In like a lion.

Where's that worm?

It seems that winter has not finished with us yet, it might be March but the first day has brought snow with it, for us not a lot, but in Roscommon  they had a blizzard, this was a shame as the first Sunday in every month there is a very good poultry market there, today's would have been a good opportunity for people looking for new breeding stock and sellers alike, however snow stopped play early. We have friends who go every month and always call in on us on their way home, normally around two thirty in the afternoon, today they were with us before twelve, soaked through to the skin. April should be better but by then the breeding season will be in full swing.
 We have set our first eggs today, to check on fertility, these are the La Bresse, a French table bird, I have  orders for hatching eggs but we must check the fertility first. This will probably be the only hens eggs that we hatch this year, we will do duck eggs as well, and raise some day old Hubbard chicks as we  normally do plus a couple of  piglets. This along with the occasional joint of beef will take care of our meat for the year. The beef will be coming from a small farm about twenty miles away, they are in conversion to Organic and will get their symbol in May, they have specialised in heritage breeds, the beef is from Dexters, a small breed of beef ideally suited to the  Irish climate and soil, we have already tried a roasting joint and it was superb, even better than the rib of beef that we had at Christmas, they are also doing Tamworth pork and Jacob lamb  which we will also try although Simon is not keen on lamb. It so nice to see a young couple who are dedicated to farming and the heritage breeds and to be able to buy directly from them. Once again their meat prices are cheaper than any supermarket except of course Lidl , but we will go for quality every time.

Stage one.

With no real gardening weather to speak of I needed something to fill my time, all the early seeds have been planted and the straw bales for the straw bale gardening experiment are still undergoing the conditioning process so I decided to make another basket,

Weave the base.

using fresh willow as we have lots of basket willow growing now, I wanted to keep my hand in, it's a year  since we did the green basket making course.

Inspection time from Misty.

Not that we need any more baskets,

First test by Zara.

but the cats love them.

It meets with Freddie's approval.

This one is supposed to be for gathering the vegetables from the garden in, it's a little crooked, fresh willow is much harder to work with than dried willow, but it is very colourful, I love the colours in it and the cats think that it's just for them.

Not perfect but colourful.

I must have a look around the garden and see if there are any more long wands that I can dry ready for next winter, there's no doubt that using seasoned willow is far easier on the hands.
The daffodils that I expected to be in bloom by this weekend have decided that it's too cold, they remain in a suspended state of animation.

The snowdrops have been wonderful this year but sadly are nearly over but all the crocuses are out,

when I say all I mean the purple ones. Once again I had planted yellow as well as  purple but once again, not a sign of the yellow ones. I have now planted yellow crocus three years running with the same result, not a one! I will not try again, I'm just not meant to have them.