Tunnel clearance.

Last of the tomatoes.

Although we still had tomato plants  producing fruit in the tunnel we decided to call it a day and clear them out, we need to get other things planted in the vacated beds for early crops next year.

Two beds planted with garlic and onions.

Two beds for the garlic and onions had already been cleared and are now planted, the long centre bed has been cleared but is now taken over by scaffold boards for them to dry out so we can 'Fence Life' them before constructing the new raised beds in the main garden.

Lots of compost needed for this bed.

What I need now is lots of compost or manure to top up the centre bed and for the new beds. We get a reasonable amount each year from the poultry and the donkeys, but vey little from the rabbits. We compost everything we can, grass cuttings, weeds and what little veg trimmings we might have that don't get fed to the rabbits, plus mushroom compost and seaweed but we never have enough. We could get cattle manure but it is a very cold manure and unless you can get the heat up in it, it just brings in more weeds. Whatever seeding grass cattle eat comes out the other end already to germinate, this makes cattle very good for maintaining pastures, cattle can be used to stitch in clover just by feeding them the seed. I wish we had stables near by but we will have to depend on more mushroom compost and seaweed when we next get to the coast.

Tess looks on.

Tess, our Golden Lab has now appointed herself as supervisor for any work that we do,

she also likes to keep an eye on the ducklings making sure they do not venture out of their paddock into our/her part of the garden. Naturally, Felix one of our cats also had to inspect what was happening in the tunnel, the scaffold boards  make a very good place to sharpen his claws or so he thinks.

Handsome looking bird. 

All the young birds that we hatched this year are looking good, the first of the Copper Marans are now twenty two weeks old, hopefully we will have eggs from them before Christmas,

The one in the middle is a Copper Maran pullet.

unfortunately, out of the twelve that we have hatched six are cockerels, unless we can find someone wanting to breed this variety of bird the spare cocks will end up in the freezer, they are the most beautiful looking cockerels, the hens should lay a mahogany colour egg.
 We only did one small hatching of Buff Orpingtons, three pullets and one cockerel,

Mr. Buffy jnr.

 this boy will stay as we lost his father last week, or I should say he had to be culled. He developed a swelling on one side of his face and for the first time ever we used antibiotics but to no avail, when it was clear that he was getting worse we took the only course open to us. Poor Mr. Buffy, he was a beautiful gentle giant, but his son lives on. In the meantime we located a new rooster for the three pullets, he is also a very nice bird and today found his voice, it is still very much at the practise stage, but he is only eight months old, so time enough for a full blown crow.

Young Muscovy's.

The Muscovy ducklings have grown fast, they are almost ready for the freezer when we can find space. The next twelve months meat supply is secure.
The idea  of the front porch being finished this week was pie in the sky. When the double glazers said it was ready what they meant was that the frame work was finished but that they didn't have the glass, so a further delay. Tuesday they turned up and installed the frame work, then went off to get the glass. Three hours went by, no sign of the glazers, by which time it was almost dark. Then came the 'phone call, they would not install the glass until the builder had done the roof in case he damaged the new glass, this was all very well but the builder had put off another job on the say so of the double glazing firm, so he has had to rearrange his schedule. It beats us why these companies can't stick to what they say or say what they mean. The builder has been great, but then we would have expected no less, he's English. It seems that if you want a job done, and done well and on time you employ either Brits or Polish.
 Even the company that did our external insulation, although an Irish company, employed only Polish or English workers, that rather speaks for itself.
 Maybe next week this job will be completed, but once again we are not holding our breath.