“We’ve had another good growing week and the weeds are coming on a treat. We’ve had our first strawberries, which is very nice indeed. The gooseberries are also coming on well and the biggest are now ready for picking. The peas and broad beans are podding, but the beans are still very small.

The Hubbard chicks are now outdoors. They seem to like the grass under their feet and are happily pecking away. The soil tray is still their favourite though. A further five have gone to a friend, leaving us with eight, as we had a dead one this week. I think it may have been trampled by the others as they have all been very healthy.

The broody is still… well, broody. Our Cream Crested Legbar cockerel, Hugo, is going to a new home where he will be the only cockerel. Here, he’s very much second fiddle to Hector, our Copper Black Maran, who’s about twice the size of Hugo and I feel a bit sorry for him. So he’s off to pastures new with a nice wee flock of Black Rocks.

Last week, I was hoping that Lyra wouldn’t have a relapse, after her joint-ill episode. Well, she did. On Monday morning, Dan came in and said she was really unwell. I had a look and had to agree – although her legs seemed fine, she was clearly sick. She wouldn’t move unless forced to and seemed to be in pain around her abdomen. Off we went to the vet again, this time for intravenous painkiller and anti-inflammatory and more antibiotics. Again, the vet wasn’t entirely sure what the problem was, but he was clearly worried. And once again, she’s better – she’s had five days of an eight day course of antibiotics and she seems recovered. She’s grazing now and is hard to catch, which I’m viewing as positive. This time, I hope she really is out of the woods.

The pigs have been reintroduced to their snak-a-ball and love it. Apparently, the ball was invented for pigs, was adopted for horses and now we’ve claimed it back for piggies. It’s a great way to keep them amused and active. The pigs are looking nice and trim – I overfed the first ones we had but have become more disciplined over the years. Actually, the ball is a great way to distract them when they squeal for food when it’s not feeding time.

We took delivery of our calcified seaweed this week so I‘ll have to sort out the application. We put “new” horse poo on the garden last year and, in retrospect, I don’t think it was a good idea, so we’ve established a muck heap, where it can rot down. The hardest bit is keeping the hens out of the beds. Our raised beds of eight years ago are now level with the path, because the hens have scraped so much soil over the side. Next time, it will be a six foot fence round the vegetable garden!”