Slowly catching up.

At last things are happening in the garden, the parsnips and carrots have all germinated, the carrots were only planted last week end so we are very please with them. The first cauliflowers and calabrese are planted out and also the leeks and Brussel sprouts, the  onions are looking quite good, Jerusalem artichokes and potatoes planted. All the raised beds are prepared ready for the next lot of seedlings, and runner bean trenches prepared ready for planting out the bean plants next month. The garlic however is a failure, it survived the winter fine, it was cloched most of the time but as soon as the cover was removed the wild birds moved in and have destroyed them, next year we will try them under netting.
The wind has abated a little,  it is still windy but southerly winds now instead of the cold east wind that we had been having.
Buds are beginning to swell on the fruit trees but no sign of any bees, we might have to hand pollinate the fruit trees unless the bees appear soon.
Spring certainly has been very slow in coming this year, we still have daffodils just making an appearance, they will probably  be in bloom well into May.

A visit to a friends house this week  enabled us to exchange a doz eggs for a tray of celery seedlings and a bag full of mushrooms, the barter system is still alive and well here. It's always nice to be able to give as well as receive and eggs are something we have no shortage of.
The first of our chick's are doing well they are now three weeks old, I think there are four cockerels and just two pullets, the next eggs are due to hatch at the end of next week, these are under a broody hen who has been a bit careless and managed to break three of the eggs.
We have a Muscovy duck who is sitting well on twelve eggs although  she still has Jersey Giant hens trying to share her nest despite us having bought a new house for them they have so far ignored it, tonight they will have to be forced into their new accommodation.

At last we have got our strimmer back , the chap that repaired it has returned it as good as new although it took him some time to find the right parts, it is over twenty years old, but a good one. this has enabled Simon to get some of the lower field strimmed ready to plant the new trees which are due to arrive later this week. While he was working there he found a clump of frogspawn,  laid in the middle of the field, he carefully scooped it onto a plastic bag and brought it round to the small stream at the back of the house. Why a frog would lay her eggs in a field is anyone's guess, maybe it was the heavy rain that we had and she could not hold back any longer.