Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

It was never in our plans to keep geese again, not because we don't like them, we do, geese along with Turkeys make wonderful pets, but when we were offered some geese eggs we said yes, if any hatch that's Christmas dinner sorted. Out of the nine eggs we were given two have hatched and one is on it way.

Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee

Within a very short time the two hatchlings had a name, you just cant eat anything with a name, it remains to be seen if the third one makes it OK and the two first hatch survive OK, but it looks as though we will have geese again.

Hubbard chicks, now eight days old.

We have no problem in raising poultry for the table, but something that imprints on you and responds to your voice is never going to make it to the table. We had already made a new brooder, just in case we had goslings hatch,

An instant brooder, more or less.

this one was made from two hula hoops, some bamboo canes and wire netting, total cost, less than five euros and took half an hour to construct.
As Simon was feeding and letting out the hens and ducks over the weekend he disturbed a mink, it was in the duck run and ran under one of the houses, luckily the birds were still locked up, Simon had a stout stick on hand and managed to dispatch the mink.

A good mink.

Mink are vermin, they have no place even in the wild in Ireland and if it were not for the fur farms that went bust they would not be here at all. We don't like killing wildlife, but mink are a menace and are not indigenous. The only stock we have lost here is to mink, although we have plenty of foxes around the electric fences seem so far to have kept them at bay, but this run is the one place that does not have electric fencing and the stock that we have lost also did not have this protection, maybe we need to invest in more electric fencing but it's not cheap.

Avens in a hedgerow.

The woodland and banks are now full of early summer flowers, the Primroses are still blooming along with Violets, lots of Bluebells and

One for the garden.

                                   Avens, this is a very pretty little plant so often overlooked.

Early Purple Orchid.

                            Early Purple Orchids bloom alongside the Violets,

Wild Arum, Cuckoo pint, Lords and Ladys, etc..

                         and the wild Arum ( Arum maculatum) is now giving a good display.
 Garlic mustard, white flowers, and Hedge mustard, yellow flowers, adorn the hedgerows. The only thing missing are Wood Anemones and Garlic Ransoms they don't seem to grow in our nearby woods.

A local wood, just down the road from us.

                                               It is a colourful time of year.