Glimpses of Summer.

The weather continues to be unpredictable or rather I should say it's predictably unpredictable. It might be the second half of May but temperatures are struggling, we wake up most mornings to brilliant HOT sun, our bedroom faces east, but by ten in the morning the temperatures have dropped. The sunroom temperatures start the day at 25c and by midmorning are down to 15c, outside it struggles to make double figures.

The wind also continues to blow, great for getting the washing dry but plants don't like continuous wind  the bulbs have all taken a sever battering. We have now invested in a second roll of wind break fencing which has helped to cut down the wind speed, once we manage to get our shrubs and trees established we will be able to re-use this netting elsewhere.

The fruit trees and bushes are now in bloom, however there is a lack of bees, we have a couple of regular bumble bees in the back garden but I'm not sure if they have found the fruit trees yet, we will assume that they have not and go round the trees with a soft paint brush to pollinate the blossoms.

As yet there are very few butterflies around, we have seen a couple of Peacocks and small whites but nothing more so far. We are also missing the sound of the Cuckoo, not one has been heard here.

We have seen a few Swallows passing through but none stopped to investigate our barns possibly they were put of with the amount of Crows, Ravens and Magpies that we have nesting close by. We have a pair of Magpies nesting in an ash tree, not doubt the young are being taught about stealing our eggs.

All the chick's are thriving, Matilda has turned out to be a wonderful mother although she was so clumsy with her eggs breaking four.

The older La Bresse are all gaining weight well, they are now outside in their own run, I think there are just two pullets and the rest are cockerels. I haven't sexed the youngest ones yet but they are not quite two weeks so I will leave it a couple of weeks.
The next batch of Quail are due to hatch this Sunday, hopefully we will get a good hatch as we have an order for fifty birds oven ready and we need about the same amount for ourselves.
The last of our female rabbits, Goldie from last year has now gone to her new home, hopefully pregnant, the new buck Bobby knew exactly what to do and got on with the job very quickly, however today we put our own doe, Flopsey to him and she refused to be mated, she had been plucking herself over the last few days, in fact since we moved the rabbits out into their outside runs, plucking would normally indicate that the doe is pregnant and due to give birth, which in this case is not possible, she just thinks she is, we will try them together again at the weekend.

 On a trip out today taking a friend to the airport we were delighted to see Cowslips growing along the grass verge, once this beautiful plant could be seen everywhere, now it is  a rare find, we also could not resist taking a photo of some lovely Kingcups growing close by.

Our nearest airport is only a fifteen minute drive from here and it is a very pleasant drive with superb views from the airport grounds, but we seldom drive in that direction, there is a big drive to promote Knock Airport which opens up the West of Ireland to visitors, the airport it's self is still small and friendly, and was the inspiration of Father Horan, there is now a  bronze statue erected in memory of this far seeing priest.

It came as no surprise that the UK voted against the banning of Neonicotinoid pesticides, their current Minister of Agriculture Owen Patterson must be the worst one they have ever had, I was a little surprised that Ireland sat on the fence and abstained on the vote, no doubt not wanting to upset the UK.
 The UK are planning to have referendum on whether so stay in the EU or not, should it not be more of a question for the other member states as to whether they want the UK to remain as part of the EU, after all the UK has refused to be European in just about every way, they still talk in miles,  pounds and ounces, they cherry pick from EU regulations, abide with what they like and ignore what they don't, and blame the EU for anything that goes wrong. High time Britain was kicked out and become a fully paid up member of the US and become the 51st state.