Raspberries and Hidden Treasures

There is no honey, because the bees swarmed away, and egg production is down to 1 egg a week. I googled ‘off lay’ and discovered that non laying hens should get the chop. Not sure about chopping these chickens up.  They would put up a fight for sure. I have seen how they chase the cat and it’s not in a friendly way.

But I noticed suspicious behaviour. Loud clucking from the weeds beside the empty beehives. There, I found a chicken loitering with intent.

Result. Here is the evidence of chickens being sneaky and hiding eggs in the wrong places.  Chickens are clever, but not clever enough to realise it is only possible to hide eggs if you do it quietly.

Going triumphantly past the empty beehive, I bumped into a few bees! By some miracle a tiny gang of baby bees that were left behind by the swarm have survived. They must have made a queen, hatched eggs and learnt to fly. So we are back in the land of eggs and honey.  

Not content with stealing eggs the chickens have moved on to the raspberries.  First fighting over the ones I dropped and then leaping up and picking their own.

Raspberries are a symbol of kindness but I am not kind enough to share them with chickens. I feel bad about that. Who would have known that it is possible to feel guilty about not picking raspberries for your chickens?

Outside the garden there is the beach.  A short hot cycle run away. The swims are warm and you can watch cruise ships gathering on the horizon. They look lonely, like the rest of us.

And this weekend, it isn’t Glastonbury. Half a million people are sad about that. Another million or so might be glad, because they couldn’t get tickets anyway. Instead of burning up in hot sun in a noisy field I like this new hobby of watching chickens eat raspberries.

And if you got all the way down to here, well done.

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