as a whole or in 4 lots

Lot 1 was the farmhouse and 3.93 acres … “in need of some updating and modernisation”.
Dear Charlie wished me luck the next morning as he left to catch the train to London – I had a viewing and would tell him all about it when he got home that evening and say whether I thought it was worth him coming along the next time.
I don’t remember much about that viewing except meeting Roger. Before we knew it the agent and I were taken down the garden going through a seriously overgrown rose arch with more brambles than rose and down to the moat through the tallest nettles on the planet.
I trotted doggedly after Roger as he strode forth in shorts and open toed sandals, totally oblivious of the chin high nettles and brambles that made up the back paddock, through the encroaching trees to the moat where he bade us turn round to look at the house. All the time he chattered, smiling thorough his grisly grey beard, his bushy eyebrows dancing with ill concealed delight every time I flinched, jumped, and stumbled after being stung, scratched or being tripped up. The agent fared no better – I swear that Roger did it deliberately and, knowing him as I do now, I’m sure he did. He took us through the dirtiest, smelliest and most tangled way round that garden that he possibly could. I was in three quarter lengths and backless sandals, while the poor agent was in his very best suit and brand new loafers. Needless to say we were wrecked and we hadn’t even set foot indoors.
The next memory I have is of being in the spare room upstairs looking out over the moat and into the wood on the opposite side. The sun shining on the water and casting dimples of light all around the room I was in and I go and open my big mouth and do exactly what P had begged me not to – I asked how much and the agent replied and I so naively said that’s great we can go to X - a good £30,000 more than was being suggested. As soon as I did this I knew I was in trouble. I tried to backtrack but I could see the gleam in the agent’s eye – he knew it and I knew it; I was hooked and I was the very first person he had taken round – how many others would do the same?
Foolish girl.
I can’t explain how wonderful it felt to know this was the one and how terrible to know that we could lose it just because I couldn’t keep my trap shut. I couldn’t keep my enthusiasm under control. I couldn’t be cool.
It would not be long before Dear Charlie and I were told that the property would be sold via sealed bids…

Dark doings down on the Farm...

Tonight is the night. Tonight my husband is away. Tonight I will pluck up my courage and do the thing I have been meaning to do for ages – I will kill my surplus cockerels.
It seems pathetic that I cannot kill my own chickens. I will go to great lengths to avoid it – my usual excuse being that we never meant to have any chickens in the first place. However, they came with the house.
I remember first seeing this place. Dear Charlie’s best mate P had returned to Suffolk a year earlier and was looking for a suitable home for us while we were in London and then in June just after we had moved into rented accommodation he loomed large at the door while I was de-fleaing one of the cats at the kitchen table.
Him: “You pregnant yet?” (back then P was very keen that we had children as quickly as possible perhaps because he needed Dear Charlie to join him as a new dad to bemoan the sleepless night that he was clearly suffering).
Me: “You found me a house yet?”
He had just heard that this place was coming onto the market begged me not to get excited and: “For god’s sake don’t say how much money you can spend!”
Both bits of advice went in one ear and out the other and I dived headlong for the car leaving P to handle an extremely explosive cat still in its towel vice.
Although I couldn’t actually look at the house; I could drive past it, which I did several times – we’d been looking for so long it seemed and nothing we had viewed was ever quite right. Could this be it?
Then I saw the most extraordinary sight. Just after the turning for the house and before the 90 degree bend in the road, a massive great lorry had ground to a halt; it sat there a-huffing and a-puffing and not doing very much. I stopped the car – what was going on?
Then I noticed that just in front of the juggernaught a chick was quite unconcernedly was pecking away in the middle of the road at some fallen grain; then I looked again, there was whole group of them plus a very harassed motherhen,who had quite literally taken on the lorry. Her wings were aggressively spread, her neck all ruffled up. The HGV didn’t stand a chance. Minutes later all the chicks were across the road and into the corn field then the hen swivelling on short bright yellow legs, dark chestnut and black feathers immaculately in place, strutted after them. My first encounter with the Rookyard brood; how I would grow to love them and to curse them over the next eight years!
As far as looking at the house was concerned I could hardly see a thing just a glimpse of Suffolk Pink up a dirty concrete drive massively overgrown with jungle like vegetation – I just knew it would be ours and drove off in a hurry to tell Dear Charlie that I had found our "Forever" house.
I don’t know why I feel I need to tell you about how we got this place and what it meant but if I don’t, then it will all be forgotten. I need to bring you up to speed so you’ll know what I’m going on about – it’s not really a blog. But if you don’t know the story of the hens, the house, the children, the dogs etc you won’t know me…
That hen with her chicks was what I wanted to be – a mum.
Now as a responsible chicken owner I need to protect my brood and too many cockerels is not a good thing. I will grab next-door neighbour Roger and we will do the deed tonight!

