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To Lviv and back this evening and in between we spun honey frames and filled 16 jars with the golden nectar.

We spun the frames before joining an 8pm zoom talk

With our beloved and esteemed friends and mentors – Rabbi and Rebbetzin Bald live from the city of Lviv. They have lived in that beautiful city for 30 years (they are originally from USA) and brought up their family in a tiny apartment adjacent to the one of the two remaining synagogues that survived the nazi destruction of the Second World War and the suppression of religion during Soviet times. Now the Rabbi and his wife are helping to feed and house refugees fleeing from Russian atrocities in the East. They are hearing the horrors too terrible to describe and the heartbreak of women losing husbands, parents losing children and children left orphaned. As the Rabbi spoke he, at times, cradled his head in his hands. Yet he spoke of the unity of purpose snd solidarity amongst the Ukrainian people. He had a message of hope although he sees a future beyond the war which will leave hatred and bitterness. His wife is arranging summer camp in the Carpathian Mountains to give children relief from the sadness and pressure of the war for two precious weeks

All who joined the zoom group tonight were moved and full of admiration for the brave couple who are doing all they can to give material and emotional support to so many lost and broken souls. May they be given the strength to continue their life saving work and acts of kindness and may they and their family keep safe.

After the zoom we returned to the honey work and washed out the spinner with cold water
We left some honey dripping into the bucket overnight and hope to fill two more jars tomorrow

I recommend a book, “Grey Bees” by Andrey Kurkov, set in the Donbas region in Ukraine. Poignant and Kafkaesque.

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Sunday gardening and baking and promoting my brother!

Inspired by a photo that a friend sent me this week (showing a very professional cake she baked using our apricots) I had a go with my own idea (above) using fruit I picked this morning
I glazed it with some apricot jam and I stewed some windfall Bramleys they were lying on the ground near the apricot tree
In London, Barnet, brother (aka The Fabulous MickyC) has been playing at…..
He and the band have been gigging lots at venues around Camden and East and West London

They are recording a new album. Check them out on Spotify or YouTube. Maybe we should get them to do an exclusive gig at The Gables. Perhaps Gables Fest next summer?

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What a wonderful surprise

Some weeks ago this lovely man and his wife (who were strangers to us)

Knocked on our door to ask if we had any spare goose eggs. They live in a neighbouring village and had seen our small flock of geese and wanted goose eggs for their incubator. We gave them six and promptly forgot about them. This afternoon the lovely man arrived holding a box and a solitary gosling- the only one that hatched. He wouldn’t keep a goose on its own and decided the baby should come back to The Gables.

The little gosling (2 weeks old) has been living with chicks.
We put him/her in with our chicks and put Mother hen back in the Silkie run from whence she came

When the gosling has grown some adult feathers we will put it with the solitary goose with the broken beak and they can keep each other company. What a wonderful start to the weekend.

We sent the gentleman home with a jar of Gables honey and two jars of jam. I offered him eggs but he has hens and eggs aplenty