Chrismas Hype.

One thing we miss about Spain is the lack of Christmas Hype, when we first moved there nothing was apparent until a week before Christmas, no over the top and energy wasting lights and no big panic in the shops, this gradually changed unfortunately and by the time we left eight years later it was almost as bad there as in the UK or Ireland. Of course in Spain the main day is the 6th January, The festival of the Kings and most towns and villages would have a parade with the Three Kings riding through the towns throwing sweets for the children. I'm not too sure where this idea of the Three Kings originate from, as there is no mention of how many wise men there were only of the gifts they brought. This is the day that gifts are exchanged. Christmas day itself was low key, no roast turkey, turkey if the Spanish had it would normally come jointed and then cooked as a type of stew. Fish is another thing that many Spanish family's would have on the day.
Here Christmas starts in Oct, with TV adds telling you to spend, spend, spend . The adverts for food show tables laden and groaning under the weight of all the food that you 'must have' for Christmas Even in this time of recession the councils can find the money to have Christmas lights blazing away from mid Nov, and we have even seen houses with the Christmas lights on in Nov. I think it just takes away any magic that should come for the little ones.





 The last few days have been quite cold and wet so not much work is being done outside, the hens don't seem to mind it too much but they probably have a good old moan about it, us humans do so why should animals be any different?





Our older la Bresse cock now has his favourite girl, as there is only the two of them they are allowed full freedom to range, we had moved all the runs and could not incorporate another run for them, but he keeps a very watchful eye on her and there is normally a dog out on patrol, we would have preferred them to have been in a run but that will have to wait until the paddocks are rearranged again.

                                                                

The Quail quad.

 We now have four Quail to add to our  collection of poultry, three hens and a cock who we intend to breed from. It rather feels as though we have come full circle, when we first started farming we had quail which we produced commercially and ducks that we also had a good market for,  we don't intend doing anything on a big scale, we aim to produce just for ourselves but we will probably have a surplus of quail eggs,  and fortunately one of our shops that we used to supply with organic eggs have said they would be interested  in trying them out.

Quite big.

                                                                         
Our carrots have done very well for us, even if they are a little on the big side, some of them are weighing in at just under 1lb in weight, but the average size is about half a lb just right for one meal.