Making Progress

Catherine has just stayed here for a week and as usual we have managed to get more done than I ever do when I am on my own. We have fenced off a large part of the land for veggie growing and have built the walls onto the goat field shelter so they have somewhere to stand when it rains. We have also continued to process ducks and chickens, one of which we ate last night. He was the biggest of the young cockerels and for a three and a half month old bird he was very meaty. I have tried making a short film showing our achievements.
We have also made time for the most important tasks, meeting friends, celebrating my birthday, sitting in front of the log burner playing cards and chatting. Add to that treating my chickens for lice (a real pain) and disciplining Monty kitten who is turning into a playful pest and you get some idea of Catherine's many achievements.

Rabbits again

The last of the young rabbits have been killed, skinned, cleaned and are in the freezer. I have decided that rabbit keeping is not for me. The meat is nice but does not seem to be worth the death of an animal and I am not convinced that I can give them the quality life I would wish to before death. In order to manage them they must live in a small cage and putting them into a run on a daily basis seems impractical when there are so many of them. On the other hand if they only live for 3 months before death then spending it in a cage is not how I would want it to be.

The birds free range, sun bath, dust bathe and forage happily. Somehow this makes me feel better about killing them for food. Their quality of life seems better to me.

Otherwise life continues as usual, I am very behind with the garden, I am trying to complete the next section of fencing around the veggie patch. My lovely daughter is here for a couple of weeks and we have many spring bulbs to plant, a gift from my family for my recent birthday.

Monty the kitten has tamed down marvellously and if anything is too demanding. He can now shin up my body using claws to hold on and loves nothing better than being held and stroked, purring loudly, which is fine if it is the evening but it prevents much work getting done during the day.