The Trio of Pekin Chicks

The Trio of Pekin Chicks

Here they are, now just over 6 weeks old and well feathered, looking for mischief.

Will they stay or will they go?

Photo blog of their progress is HERE

Seedlings, Salad Stuff, Fluffy Chicks and Driftwood Sculptures

Seedlings, Salad Stuff, Fluffy Chicks and Driftwood Sculptures

What a mixed bag of good old Scottish weather we have had recently! But Spring has well and truly arrived because we had our first rhubarb crumble tonight, made from freshly picked garden rhubarb. We also had garden grown salad stuff at lunchtime!

In the little greenhouse, the seeds are coming along well, with three varieties of sunflowers pushing ahead in the growing stakes. I have sown a fourth variety today and am planning a sunflower 'fence' halfway down the garden, if I can protect all of these from the slugs and snails. The cucumbers and courgettes are now beginning to germinate, too, so they'll be transferred into the polytunnel soon… read more here

Foraging for Free Food from the Garden

Frugal Blog - Foraging for Free Food from the Garden

Frugal living, as a lifestyle, comes as second nature to those of us who have followed the path for some time. The debt free good life was one I aspired to for many years and it took many more to achieve it, but we still are nowhere near self-sufficient. So this got me thinking seriously about 'what if we had absolutely no money?’

Could we rustle up a meal from the Frugaldom garden?

Don't panic! We don't eat any of our own livestock, they are kept more like pets! But we still need to feed them and they still need to contribute to the overall 'welfare' of the microholding project.

Octavius and Septimus help manure the fruit beds, dig holes and eat grass. They also love raspberry leaves! But that doesn't feed us!

Read more here

Quail hatch in progress - STOP watching, GO and pick dinner!

Japanese Coturnix Quail Chicks in Assorted Colours.

Yes, this really is the second blog post of the day, but I need to keep certain people up to date with the hatching progress.

First of all, I find it very difficult not to sit watching proceedings but the eggs were left in the incubator this time, as opposed to being transferred into the hatching box, which has a viewing window. This means I've been unable to peer in, so had to keep myself otherwise amused for most of the afternoon.

Bread has been baked, freezer has been repacked to fit in today's order and numerous cups of tea have been enjoyed on the patio.

Some weeding got done, the duck pond got topped up, more eggs were collected (and sold to neighbours) and then it got really hot outside, so more sitting about on the patio. By that time, I could make out at least 7 chicks bumbling around inside the incubator, but I daren't open the lid at that stage as the sudden drop in temperature and humidity can affect the rest of the hatch.

Outside, I cleared and swept a small space under the kitchen window, repotted some plants, planted the first of the strawberry runners into individual pots, sowed another row of peas (can but try) and then potted up all my herb cuttings.

From left to right, I don't know what the first plant is, the second one grew from wildbird seed, the third is Thai Basil, next it's the parsley seedlings and then the rosemary, which I rooted from sprigs I bought reduced to 10p in the supermarket.

 The herb cuttings are an assortment of three types of mint - common, lemon balm and grapefruit - two types of thyme and several cuttings from my hardy curry plant that survived the -10C winter last year.

If I can get all of the above to develop into healthy plants, these will go into planters and get sat out on the little cobbled yard at the front of the house.

Dinner time arrived, so I did the frugal act of pulling some carrots and picking some peas. I also brought in some lettuce, a couple of courgettes and an onion, as I was desperate to see how these were doing.

As you can see by the photos, the onions are doing really well and are quite huge, considering how late the sets went in and the fact that the person who gave me them thought they'd be past their sell by date. Not in the least! These are growing great guns! I can hardly wait to pull them up and get them dried for winter use. This one will be going into tomorrow's spicy stir fry along with the courgette and some homegrown chilli peppers.

So, has anyone tried to count the quail chicks in the photograph? I can see 12, so am really happy that we've managed to achieve over 40%  Even I am surprised at how many of these eggs are hatching, as they were neither stored correctly, nor turned daily prior to being incubated. These were simply surplus to requirement eggs that I decided to set in the off chance that a couple of them might be fertile. :)

Nice result, so far.

