And picking pink currants and gooseberries

And good morning mother and chick

Thanks to my friend and neighbour Kate, I followed her example soon after we moved here 13 years ago. She had bird feeders close to her kitchen window and I sited a feeder not far from where I stand at the kitchen sink. We get all sorts of visitors from blue tits to great tits and gold finches and more. Yesterday we had a visit from a young “red head”.

It stayed for ages enjoying the peanuts

Mother hen and her chick have not had the attention that they might have expected Click below just one week old tomorrow

And the sweet peas are filling the house with their beauty and fragrance

Willow is endowed with an enormous udder and a huge amount of milk. This makes it tricky for the kids to latch on so… Jeremy milked off some of the precious food (I froze the nutritious colostrum for possible future use) and kept the rest for Wisp’s baby. There was still plenty for the twins

We have been holding the twins whilst they latch onto mother Willow. They seem to be getting the hang of feeding. See and click below

An hour after the vet team departed I heard unmistakable labour cries from the goat shed. By the time I had called Jeremy and run across the paddock, one kid had been born to Willow. She vigorously licked it dry and as she was doing that she was giving birth to kid number two. A boy and a girl. Clever Willow.

Further updates tomorrow

A gaggle of vets – some old established hands and three newly qualified from the Cambridge vet school came to see Wisp this afternoon

Everyone fell in love with the kid

Wisp is now back in the paddock with her niece and her half sister and I just saw her take a good long drink of water. Here’s hoping that she’s on the mend

I have to give her an antibiotic injection over the course of the next four days.

Sometimes one of the seven Embden geese manages to lift its heavy body and take a short flight over the fence separating the pond and orchard from the main field. It doesn’t happen often. Geese are grass grazers and a field full of fresh green shoots is a tempting sight.

Goosey is now back with the flock