Taking down things that were once yours...an agricultural perspective.

Thud, thud, thud… Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Whee! Whee! Thud! Bang! I would at this point like to say that the builders are in - but it is only Roger.
He is in the process of dismantling his old round corrugated iron grain store and as I write the evening is being punctuated by clashes and clatters then the frantic wheeing of the angle grinder followed by vicious thuds, a couple of bangs then silence. Then just as the rest of us, and the wildlife, recover from the assault; it starts again.
I have witnessed the beginning of this project some three months ago not asking why Roger was doing it as you never ask Roger anything ‘cos the result is you are never any the wiser with the answer.
The grain store hasn’t belonged to Roger for six years but like everything round here that doesn’t count for much. Roger does, as the Boy so succinctly put it, “Roger things”. So on a saturday morning in the cold of November Bog Boy and I watched along with J, who hires one of our barns, as Roger tackled the job of dismembering what was once his.
Roger: “Well I put it up so I suppose I’m the best one to take it down again problem is I can’t remember exactly how I did it, I will once I take it down though.”
We watched as Roger swung precariously on a rope yanking it backwards and forwards.
Roger: “It wholly keeps you warm this!”
And he began to climb to the top. For a man closer to 70 than I would care to think; Roger is exceedingly fit and strong but how he has survived for so long without killing or severely injuring himself I have no idea. Health & Safety are not his watchwords – in fact I don’t think he even knows they exist.
The grain store stands roughly 30ft high, is cylindrical and rocks a bit in the wind. Roger says it’s always been like that and he built it so deliberately otherwise he informed me it would have been blown down long since.
Me: “Right Roger, I’ll believe you…”
With that he looked at me and grinned and carried on climbing.
Roger: “Oh I can see how I did it now!”
J and I looked at each other then chorused: “How then, Roger?”
Roger: “I did it with scaffolding poles - then winched the roof up and added the walls a level at the time!”
Right then - ingenious - but not exactly safe! And to think he used to do all the building work on the house! Shudder At the Thought! But then we’ve seen most of his handiwork at some stage or another.
J and I then took bets.
J: “He’s fair going at it – two months!”
Me: “Yeah, right more like a year! More bloody bits of metal round the farm.”
J laughed, took another drag of his cigarette and headed back in to the barn where he works. I continued to watch Roger, half out of curiosity and half because it is something I always do when Roger is working around the farm. Roger has diabetes and we all keep an eye on him. He’s so enthusiastic that he forgets to eat properly and then forgets to test with the result that he either gets too high or too low and becomes quite uncontrollable, very loquacious and garrulous and sometimes argumentative - pretty much like he is always - then he falls over. To avoid this we all remind him when we get suspicious. Dear Charlie says he reckons he sometimes puts it on just to see us rise. Teasing us is one of Roger’s favourite past times.
Eventually I left him to it and after a few days it all stopped. I did ask why he was doing it and he said it was because Mr W was going to build a clamp for sugar beet and had wanted to remove the grain store before the winter so Roger said he would do it so long as he could have the metal. Mr W agreed – happiness all round.
Roger will take the metal to the scrap merchant and that will be his pay – but I suspect that it will keep him busy and entertained for a few more months. I’ll just put up with the syncopated orchestra for a few more evenings….

What happened on Thursday evening...