A Day Out at Wigtown Agricultural Show

Even Frugalites Have Day Trips

Yesterday, 3rd August, was Wigtown Show. It's an annual event that has been running for the past 200 years and one that we try not to miss. Son was home to hold the fort, so we had a frugal day out. £15 for 2 adults and car parking isn't that much, in the grand scheme of things, is it?

This year was the bicentenary and, to mark the occasion, HRH Princess Anne attended. It's the agricultural community's biggest event of the year, so it is always very well attended. We are normally treated to a shower of rain but this year the sun shone throughout the day and a great tme was had by all.

HRH took the time to wander around the showground, chatting to many of the locals and stallholders. Things about here are usually of an informal nature and yesterday's event was no different. It's seldom you find many false airs and graces around these parts, most refreshing, albeit a little disconcerting for some of the visitors.

This year's poultry show was every bit as well supported as last year's, if not more so. There were hundreds of hens, ducks, geese and turkeys, several I hadn't even heard of, let alone seen. However, for sheer 'aaaaw' appeal, this little bantam with her chicks stole the show for me.

Judging the 'Champion of Champions must be a huge burden on the shoulders of whoever has that unenviable task because I really don't know how anyone can compare a horse to a cow to a goat to a sheep to a donkey to a goose!

I had picked out my favourite, a Black Galloway bull with the rather undeserving name of Nancy Boy. He was rather docile, I have to admit, but I'm sure his name won't endear him to his future suitors.

Now that I come to think of it, do cows even bother to exchange names? Perhaps Nancy Boy won't have to deal with that sort of problem afterall. LOL

The feature act of the day was a performance by 'Jive Pony'. The team had travelled many miles to appear and the crowd seemed to appreciate their performance, particularly the audience participation part. The young guy concerned was escorted into the ring, dressed in a pink tu-tu and then legged up onto the Highland pony for his first ever riding experience. He did really well, considering the ribbing he endured from his friends.

We were also lucky enough to see one of the world's smallest owls. I'm guessing it was some sort of pygmy owl, but I didn't want to pay £3.50 for a photograph, so you'll need to do a search to see what it looks like. Maybe I'm just mean, but £3.50 is about half a bag of hen feed, so not an amount I was prepared to pay for a photo on the Frugaldom blog.

 After the show we visited friends and shared a late afternoon cappuccino and chat on their patio. While there, I was able to take some cuttings (thanks, J) of an assortment of geraniums and some grapefruit mint. I'm thinking that an assortment of mint would be an ideal addition to the front 'garden' where each type could be planted in its own pot. This grapefruit one smells lovely.

It was then time to collect our new bantams. There are six in total, four Light Sussex X hens, one blue Pekin hen and a lavender Pekin cockerel. At the moment, they're beng quarantined in a 2m coop and run. In a couple of weeks, we'll let the X bred bantams out with the others but will need to keep the Pekins in the run so Billy Gruff, my blue cuckoo Silkie cockerel, doesn't attack his smaller counterpart.

 

That brings us back to what's happening in Frugaldom. Last night I was sure I heard a small squeak coming from the incubator. Today is day 17 for the quail eggs, so I shouldn't really have been surprised to come through this morning to find the first chick hatched and bumbling about in the incubator. Since then, a second has arrived and several of the other eggs are rocking and rolling, with the tell tale cracking sound of tiny beaks on shell.

Any chick from this lot is a bonus, as the eggs were all collected from my hens the week after they were seperated from the males. With no way of knowing how many, if any, would be fertile, I stuck 32 eggs in the incubator and crossed my fingers. 3 were removed shortly after that, but 29 remained. I wonder what percentage are fertile? I think we've reached 10% now, as I can see a beak pocking out of an almost open egg.

 

I'll update with photos as soon as I possibly can. For now, the incubator is remaining firmly shut. You can follow the updates by reading the section amed 'In the Incubator' on the free forums, which is where I normally upload the photos.

Frugaldom now has a new project to add to the list of many - we need to build an aviary to house some Diamond Doves that we are rehoming from the same person who gave us the bantams. He's leaving the area in a few weeks time, so we'll need to get organised soon to ensure we can house these new birds. There are a few others comig too, mainly zebra finches and bengalese, but we already have those species, so they'll mix OK after their quarantine period. The Diamond Doves, however, I'd like to see outside in their own space. More on this at a later date.

