Magical Moments of the Egg Kind

There are a number of magical moments when you do any form of self-sufficiency, such as your first laid egg, or the first pan of home-grown new potatoes, perhaps it is the first podded peas or ripe tomato.

Each year brings new magical moments and today was one of those, our first egg laid by a hen we incubated and hatched from an egg herself !!!     Life full circle.

It has been a very bad harvest year on the island, a very damp cool summer with the local barley and hay crops been virtually none existant, its going to have a knock on effect next year for the animals for sure.

Harvests on the plot haven't been very good either. Our onions and broad beans are decent enough but little else.

And meet the sum total of our tomato harvest, not much salad out of that one !!

But onwards and upwards,

we keep on planting and we always harvest something from our little patch of land.

A busy Summer

It's been a busy few months. I have been keeping my head down in webland, and I think part of the reason has been my face lol. 

Actually I'm only part joking, earlier in the year I had to have an operation on my nose. Basel cell carcinoma, a form of skin cancer, needed to be removed and a large skin graft done. It has made me self conscious, and less confident in my internet and real life, but I am progressing and getting better. 

It has also been a very busy summer spending a whole month away from the island off on holibobs.

First several weeks with my 2 sons visiting various family members and sight seeing in my place of origin, the North East of England.

Following this I spent an amazing week in Glastonbury at the Goddess Conference which I will blog more about later.

Since coming back home I have been gently easing back into country life again and I have been inspired to get back on my spinning wheel again after buying some beautiful roving from a village event called 'Wool in Wooler' can't wait to see how the finished yarn knits or crochet up!

Of course they will need to wait till I get back home as I am typing this from the waiting room in the hospital waiting to go to theatre again, this time to have my gall bladder removed, they keep chopping bits off and out of me !!! 😝

All Change in Chicken Land

It's been all change here in chicken world, the second clutch of chick were moved out of the upstairs brooder into the smallest chook house yesterday afternoon, giving them there first taste of the wild Orkney outdoors.

To hand over the keys to their new abode, the previous residents needed to be upgraded to their new digs, the large movable chook shed, giving us the perfect time to start introducing them to the oldest birds. 

For the next week or so their shed and run are inside the chicken land run, giving everyone a chance to get used to one another, then the fun of integration for the birds we are keeping begins

And at only 9 weeks old, and can barely believe how huge they have already grown!!

Art as a Form of Therapy

 Therapy can come in many forms,

and for me that therapy comes from working with my hands.

Sometimes I work with fibre, spinning a piece of art from a heap of fleece which at a glance looks like nothing, feeling the texture slip through my fingers as the repetitive treadling and spinning of the wheel lulls you in a form of meditation.

At other times the therapy takes the form of crocheting, taking a beautiful hank of yarn and turning it into an item which can then be seen in all it's beauty, no longer the ball or hank stashed away in a cupboard.

A cake baked a therapy twice over, the creating and the eating.

 My current therapy choice is working with wires and stone, crystals and shells, keeping both my hands and my mind busy whilst we nurse our Poppy cat back to health.

Just over a week ago we thought her card was up and she spent several days in the vets, trying to get enough fluids in her as her kidneys are in a bad way. But she seems to have pulled on a reserve 10th life and is steadily making progress.

So I raise my cup of tea in a toast to vets, the many lives of cats,

and Art as a form of therapy.

Meet the Hatchlings

I've been a bit under the radar recently as a blogger and indeed in real life too. 

My health hasn't been at it's best, plus hospital visits, helping mum to move off the island and general life stuff has meant my writing muse had upped and gone on holiday.

The only exception has been my introduction and subsequent addiction to Instagram where you can find me under @madmadammel, I have also added a widget to my sidebar.

But during the past few weeks one of the exciting developments here at home has been out first brood of baby chicks hatching in the incubator.

The plan this year is to raise our breeding stock, this our first hatchlings include Large Lavender Auracana, Cream Legbar, Welsummer, and the pale yellow one above is one of our own mixed breeds most likely a Rhode Island Red.

At over 4 weeks old now the hatchlings are huge, around the size of pigeons, they will be out in the big wide world before you know it, ready to be joined by a soon to be hatched second brood of chicks.