Around the Farm today

There's a definite change in the weather, it feels slightly less like summer and slightly more like autumn. It's hard to say exactly what the change is as it's still really warm during the day. 

I've been up since 5.15am, gone for a swim then came home and started on the daily stuff of feeding chickens, ducks, checking veggies, wandering around...

So first off veggies, or more specifically chillis. Lloyd is a chilli fiend. He loves them and would eat them with every meal given the choice. It gives me great pleasure to grow them for him, less so to eat them! His all time favourite is the habanero. Super hot and very pretty. He makes the most amazing chilli sauce, so I'm told. I come out in a sweat just looking at the bottle. 

Oh and he did this brilliant thing at the weekend ~ one of the Thai chillis got trashed in the cyclone and the chillis went red and dried on the plant which promptly died. Lloyd took the dried chillis and blended them really finely with some salt and made chilli salt! Amazing.

Chillis need a long season so they are beginning to turn now. I planted a good selection for him. Habanero, of course, a small Thai chilli, Tabasco, Rainbow, and a sort of purple cherry one that is new this year. I got it at the farmers market from a lady who has the most amazing seedlings,  a couple of Sudra which I had never heard of before but are a long, thin, hot, Indonesian chilli and some special ones I was given by a friend ~ you know who you are! And last but not least some scotch bonnets - another friend gave me some seeds from her plant. So all in all quite a good selection.

 Habanero

 Sudra, which I think will look amazing when they go red.

Scotch bonnet

After the veggies I went back to play with the chickens. The baby ones have merged in beautifully with the big ones. In fact one of the light sussex already goes to sleep with the big ones up the tree! The others go to bed in their house. Far more sensible. 

And I have yet another broody! That makes 4 this year. I put her in the wee house and she settled down beautifully on a little plastic egg and unless a wee plastic chicken miraculously hatches, I thought I really should get her some fertile, non plastic, eggs. Charlotte's roosters are having some time off just now so she had no eggs but I did manage to get some online. I got 6 ( as Elizabeth is a silver campine so very small) 2 light sussex, 2 silver laced wyandotte and 2 gold laced wyandotte, so fingers crossed my ratio of boys to girls is slightly better this time round.

But my favourite thing of the day is this...

You just can't beat lovely fresh washing dried out on the line. Love it!

Come and join in!