Something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention, a fluid movement slips out of view, a deadly shadow in the evening sunlight, slinking ever purposefully towards the hen hut.
A cacophony of noise erupts in the peaceful evening haze. A scrabble of claws, a whirr of beating wings, squawks and thumps and a flurry of hens appears in the middle of the drive.
The wraith-like shadow pauses and passes on. There is easier prey to be had – almost on a plate. For at the back of the pen there is an inviting box and from the box the harbinger of death can smell warmth, blood warmth. Succulent warmth. Adding to the piquancy of the moment is the delicious aroma of fear. Hearts beat faster and faster and louder and louder stamping out the dance of death and in a flurry of downy white feathers the deed is done and all you can hear from inside is the snap of bones and cartilage and the chomp as the Ferret starts on hor d’oeuvres.
By the time I realise what is happening it is all over for the chick. My fury knows no bounds and like an avenging angel I descend upon the vulpine creature snapping it shut in the box. I pause and consider the options before me and in this time, these brief few seconds the Ferret is already making its move. Driven by a fury that matches my own at having its dinner disturbed the Ferret hisses a warning then determinedly it pushes its nose at the corner of the lid. Without thinking I grab at its scruff. There is a squeal of outrage and then the most exquisite pain as Tuppence sinks her fangs into the base of my thumb. I pinch tighter, determined not to let go despite the fact I can hear the crunch as her teeth sink right to the bone. She struggles to get a better grip and sinks her teeth again. I make a grab at her with my other hand and in a blur of mahogany ermine she plants her fangs into the fat of my other hand.
I love my chickens to pieces and instinctively I have gone to their aid but as I dance about the yard with a ferret stuck on my hand I do ask myself are they really worth it?
As the ferret flies through the air to land cat like near the feed bin some 15 yards away I am really angry and I now block its chittering movement with my feet, stamping down just in front of it’s nose letting the vibration force it to back away. Hissing in blind fury the ferret lunges again and realising that I have come out in flip flops I beat a hasty retreat hollering for Roger my neighbour to come to my aid.
Tuppence and I dance around the yard as she determinedly retraces her steps to the scene of the crime (or dinner depending on whose view you take).
Roger calls.
Me: Grab it Roger!
Him: What?
Me: The Ferret.
Him: What ferret
Me: That one, the one that bit me (as if there were more than one!)
Him: OK then.
Roger really is a very affable chap. Bonkers I’ll admit. And before I can warn him of the imminent danger he is putting himself to, he stoops to swoop it up and catching it, he expertly holds it in his arms. The ferret knows it is beat and acquiesces. Butter wouldn’t melt.
I glower then realise that I really am bleeding rather a lot and from both hands and it really is rather painful.
Me: Ow!
Him: Well you shouldn’t have picked it up then should you!
Me: Roger! I had no choice - it was killing my chickens.
Him, with a distinct air of superiority: Get yourself over to Annie and I’ll sort it.
I stomp off to see Annie muttering about know it all old farmers and hissing just like Tuppence about how unfair it is and why does it always happen to me.
Annie sorts me out quickly with a good dollop of TCP and listens as I continue to hiss and spit. Agreeing with me that he is a tiresome old bugger when suddenly there is an almighty yelp – we both grin.

Planning the concert party at Stalag 57

It is indeed quiet - almost too quiet I would say...every time I go past they either scramble to the net and follow me round the perimeter the whole group of them keeping pace as I pace step for step and when I stop so do they or they stand there and just follow me with their eyes. It can be most disconcerting.
When they did that the other morning I tried running round the pen to see if they would fall over as they hurriedly twisted their necks to keep up but just as I got to the critical point Dear Charlie bellowed out from the upstairs window: “What the bloody hell do you think you are doing? There’s no time for playing silly buggers with chickens! It’s nearly quarter to nine, you’re still in your nightie, you’re wearing my boots, and I’m going to be late for tennis.”
I wouldn’t have minded the telling off but just at that moment Roger our 65-year old next door neighbour appeared and gave me a rather too appreciative grin remarking that it was mighty chilly now!
I gave him as quelling a look as I could and I gathered my dressing gown close about me but since my husband’s wellies are about five sizes larger than mine I was unable to make a bolt for it and had to retreat at a more dignified pace to the sound of my neighbour chuckling and none to quietly either!
One thing I have noted about the chickens is that sometimes if I stop and take the opportunity to look at them too closely they get all skittery and start running around making it impossible to count to them.
I swear there is something going on inside but the only odd thing I have found on opening the hut to check just what IS going on is seeing one of the Burnt Brothers (I still haven't gotten round to doing the dirty and sending them off for the pot) sitting in one of the broody boxes inside rather than using the perch. In general the cockerels always perch rather than nest.
I think I’ll have a closer inspection of that particular broody box tomorrow….
But seriously I am agreeably surprised how in general they seem to be bearing up well and the good news is that as long as we don’t have another outbreak they could all be allowed to roam free in two weeks time!

