Look! Three Suffolk Bantams! Aren’t they cute!
I’m going to let you into a secret. I’ve always been seduced
by the self-sufficiency movement. At least I think I have. I can see myself
milking goats and tilling the soil, and spinning wool and making yogurt and
bread and olive oil soap…
But, let’s face it, the reality can be grim when the compost
toilet has been put up wind and there is no sun to fire up your solar panels.
And I’m not sure I want to wake up at sunrise, in the cold, and have to light a
fire and draw water to make tea.
So I sort of dip my toe in the water and pretend. I’ve
accepted the fact that I’m not going to get a smallholding, like ever. But three small Suffolk Bantams?
That I can manage. We had chickens last year, but they got out-foxed [or
out-badgered] so the hen house was laying empty and desolate.
In the back of my mind I knew I would get some more hens, but
since I have a mega-mega-stressful-busy week next week I was mentally putting
it off till, say, the middle of April. However: today I walked past a shop in Porlock,
and there was a card in the window advertising Suffolk Bantams. And a photo:
Aren’t they
cute? I said to my friend.
And I phoned the contact number. And
would you believe it? They were just
past the church up the lane by the recreation ground and I could go and see
them then and there...
You will never guess what! Here we are in Somerset and the
nice chicken lady mentions that she went to school in Kent. Oh, so did I, I say.
She only went to MY PRIMARY SCHOOL! [Shout out to Loose
County Primary]. And her sister went to MY SECONDARY SCHOOL [shout out to
Maidstone Girls’ Grammar] right at the other side of the country.
The lovely chicken lady gave me a box - I had come unprepared after all. Who knew I would be bringing chickens home after a work meeting in Porlock? She drilled holes in the box, threw in hay, laid them in gently and tied the box up. She gave me a bag of their feed 'to keep them going' and gave instructions to 'drive carefully' and we were off!
My son straightened out the hen house very hastily where it had been rocked off its base by the last storm, cleaned out the old hay and cleaned and filled their feed and water bottles.
Anyway. My three Suffolk Bantams have safely gone to roost
for the night. And just to prove I do a bit of tilling and sowing and smallholdy stuff,
here’s a pic ↓
BTW, if you want a really funny informative video
series on smallholding/ homesteading, you have to read/watch these… She’s growing on
me….
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