In the time it has taken me to edit and upload this post, quail chicks 3, 4, 5 and 6 have arrived! We've already passed the 20% mark. :)

The Frugaldom Duck Population is Growing.

THE DUCKLINGS ARE HATCHING NOW!

After setting a dozen duck eggs in the incubator on Saturday 11th June, we were hoping to see ducklings hatch around Friday 8th July. However, on Wednesday 6th July, when I stopped the auto-turner in the incubator, this is what appeared!

Along with the 10 eggs I got from a friend who has Campbells & Runner Ducks, I put 2 of the eggs from Phoebe & Joey into the incubator. One of these had hatched already.

Overnight on the 6th, early hours of the 7th, we had an almighty storm of rain, hail, thubder and lightning. At one point, the power went out completely but came back on again almost immediately. I got up to check the incubator was alright - could see the light on the thermostat and could hear the duckling squeaking away, so I had a peek inside. A couple more of the eggs had pipped!

By the time I got up this morning, a second chick was hatching, this time a dark coloured one. By mid-morning, number 4 was ust starting to emerge from its shell. You can just see the dark down emerging from the egg on the left of the photogrpah. You can also see that the egg right next to that has also pipped, so we're hoping for another duckling today despite these all being a day or so early.

I'm not sure why the eggs are hatching early, as I have the thermostat set at 37.5 degrees and a second thermometer is reading lower than that at the base of the incubator, so too high a temperature cannot be the problem. Humidity seems fine, water trough was topped up at the start of this week. Ducklings seem bright and healthy, so no apparent adverse effects.

 In the garden, the pond drainage project has been completed. The drainage system has been joined to the back, right hand corner of the pond, with all the pipes having been sunk below ground level, joined and tested to ensure the gradient is enough to draw away any overflow.


The ducks have had a great time following H up and down the garden as he dug the trench and any sound of running water brought them waddling, quacking and whistling along to see what was happening.

As soon as we started topping up the pond with the garden hose, they were straight back in, swimming around and very curious about the new drain.

Several attempts at flooding the pond were made, all to no avail, so the homemade frugal drainage system works just fine. Any flood water runs swiftly away and trickles out the overflow pipe and into the burn at the bottom of the garden.

Total cost of duck pond project so far is just under £25, which is what it cost to buy the 4m x 4m pondliner and have it delivered. All we need to do now is level the ground around the pond and invest in some paving. I'd like this to go all the way around the pond to form a path that can easily be swept clean but will also protect the edge of the pondliner. I have already planted a row of small willows between the pond and the wall in the hope that I can train them over to create a shaded area for the ducks and leave enough space in the corner of the orchard for a small seating area.

At the bottom of the garden, 'rubble mountain' is slowly disappearing and beginning to take on a semblance of a 'building spot' for the summer house. We no longer have a huge pile of rocks, boulders, rubble and concrete. Still loads to do and plenty of rubbish to be removed, but it's edging towards becoming a useable space.

Still getting strawberries aplenty, along with blackcurrants. I really can't think of anything that I could complain about it not growing, as everything is.

I managed to get one of the grape vines that Aldi had on offer and then I received a lovely chilli pepper plant in a gift from friends. I traded my surplus leek and brussel sprout seedlings for purple sprouting broccoli and more lettuces, I've one of the Himalayan Honeysuckles dug up (it had to be moved to allow the drainage pipes to be laid) and that's going to the friend who gave me the duck eggs.

Since starting this post, the fourth duckling has now fully emerged. I've quickly removed the empty shells to allow more space, just in case more hatch soon. :)

I can now see that there will be 1 white duck, 2 black ducks and a grey/blue/lavender duck that I thought was going to be a brown one.

I hatched out my first chicks from eggs in an incubator in 1986 and, despite that, it is as exciting today as it was back then. I think ducklings must be my favourites, though.

Create your own microholding, become a part of frugaldom and join us in the free forums, discussing moneysaving, household budgets and how to create a semblance of self-sufficiency. It's free to join HERE

Edited in - we now have 7 ducklings hatched, 3 of them are going to be white. :)