summer springs back!

Just when you thought summer was dead in the water ... hanging baskets are hanging lethargically, the house martins have raised their second broods, and are all swooping and wheeling in the evening sky, blackberries are ripe for picking and the heavy quilts are going back on the beds in the cottages.( 4.5 tog summer weight, suddenly feels very inadequate.)

When I go to let the ducks and chickens out this morning, I am greeted with sounds of 'peeping' and proud 'clucking'. The sight of three small ducklings, confirms that our broody hen has heroically hatched her eggs.

This particular hen, a speckled cuckoo marans, imaginatively named 'Maran', goes broody at the drop of a hat. She has already hatched out a couple of chicks earlier this spring, but insisted on 'sitting' again a few weeks ago, and nothing would budge her, even though she had no eggs to actually sit on.

So determined was she, I decided to pop a few duck eggs under her - Duck eggs take a good month to hatch, compared to just about three weeks for hen eggs, so I had my doubts.

But these three little darlings are her reward, for outstanding endurance, and a final gift of summer to us.

There is nothing quite so endearing as ducklings, and it is comically entertaining to see them with a mother hen. They are mostly obliging and obedient, staying close to mum's petticoat feathers, but every now and then, they simply can't resist it any longer, and make a dash for the water!

The children are dying to pick them up and cuddle them, but the downside of a good broody hen, is that she is impossibly fierce when she is protecting chicks, (or similar!) We will have to view from a safe distance!

I have put an old roasting tin in the pen, half filled with water, and it makes the perfect paddling pool for three little ducklings - I can't help thinking about crispy duck pancakes with hoi-sin sauce, as they voluntarily leap into the tin and dabble about, but I confess that I could not, ever, eat one of my own ducks. These little guys are safe with me, but I can feel a chinese take-away coming on!

check our local eating out options, listed on www.dovefarm.co.uk

it's all about money isn't it?

You know what it's like when you have one of those 'what is the point, all my efforts are unappreciated' type days.

and when it's one of your own offspring who are dealing out the blows, it can really bring a mother down!

Eldest daughter is now mixing with 'the girls that have' (seemingly everything, if you ask me) and it is causing major unrest back at the farm, on the parent front. Not just the 'why can't I have...?' scenario, which is easily dealt with - but more like an interrogation into mortgages, land rents, and business revenues, along with, "why do we do what we do? " "why don't I (meaning me) get a job?" "why don't we sell this or that..?" etc... etc...

All these questions, are answered appropriately to daughter's age, but in an honest and open way. Maybe they are a bit too close to home for comfort, and that's why it's all feeling like salt in a wound.

I can't deny - these are all questions I have asked myself, many times, and there will be plenty of other farming mums out there, who have spent sleepless nights trying to find their own answers. And sometimes the answers change, depending on the personal crisis you are facing at the time! What you don't expect, is your own pre-teen child, to be the one kicking you in the teeth.

Or maybe that's me being unrealistic. Together with Henry, I have made a lifestyle choice, and by implication, that choice is made on behalf of our children too. Generally speaking, children do not experience anything other than the world parents create for them in the home and through family life, whatever that entails. Until, that is, they being to spread their wings and see what else is around them. They see another way.

Indeed, throughout their lives they will see a myriad of 'other ways', hopefully managing to pick a way through for themselves.

...and let's face it, when did children ever want the same things from life as their parents? ...it would just make for an easier life right now, if all three of our children at Dove Farm could enjoy, or at least quietly endure, their 'childhood lot' for a little while longer?

All we can do, as parents, is stand firmly by our choices. For me and Henry at least, our choices are made in an attempt to achieve goals of our own, as well as share values with our children. We hope these values will be 'keystones' for them to lean upon at some future time.

I can't help smiling whenever I watch one of those 'change your life completely' type programmes on the TV: where the professional city parents, sell up and buy a derelict barn in the middle of nowhere - sometimes in the middle of nowhere, in a different country, with not much to live off, except a bit of home-made pottery, a veg patch and a goat. Camera pans out to sun-kissed children, running bare-foot through a meadow, and we the viewers, are invited to sigh longingly.

I sigh too, but I'm actually wondering what those same children will be saying as they grow older and reach longingly, with arms outstretched, for the disposable income and consumerist dream that their parents have so valiantly taken them away from.

Our daughter has to learn patience until the time when she can get out there and live her own life. We as parents, will have to take comfort in being her 'safe haven' for whenever she needs it, because no matter how corny the cliche, it remains true to say that you can never buy the things that really matter.

