Tired.......

I am knackered at the moment. Thoroughly cream crackered. On top of that I am feeling ill. It is times like these you just think why did I get myself into this. No matter how you feel the chickens still need feeding, the goats letting out, the seeds watering and then of course the kids and the full time job.

Oh well - "grin and bear" sums it up I suppose.

As the weather has improved we are starting to taste summer now and its time to get busy. I have lots of seeds to plant although I need to go over my veg patches again with a rotivator. I'm doing loads more veg this year to hopefully see us 80% self-sufficient for the summer. Everyting from beans to carrots to salads to herbs. I have some chillie seeds in the utility room as well as tomato and cauliflower. As soon as they are big enough all will go outside. I am so looking forward to doing it all again this year - last summer was bliss as you could finish work at 5.30 then get a good 3 hours in outside in the hazy sunshine.

There's not much else been going on. Got a few more chicks in, 20, to fatten up. The goats are doing really well although I must admit I completely forgot to trim their hooves and they are madly overgrown! They are a priority for the weekend.

I have also perfected my technique with chicken killing - will post more details once I have some photos.

I also got a but more media coverage this week. The Times Online did a small piece on my organic halal initative. Read the article here.

The Metro

I made the The Metro today - a nice little article by the journalist Rahul Verma on my whole life change and organic halal meat venture.

Many thanks to Rahul and The Metro for the publicity!

You can read the article here - Put Prophet ahead of Profit

....and then there were 5

I thought the geese were going to be a good idea. Add some colour to the field, keep the grass down, etc. As usual the rose tinted glasses smashed within a week when we realised these things are bloody noisy. And when I say noisy I mean people being tortured at 5 am in the morning noisy. It was waking up Zak which meant waking us up and one of the neighbours mentioned it in that typically understated polite and English manner.

So I thought enough is enough and a couple had to go. So there I was in the field, pouring with rain trying to herd 7 geese into a pen so I could catch them. The herding them into the pen worked fine - you basically think like a sheep dog. Once they were in the pen though all hell broke loose and I had 7 geese running at me at 100 mph flapping their wings. This was man or mouse time.

It took me 3 attempts to catch one! Each time they managed to flap over the fence I put up or ram themselves under it. One managed to get his neck caught in the net so I pounced. The amazing thing with geese is that once they know the game is up they chill out. So off it went to be "dispatched" behind the shed.

I did 2 geese and gave one to a friend. So....5 left.

I also did a couple of chickens that night (one went into a tikka masala lasy night and my gosh the meat amazes me every time) and by accident went and did the last 2 remaning cockerals! I wanted to hold one back to see if I could start breeding from them but a bit too late for that as I ate them! You live and learn.