A lost duckling and Village news

Chris has gone down to Broadstairs to support a somewhat sore and worried Sorrel during some minor shoulder surgery, so I am left to man the cottage and allotment.

Slightly upset this evening as when I was turning the 8 runner duck eggs in the incubator, William, who was play fighting with Meg, knocked into me and caused me to drop one of my own eggs.(we only have two of our original four eggs left from the first clutch)

I was convinced that our own embryos were not growing properly, so I was upset to see that there was a tiny black ducking dying in the broken yoke. The poor little thing didn't live long, but at least I now know that the little chap nearly made it. The last remaining chick will be due to hatch on Sunday, with the "new" bought clutch due 2 weeks later. I hope they all do a little better than this poor duckling did today.

I worked nights last night, so took the dogs to the beach late with the hyperactive Jess in tow. I dropped some eggs off for Auntie Glad and took a minute to see the work completed on the New Memorial Hall's boundary wall (right)

The day was glorious, as was the view from the lane (below) The field seemed to burst into a bit of a wildlife zone as a large male pheasant with two females stalked around the coops (much to the irritation of Duncan who shadowed their movement with a large group of hens in tow) I tried to get a pic of the fun but the photo below doesn't quite show the wild birds clearly.
I know there is a lot of badger activity in and around the field at night, but we also have one hare and several rabbits living in the hawthorn hedges just behind the duck house that can be seen during the day.The hare is constantly being "flushed" out into the open ground when I am clearing the weeds and dead grass, and makes a rapid, slightly hysterical circuit around the field boundary.

It was warm and sunny today, so warm in fact that most of the girls were sunbathing for long periods this afternoon. Mind you,I was dismayed to find out that the weather reports from the BBC indicated that we are due a severe frost tonight ( the five day report omitted this fact when I checked on Thursday- and on the strength of this I planted all of my first early potatoes!!!)



Spuds cannot suffer frost and I had gone and planted 6 bloody long rows of them!!!!!!!!!! What a bloody waste.......Village Elder Steve, (as usual) has come to the rescue by loaning me all of his tarpaulins from his his grave digging job, and although it looks untidy and slap dash, the seed potatoes have all been protected somewhat from the -3 temperatures expected tonight.