Tomato soup, rolls and cheese, homemade hummus, fried Gables haloumi, egg Mayo, homemade pickles and more. Easy Peasy

Granddaughter has drawn a picture to put in Lemon’s grave (which we will dig when the rain stops)

Grandson isn’t too bothered

I’m keeping all the birds in the chicken runs inside their houses while I prepare a “safe place” for them to live

The old quail barn is where a bunch of chickens lived during the last avian flu epidemic. There’s plenty of room now that I’ve moved some old sofa beds up against the wall. We will relocate the chooks later this morning.

It started with a hideous sight. In the polytunnel run (where sixteen assorted hens live) I found a dead hen outside the shut door. I thought that we had forgotten to close her in the polytunnel. Perhaps she had gotten cold in the night and died. I opened the door. Inside was carnage. Dead hens lay all around. Intact but dead. Including my favourite bantam hen, Lemon. Luckily six hens had survived and were sitting nervously on the roof of their hen house. It was blatantly a fox massacre. Foxes go into a frenzy of killing for killing’s sake. Who knows why? I spare you photographs although, apart from a few feathers, there was no blood and gore. After I had fed the other animals (leaving the Silkie hens and all other birds safely shut up in their respective houses) I milked the goat and then J and I placed the deceased birds into two sacks for burial tomorrow. Later in the day we tried to find where the fox had dug under or climbed over the six foot high fences. It’s not obvious. We will have to strengthen the barriers tomorrow and perhaps move some of the birds to a secure barn while we put on our thinking caps.