Every year big boy has provided a hen with chicks, or just a batch of chicks out of an incubator to display in Salt Mines Reception for the visitors to look at, squeeze, and generally drool over. Today a Grandma brought in her two young grandchildren to look at the Easter chicks, only there aren't any... Big boy not permitted to hatch this summer, only sell birds as he may well be going to Uni in September and I don't want to be left with 100 chickens to look after. Guests suitably disappointed at lack of chick stroking facility, so emergency telephone calls have resulted in the purchase, at a princely 40 pence each, of two dozen 'table bird chicks' from a local hatchery. How lovely are they! Day olds, collected this afternoon, and presently sitting in a big box on top of the Aga to keep warm. Tomorrow they are coming to the coast with me in the car to be admired at the salt mines, then after Easter weekend back here to grow and fatten. We shall, I suppose, have to eat all the cockerels, who should be ready in 12 weeks, but will at least have missed the horrors of the battery shed. The hens we will keep, as they will lay eggs, so long as they don't get so big that they can't live a normal chicken kind of life in the yard. THese are the hybrid birds you see on TV in huge battery sheds pecking each other and growing so huge they can't walk. These little fellas should have a much nicer time with us. The biggest of the 24 weighed in at 48 grams 5pm today, and the smallest 28 grams. Will be interesting to see what they weigh in 12 weeks time.Campers beginning to pour in, hoping the rain holds off over the weekend, it snowed last Easter so they deserve a bit of sunshine this year.
The Skipster a very polite horse tonight, nearly dark when we got in from riding. Oops.
3 comments:
Have they sorted out the road network around Skeg yet? I have memories of spending many unhappy hours in traffic jams trying to get from Ingoldmells (or Jingle Bells as my daughter called it) into Skeg on Easter weekends when we used to holiday up that way.
Fortunately I'm back at work on Easter Sunday so I can miss all the jams... Maybe I'll do a mid-week stealth visit to Skeg when the kids are back at school.
Sadly, you are absolutely correct, and roads exactly as they were 40 years ago. Arrive before noon Friday and don't think to use car again until midnight Monday on a Bank Holiday. I leave my car at my Dad's and walk a mile or so past the worst on really busy days. Stealth visiting recommended, and absence of children also excellent target. There is nothing nice about an ice-cream smeared, over tired, heavy eyed kid on holiday, except your own of course! Jingle Bells lovely name - see if we can use that on brochure?
I'm thinking of fried chicken. But I wouldn't want to have to kill one of the hens!
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