Just enough to add colour to my breakfast cereal. I was given 6 young canes last year (an exchange for eggs, of course) and they're bearing fruit; I'm harvesting this amount every few days. I simply need more canes in order to harvest more fruit. My benchmark is a single harvest large enough to make a batch of white chocolate and raspberry muffins.
While picking my "bounty", I caught sight of my frizzle Pekin hen making a P.L.C. -
Poor Life Choice. She decided to go broody out in the open, behind the vegetable patch. Genius. That way the fox can eat her in the middle of the night, then come back in the morning and have partly-incubated eggs for his breakfast.
That damn fox is going to harvest more than I am!
I leave her to sit on the eggs during the day. At bedtime, I pick her up off her clutch and put her back in the hen house, enduring her complaints and pecks. I might try moving her somewhere safe, and put a few fresh bantam eggs under her. She seems pretty determined - either to be a mum or fox bait, I'm not sure which.
PLC... I'm going to start using that on my kids. But I'll leave them guessing as to what it means. That will be a tiny bit of sweet revenge when they make a PLC!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. PLC. On my farm and in the context of my family, this has so many applications. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteDHimC / Sophie - I wish I could remember where I first heard the phrase, now well-used in our house. I'm worried it may have been Oprah!
ReplyDeletedon't bother wishing for a bigger single harvest of berries. They don't last long off the bush (though I know with all your animals, they don't last long on the bush either!) I bought some organic blackberries the other day that looked beautiful- big, plump, and shiny. They taste like crap. So much genetic engineering goes into making fruits and vegetables look appealing and transport well that none of it tastes good. *grumpy old lady moment over*
ReplyDeleteSo why can't you pick up the broody hen and her eggs and move them to a safer place? I assume she can't move them back, right?
Poultry never seem to understand that, when you do something irritating to them, it's for their own good. Usually, at any rate. When you're taking their eggs or chopping their heads off, not so much.
ReplyDelete