Peel and slice and dot with plum jam. Cover with oat mixture and pop in the oven

And the greengages are plentiful and delicious this year

It will soon be mating season and the twins’ father, Tufty, will become aggressive with the lambs if they begin to show an interest in Tufty’s ewes. Best to separate them before any trouble begins.

It started with my first appointment at the hairdresser since February.

Then it was off to a nearby village to collect a new pc from our technical wizard at Pcupgrade- who helps us keep our tech up and running. He and his wife also keep chickens and they feed them mealworm treats.

I cadged a small box of worms to offer as a treat to our recovering blackbird. A morning of treats for all !

The goslings are ready to go down to live at the pond. They will stick together as they try to find their place in the flock.

I put a bucket of water and some food near the back gate in case the big birds won’t let them feed from the communal container. We’ll keep an eye on the situation.

Not many cats care for cucumber. I had forgotten that last year, during cucumber growing season, Nigel happily munched on the vegetable. This evening, as I was slicing a cuke, Nigel padded around my legs until I remembered that he wanted some titbits.

Sadly the tabby cat I saw on Sunday night was “unchipped” so cannot be Josie. It’s a lovely cat and I expect the finders will add it to their gang of 11 felines .

I picked 6 kilos of plums this morning to sell to the Blackcat farm shop. As I was sorting the fruit out jumped this little creature with the unusual name of a Drumming Katydid (also known as the oak bush cricket). Jeremy caught him mid jump and deposited him safely outside.

This morning I spied a young blackbird which had an injured back and seemed unable to fly. I didn’t have time to do anything about the bird and wondered if it would become cat fodder!

This evening the bird was hopping around the vegetable patches that we were weeding (the cats were hanging out with us and I didn’t fancy a bloodbath amongst the parsnips!). We chased the bird into one of the chicken houses and I picked it up.

We then took the bird into the empty quail barn and put it in a cage with some straw, bird food and water.

Some googling revealed that blackbirds love fruit especially plums and apples. We put some in the cage. We will leave it there for a few days and hope that its wing and back feathers recover.

They hatched on Friday, we moved them to a run near the house on Sunday and kept them in overnight. Today the door was opened