For more on Dove Farm, visit our website www.dovefarm.co.uk

beside the seaside

Everyone needs to get away now and then, if only for a day or so, and it doesn't really matter where to. I can usually judge how much I need to 'take time out' by how difficult it is, to physically and mentally, extricate myself from my tiny patch of the world.

This time - it felt like I would never achieve that magical moment of 'car all packed, kids in, ignition on' - there was just so much on the 'TO DO before I go away list' - but somehow it happened, and there we were, children and I, on our way to sunny Llandudno, leaving Henry at home, baling, wrapping and managing the menagerie.

All our family enjoy the seaside - must be something to do with living in the land-locked midlands, but we had never before, experienced Llandudno. Certainly not for the faint-hearted.

What a wondrous place of contrasts - resplendent victorian glory, urban sprawl, coastal charm, big and brash, curious and quaint, where stilettos and fag ends rub along with a la carte seafood and sports convertibles. Underground caverns and mountain top walks. Retail chic and tacky souvenir shops. You can stroll along a crowded Blackpool prom on one side, or a sandy beach with hardly a soul, stretching out on the other.

After four nights B&B and total immersion in Llandudno living, we were converted. It's an acquired taste Llandudno,(fabulous fish and chips by the way!) rather like ordering anchovies, capers and banana slices for your pizza topping - but once tasted, it becomes one of those 'must have again ' experiences, though probably not something you would want to face every day.

what a difference a day makes

Ok - so it's a day and a half - nevertheless, it has been one of those days that you wish never started.

The grass that is down for hay, got wet the same night it was cut. Not too seriously, but wet all the same. We really need a good few hours of solid sunshine, but no such luck. Thursday and Friday have remained overcast, with showers threatened at any moment (not like how it was forecast at all.)

Getting the photo above, carried the personal cost to me of: one anti-histamine tablet, one application of aloe vera/antihistamine cream, and a whole day of itching. I may not have mentioned that I am allergic to grass pollen/hay/dusty straw and all associated 'things' - unfortunate, isn't it?

More harvest time woes: the combine harvester broke down last night, with no prospect of a mechanic for at least two days. The baler has broken down, and my car has been delivered back, after having significant and expensive work done on it, with the good news that it needs 2 x rear tyres. Great.

I discovered upon getting up today, that we had run out of milk, and almost everything else! - so toast all round, with black tea, or orange squash (depending on age group). I then venture into the office to pick up phone messages and emails - and discover that the radiator is leaking, big time - all cables and wires connected to everything, are swimming, and the wooden floor is looking like a large expanse of soaked driftwood.

First, we have the job of emptying an old, double banked radiator, (the label on the back said 'installed in 1977'), removing it, and cleaning up the mess. It takes us two hours.

The day continues in much the same vein, and by the time Henry has tedded the hay yet again, (spinning and spreading it out to dry) and children are in bed, and all animal jobs are done, and the washing is out to dry, and everyone fed and machinery mended for the day - it is about 11.30 pm.

Henry and I sit down, with something alcoholic in a glass, and flick through a few TV channels - mainly to get the weather for tomorrow.

It is Friday evening 03 august. We come across the 'breaking news' bulletin, that an outbreak of Foot and Mouth has been confirmed in Surrey. It's the kind of news that stops you in your tracks, and reduces all problems mentioned above, into trivia. We look at the TV screen and for a moment we don't say anything at all.

chickens and cricket

Well, summer made an appearance today, and what a difference that makes. (It is to be hoped it will linger a while...)

The kids and I were in the garden, scraping moss and weeds off the patio, in anticipation of the garden furniture coming out (yes, August, and everything to do with summer is still in the shed!). Joshua decided to try his new cricket set, which was great for about five minutes, but even playing to Stretton rules, he and his sister were unable to reconcile some crucial decisions. Joshua became victim of a well-aimed body ball from Celine, so that was the end of that. Mercifully perhaps, as one of our new hens had nervously made her way over, and was directly in the line of play!

I haven't written about our new 'girls'. Now that all poultry is safely re-located and their compound is fox proof, beyond reasonable doubt - I decided to re-stock. After a 'family and friends' excursion to select and collect our birds, I introduced six new pullets (mix of allsorts) to the chicken pen on Saturday. They have settled, remarkably quickly, and once their 'confinement' had passed, which imprints their new home on their navigation systems - the girls were on the loose.

