Meet Bobby.

As the song says, 'It's a long way to Tipperary ' the journey took us three and a half hours, just to get a buck rabbit! Crazy, maybe, but it was the nearest place that we could find a replacement for poor Peter who was killed by a fox. As we keep rabbits for meat production it is essential to have a buck, also there are  three other people who rely on us having a buck. It was a nice day out, one that should have been spent in the garden as it was warm and sunny all day, however the breeder works six days a week and yesterday was the only suitable day.

We have called the new boy Bobby, he is still a bit young to start him working but we will test him out at the end of this month to see if he is fertile, maybe we should start charging for his service. Rabbits, well meat rabbits, are expensive here, both as stock and to buy for eating, the rare butchers that have them for sale charge twelve euros for a rabbit weighing two kg, that makes them more expensive that an 'Organic' chicken.

As we knew we were going to out for most of the day we decided to take Tess with us, eight hours is a long journey for a pup but it is also a long time to leave her at home without us. She was as good as gold, we stopped several times for her to stretch her legs and to have a pee, but none of the grass seemed suitable to her, she was interested in the new smells, and took well to being walked on a lead, only the second time we had used a lead with her.

 Robbie our very old Jack Russell was probably pleased to have the house to himself for the day in stead of being pestered by her for a game and welcomed her home by growling and baring his remaining teeth.
Robbie is now twelve years old, eighty four in human terms, so I suppose he is entitled to be a grumpy old man

The young quail are all doing well and growing fast , a second batch have been set in the incubator and are due to hatch on the 17th of February.
It seems that the contaminated meat scandal is not yet at it's end after pork DNA was found in Halal meat 'due to unforeseen circumstances' I wonder what that statement means, unforeseen as in the company concerned did not expect to be found out?
We long ago came to the conclusion that any food produced in a factory should be eaten with caution, we do look at labels out of interest and it never ceases to amaze us the amount of things listed as being added, we just wonder how many things are added but not listed, thank goodness we don't have to eat the stuff.
 We also wonder how many people understand the consumer advice labels, Best Before, Sell By and Use By. So much good food is thrown out when there is nothing wrong with it, in the case of the UK it works out to nearly seven hundred pounds a year per household, yet food banks are being opened at the rate of four a week for people who cannot afford to buy food, there seems to be something very wrong where many people cannot afford food yet other people have so much that they throw it away.