Simple pleasures
Our greatest success
And the challenges...
Clockwise, from
above: a rainbow
clutch of eggs; the
now-flourishing
orchard; dusting
down just-picked
chanterelles; bee
ready – priming
the smoker,
before inspecting
the hivesWe love the routines that smallholding life
brings, whether chopping wood, collecting
eggs, or picking ingredients for dinner.
Then there’s the joy of seeing shooting stars
on a clear night, or listening to birdsong.
We love escaping into the fields and woods
nearby to forage for wild mushrooms.
We’ve honed our foraging skills over the
years, but still get ridiculously excited
whenever we spot any edible fungi.We have slowly built up our f lock of hens
to include some rare-breed birds, as well as
some interesting hybrids. We were so
chuffed when we opened the hen house to
find the first coloured eggs. Our egg racks
are now a cheerful rainbow of dark brown,
baby blue, speckled terracotta, pink, olive,
and even the occasional lilac.We’ve encountered all sorts of challenges,
problems, and mishaps. Everything from
swarms of bees in the orchard to whitef ly
attacks on the brassicas; collapsed log
stores; escaped lambs from the
neighbouring field trampling the
vegetable patch; aggressive cockerels
chasing us around the chicken enclosure;
curious geese nosing around the apiary
being stung by the bees and even a wild
stoat sneaking into the hen houses,
pinching our prized olive eggs, and
rolling them merrily away across the
orchard to its burrow. But that’s all part
of the experience and thankfully not too
tricky to resolve: we’ve upped our
companion-planting knowledge to
combat pests, learnt how to lay hedges,
relocated the apiary, eaten a delicious
cockerel stew, and deterred the stoat with
mustard-filled eggshells. It has certainly
been an entertaining few years!120