Henrietta (pictured above) is proving to be trouble already. I blame it on the influence of her namesake, Henry. I chose this hen for my husband's birthday present. I did give him the choice between a chicken or a wheelbarrow that he had already bought! Sad really - maybe it's the product of a joint account and twelve years of marriage. I just about remember being a young, single, career woman, searching every high street jewellers, for exactly the right gentleman's watch for my darling Henry's birthday. Now it's a chicken, but carefully selected all the same.

Back to our idyllic English evening: chickens, cricket and children playing, with the drone of tractor and mower in the fields, as Henry bravely cuts the grass for hay. We have waited and waited, and wondered whether there would be any chance at all this season for hay-making - but now the decision has been made, we have to hope for at least three or four dry days in a row.

Time will tell...

the sleepover party

Sleepovers - they seem to be on the 'party circuit' earlier and younger than ever. We set our minimum age older than some parents for such things - but (speaking with hindsight now, after the event!) I would not like to have steered a group of four boys, who were any younger, through any length of time together, away from their own homes.

It's also very different to a girl's sleepover party...

The first problem I thought we may have, (having only one family bathroom upstairs) was having to account for three extra bodies in the bathroom queue. I needn't have worried. All boys were in, done, and out, before I even had time to ask if anyone needed toothpaste?

Last check of the night was at 12.20 am - and thankfully, all were asleep. All four were then loudly awake by 6.40 am and ushered downstairs for a pre-breakfast dose of cartoon network, in order to give other family members chance to sleep a little longer.

The other thing that happens with numbers of three boys and more, is that they tend to cover all indoor and outdoor spaces, like a herd of wildebeest moving across the savannah - devouring all and any activities ( so have plenty on tap!) in their path - whilst earnestly grazing on everything put before them that is edible. to be honest, this part is really satisfying , and feels very 'motherhood and apple pie' feeding hungry and appreciative appetites - but it does take some keeping up with.

The bit I don't recommend, is to arrange an organised, competitive activity, requiring skill and concentration (archery!!?) in the afternoon of day 2 - but this was the only time slot available. What could I do ?

The outcome should really be no surprise - namely that we were all a bit tired and crabby, and the group, now six in number, suddenly became a little too competitive, turning in on themselves and each other, in a colourful display, ranging from tears of despair to words of venom.

It was nothing that lemonade and birthday cake couldn't rectify, once back at home, with mums arriving to scoop up their offspring. With each child smiling, and returned safely, with belongings to their respective families, there is time to reflect.

This is my take on hosting a sleepover party: It is a real privilege to welcome your child's friends into your home, and the 'host parents' should feel honoured that kids are happy to do this - I only hope they are as happy to 'hang out' at home once they are teenagers and we worry where they are and what they are doing. It is also a commitment of trust - as sleepover hosts, we take on board precious cargo, and the sense of responsibility that goes with that, should not be under-estimated.

I can honestly and gratefully say that the most difficult thing about the whole experience, was putting those damn sleeping bags back inside the container bags they came out of. This exercise has a similar difficulty rating to how I would imagine a midwife on a maternity ward, or indeed a mother just given birth, responding to the challenge 'well done, now let's put it back in, and start again...'

two's company

You hear some strange stories in the animal world about mothers and young ones. I've seen photos of tigers with piglets, and cats curled round chicks.

I have written about our baby alpaca, Cocoa, whose mum rejected him, and so was destined to be a bottle-fed babe. well, events have moved somewhat, on the mothering front. Paprika, the matriarch female of the group (and Cocoa's adoptive 'auntie') - produced her own cria (baby alpaca) towards the end of June. This one is a little girl, and is called 'Black Olive' - no prizes for guessing what colour she is!

Cocoa knows a good thing when he sees it, and he has muscled his way in on this mother/baby bonding process. It has been quite a difficult time - as Paprika, the mother, very demonstrably did not want this 'cuckoo in the nest' but Cocoa does not give up so easily. We kept mum and newborn on their own at night for the first few days, to give the little one chance to get her share of the milk, but we have pretty much let nature take its course. Cocoa has wanted less and less of his bottle milk, until we were confident enough to leave him to his own devices.

Paprika is now successfully rearing 2 youngsters. It is rare, but has been known - though the incidence of natural twins occurring is even rarer, with the prospect of both surviving, practically zero. Olive was quite a large cria when she was born, and so does not look much different in size to the older Cococa. I for one, am extremely grateful to this obliging mother, and have put away the feeding bottles and powdered milk (again!) until next year.

If at first you don't succeed.....