RESPECT your chickens....

I am rapidly revising my ideas about chickens mostly I think of them as dumb clucks, sometimes a feather short of a full wing but in no way do I think of them as cunning, vicious killers.
However, today my blood ran cold. Today I realised that though the velociraptor is extinct its legacy lives on in its feathered descendants far more than may commonly be realised.
I had just been round to check on “Said Chicken” and ascertain if she really was one of my flock – I couldn’t get close enough to work it out so prepped Roger to catch her later in the day - and went to open up the Chicken shed.
I call to the tree chickens first; they roost in the trees at night and are more bantam like than their Chicken Shed cousins. I think that being smaller they need to get a look in before the bigger birds are let out. Then I usually open up the small chick cage to let out the babies and when I think they’ve had a good old go, I nip round the back and open the hatch.
Out they pour, clucking and cackling, a blur of black, brown speckled, white and grey blue feathers. Clacking yellow, pink and black long toed feet on the ramp a few jump and a few fly and whoosh they are round the corner and tucking in – only today something else happened.
There was the most god awful strangulated squawk from behind me and I swivelled on my feet to witness one of the younger cockerels chasing down what I thought was a chick – just as I started to burst into action and chase the bugger away, Blue – my Old English Game hen - joined in from the opposite direction. The “Chick” jinxed and got passed Blue who had made a lunge at it missing it by inches. Having survived that it seemed to falter and I realised that it was a juvenile Moorhen. I must have been slow because I could have grabbed it and rescued it but it dodged round me with both Blue and the young cockerel quite literally on its tail only to run straight into a few other hens. I thought it would be OK and relaxed a bit only to find that all the others turned on it as well.The bird was trapped and then all the hens all started to peck and jump up and down pulverising the unfortunate creature to death. It was all over within seconds and then my blood ran truly cold for with it dead the chickens started to feast. And those who has not taken part started to flock over and it was like out of some horror film – chickens grabbing at bits of gore, fighting, squawking and then it was all over and they were back to normal pecking away in the sunshine at the left over corn or wandering off to check out the garden, drink by the moat or else dust bathe in the sunshine. Just another normal autumn morning…and I am left standing looking about for evidence of this extraordinary goings on. Just a pair of yellow feet and some dusty grey black wing feathers…I am not so sure I will dismiss my chickens in quite the same way as before. RESPECT your chickens.

The sad tale of the Goat Shed and Chicken Hut fowl (apologies to the Bard)

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Rookyard, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where chicken blood makes chicken feet unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of cross patched cockerels take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous cock crows
Do with their death bury their poor flocks' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd fight,
And the continuance of their harangued flocks' rage,
Which, but their cockerel's end, nought could put to flight,
Is now a moments' traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.…

