Gold rush

With Christmas rapidly approaching, I was keen to make a few more decorations for our tree. These are pine cones that I gathered as firelighters - I sprayed them with gold paint and will put them around the base of our tree.

Bonfire Toffee

I had a bumper baking session at the beginning of this month - parkin for Hallowe'en, bonfire toffee for the following week and my first ever Christmas cake, based on my granny's recipe.

Most of the bonfire toffee is still sat in the back of the fridge - it doesn't work well in warm weather and we don't have a toffee hammer. We'll have to get the rolling pin out again and bash it up into bite-size pieces. I was really pleased with how authentic the finished result was - I think the sugar thermometer was the key to my success. Next time I'll be trying that other northern classic, cinder toffee.

Dust bath

A pea hen bathing in the pea gravel which is waiting for our drainage works to start up again.

New sheep

This shot is for Jennifer - our new sheep who are enjoying the fresh grass after we had the paddock topped.

Broody boy

When I went to check on our girls one evening whilst they were still sitting, I was amused to find one of our roosters in the coop too. He stayed there for a few hours and did it again the next day. I'm not sure if he was keeping an eye on them or just enjoying their company!

Spring chicks

All our hens decided to sit at one - three in the coop, one in the bush. We counted up about 23 chicks in total but couldn't be certain as they wouldn't keep still. So far we've given away about 16 chicks to neighbours and have 7 left. Could you home some of our lovely chirpy chicks? I'd happily keep them but I'm worried about what would happen next time some of our hens get broody!

Treat 'em mean...

I'd despaired of our agave ever sprouting babies. I'd seen agaves with pups galore along the high streets of some of our local suburbs but there was no sign at all of any appearing in our garden. Then the agaves had a year of maltreatment - hidden under the scaffolding then badly knocked by the digger building our deck.

And lo and behold! Babies emerged from the undergrowth just a few weeks later. Success! I think I'll leave them in place to fill out the border and deter the chickens from using it as a dust bath. But if they just keep coming, I'll be keen to work out how to propagate them and populate other beds around our property.