All was not lost.

Earlier this month when we lost all our Marans to a mink attack we were lucky enough to have a dozen of their eggs so we set them in the incubator. Although it's quite early in the season to start setting eggs we figured we had nothing to lose,

I'm glad we took the chance as ten of the eggs were fertile and last weekend we had eight chicks hatch,

Little bundles of fluff, so cute.

so all was not lost and we will have Maran birds running around again. I just hope the mink does not return. The three attacks that we have had since moving here have always been when it's been raining very heavily and the river bursts it's bank, we suspect that this is where the mink have come from, when the river is at it's normal level we don't seem to get the problem.
It might still be February but spring seems to be here,

daffodils are out everywhere, at least a month ahead,

even the rhubarb has made a very early appearance and we had our first picking earlier this week.

One surprise today was finding a Calendula out in bloom, at least three months ahead of itself.

The garden has lots of colour for so early in the year,

it's still cold at night  but we are getting some nice sunny days with real warmth in it.

We seem to be up to date with planting all the early seeds, cauliflower, parsnip, spinach, Brussel sprouts, leaks and onion seed have all been sown into trays or modules. Next month, subject to weather conditions the first early potatoes will be sown, the first of the peas and French beans, I will also get the Sweetpeas and tomatoes sown. It will soon be summer.

Spring time, painted in water colours.

I have kept myself amused during the wet winter with an assortment of crafts,

                                           mainly glass painting,

Working out what works and what doesn't.

I have also tried doing Faberge type eggs from some goose eggs kindly donated to me by a friend, not the easiest thing to do but I'm sure by the time our goose starts laying I will have a better idea of how to do them.

Just to remind us what the sun looks like we took a photo of the beautiful sunset this evening,

everything was bathed in a glow of gold.

Susie looking wistfully out the window.