My flock, as you will no doubt have realised, roosts in two quite separate areas of the farm. Both used to intermingle, pass the time of day, scratch at the same patches and generally get on with each other.
Not so two Summers ago. Due to a gradual reduction in the number of hens caused by illness, old age, crossing the road and Mr Foxy Fowler; there was a great need to cull the cockerels – if just for the sanity of those poor remaining hens who would dart from nest to nest as surreptitiously as possible to avoid the avid attentions of their lustful cousins, brothers, fathers and sons.
Thus dispatched; there remained two cocks to crow. Pitt the Younger – a feisty little but rather beautiful bantam of about four years and Big Boy, an extremely handsome Leg Bar cross cockerel of a somewhat startling stature compared to the majority of the bantams on the farm.
All seemed fine; then one morning there was the most almighty hullabaloo; I dashed down from my study, grabbed a suitable looking weapon - turned out to be an umbrella – and prepared to take on any vulpine enemy.
My neighbour, Roger, also came running and to our amazement we witnessed the most savage and vitriolic fight I have ever encountered. Quite literally feathers, blood and gore flew. The outcome of which, was that as far as we could see, Big Boy had won the day.
All should have been settled. But as the course of that summer wore on, I could not but notice that there was more scuffles and general upheaval than before. The two flocks avoided each other; and from the upstairs window you could watch them taking great pains to ensure that they never met during the day.
The Hen Hut became quite empty and it was then that I realised that despite that seminal fight, Pitt the Younger was winning the war. Big Boy had stopped crowing and was reluctant to even come out of the Hen Hut.
But power or absolute power, has the ability to corrupt – absolutely. And after finding myself stalked as an enemy by my pint sized cockerel, there could only be one outcome. Pitt the Younger, for his overtly aggressive ways, would have to be dispatched to the great farmyard in the sky.
The day dawned, the deed was swift. All done and dusted or was it?
Despite the relief afforded to the hen community; Big Boy was clearly not all right. He still refused to come out of the hut. He was still reluctant to crow. And one balmy August evening, I noticed that his breathing was laboured. A visit to the vet confirmed my worst fears and Big Boy joined Pitt the Younger in the vast beyond. During some fight in the previous weeks the bantam had inflicted a fatal kick to Big Boy causing a rupture from which his decline was to be inevitable. So beyond the grave Pitt the Younger killed my handsome gentle giant. And all at once the farm was cockereless.

A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of less joy
Than this of Pitt and my Big Boy.

Luckily, in the course of nature there is NEVER a lack of cockerels for long and to fill in the gap Ollie and Stanley came to roost - Arcana/Leg Bar cross brothers. They roam the farm and keep down the uppity youngsters. Culling takes place every Autumn/Early Spring and all is calm - on the surface. But who knows with chickens?

Do you want to fall out over a handful of Blackberries?

Have you ever done something totally reprehensible? Something really mean?
I did.
Today.
I was coming back from the Village Shop, where I had tried and failed to bribe The Boy into giving up his Bobby’s Chocolate Muffins for a handmade choc chip cake from Palmers our local bakery plus a packet of crisps, when I noticed a woman cross the road from the wood opposite our drive and saunter down our verge. I was a bit unsure what she was doing. She carried with her a large white bag that looked extremely heavy. As I got closer I realised she was picking blackberries – my blackberries.
I approached.
“Excuse me can I help you?”
“No.”
I tried again: “Excuse me, what do you think you are doing?”
“I’m picking blackberries.”
“I can see that. Did you ask the owner’s permission?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I am the owner.”
“Well then I am asking now. It’s only for a pie.”
“Why don’t you take the ones in the wood?”
“They’re not as good as these.”
“No, I bet they’re not.”
Being encumbered I decided to relieve myself of my appendages and took them home where I plonked them down in front of the TV while I dealt with the pilferer.
She was still there quite unrepentant. I walked right up to her with my arms folded.
“Big pie.” I said looking at her extremely full carrier bag.
“Well it’s for more than one…”
I raised my eyebrows at this and said: “Finished yet?”
“No.”
“Well you are now.”
“Now you’re not going to fall out over a handful of Blackberries are you?”
“Yes, today I am going to do just that!”
“I’ve been picking Blackberries here for years - I always do it.”
“Well you’re not going to do it now.”
“I’ve been in this Village for 34 years…”
“Well I haven’t…”
“No I can see that…”
“Good.”
“I’ve always picked Blackberries here when the Stearns…”
“The Stearns haven’t owned this place for six years. Now I do and if I want to let all my Blackberries rot where they are that is my right.” I turned and stalked off back up the drive. Seething.
Needless to say she left. Five minutes later I shot back down the drive to make sure and the coast was clear. Boy was she a good picker not a single ripe one left.
Winding myself up right royally I thought that in the six years I had lived here I had NEVER seen this woman before. I had NEVER seen her picking Blackberries.
Pounding up the drive I was muttering: “No common decency! I would never pick someone else’s fruit without asking. I have never done so I’ve been taught to always ask permission. The only time you don’t is when you’re on a Public Footpath or Bridleway. It’s not as if my verge is even in the Village. It's on the main road!”
I saw Roger in the yard and stomped off to see him and tell him what I had done. I warned him that I was probably being cursed in the Village and not to worry about it. Slightly startled he said that most people see Blackberries as a gift from God and therefore free to all and sundry adding that there again most people didn’t feel quite the same about Pheasants. I said I had no defence for what I had done and scowled off inside ignoring the Builders who were looking hopefully for another cup of coffee.
Now it started to dawn on me that my behaviour was bad and then I thought shit that is not the way to win friends and influence people. And suddenly I had the most dreadful image in my head of the whole of the Village WI all storming up here and picking all my Blackberries to make a point and cocking a snook at me. What would I do? I imagined myself slapping a great big fence all along the road, or digging up all the brambles. Splitting my nose to spite my face and I knew that I was more than capable of doing both.
Iwas still fuming and humming and harghing and I shouted at the Boys when I got in. My eldest to placate me started to say there were plenty of other Blackberries and I snapped at him sending him upstairs crying. I behaved like the biggest BITCH and felt ten times worse.
There is no defence for what I did either to the woman or to the boys. I said I was sorry to my eldest and cuddled my youngest. The Boy said that’s alright Mummy and I hugged him even closer – to be forgiven so easily; something I really don’t deserve.

