Two baby quail (hatched in an incubator from quails eggs bought in Bedford market) and three assorted poultry also hatched in an incubator. This lovely family entrusted us with their Bantam birds three years ago when their urban neighbours complained about the noise. They weren’t expecting the quails to hatch and the other three were just for fun. We have spent the last hour preparing their new home and trying to make it bird proof and cosy. More in that tomorrow.

So sorry – truly Click below with your hanky close to hand

And a cuddle with a gosling

Gooseberry cake and cream for dessert (I am trying to use up last year’s frozen gooseberries before the new crop needs to be harvested).

They took home a gift of eggs in our new eggs boxes

8 of the lambs have gone with a lovely young couple who live in the Fens

Gooseberries forming on the bushes

Bedfordshire Champion onions planted on Friday (just as we begin to use the final bag of onions from last year’s harvest).

Broad beans will be ready to harvest in just a few weeks time and beyond the beans there are the onions, leeks and eleven rows of main crop potatoes. Further on from the potatoes there is space for all the squashes and cucumbers and courgettes. The gardening cycle has a comforting rhythm and the jam and preserve and pickle making slips into the pattern and will fill the depleted shelves with jars to be consumed through the winter and early spring.

Here’s why. Horses usually live long lives, very long lives. I just visited friend Kate to see her cows and their pretty calves. Then we walked across the field to talk to her two beautiful Dales Ponies. Minnie, aged 29

And Hettie, her daughter, aged 19.

If we got a pony or horse they would have to be trained to wheel us around in our bath chairs!

Hope there will be enough for jam making next week

Asparagus and fresh pea risotto

followed by stewed rhubarb, strawberry and cream

It involves 500 bricks delivered from the reclaimed brick yard