Dancing with Ducklings

Skittering across the moat are four burnt marmalade ducklings catching the bugs that dance just out of sight above the water. One minute they’re on one side the next they are on the other, sometimes they leap out of the water to catch a tasty morsel – they really are quite as comical just as they are when they do it across the lawn – except they trip up over the daisies on the lawn!
The original batch I’m afraid are all long gone despite all my efforts to save them – as they say nature is ruthless in her efficiency. Basically we have too many drakes dropping in. There were four of them who pestered Mrs Duck Nos 1 so much that it left her exhausted and her ducklings bewildered and scattered about across the garden. In fact we found out that the drakes would batter the ducklings out of the way in their desperation to get to Mrs Duck Nos 1. And then I’m afraid Mrs Duck Nos 1 was just too tired, distracted and generally not able to keep the family together and what with foxes, rooks and various others lurking in the undergrowth the whole lot vanished. Mrs Duck Nos 1 is now laying again and perhaps there won’t be quite as much drakish desperation in a months time.
Meanwhile Mrs Duck Nos 2 and her ducklings seem to be thriving and she is able to totter around the farm without being stalked by anything other than Big Chicken Ollie my white Rooster. Ollie believes everything belongs to him – cats, dogs, laundry and of course every hen that crosses his path. He has even tried it on me and although I will admit he IS handsome he is not quite my cup of tea – bit of a slam-dunk type of guy and very, very jealous.
It is quite the most glorious evening, pregnant with the expectation of summer, dozy, warm peaceful. I can hear the aerobatics chap in his plane. He practices above out house I really have no idea why except that the farm it is pretty easy to spot from the air. We seem to be a turning point for all sorts of air traffic from Hercules, helicopters and various other military air support – and Roger says it has ever been thus!
There are pictures of the bomb that was dropped in the First World War and everyone from the farm standing in the trench that it made in the back field close to the house. Then there is the photo of the airman, who was downed a few months later, resplendent in his Biggles’ goggles, flying helmet and while silk scarf. We even have bits of the wooden propeller from his plane nailed to the barn. The airman in standing it was once the walled garden – it looks beautiful – and he, well he looks handsome, and strong and exciting. I wonder what happened to him?There’s a bigger splash and a large quack, Mrs Duck Nos 2 is calling her offspring into order and off they go in a perfect line behind her, home to bed – a place I shall wander off too as well.