Easter Sunday: A Normal Day at Stoneywish
Public Holidays are working days for us. Nevertheless I try not to let such times slip by without a sense of celebration. So for Easter I plan a breakfast of fresh-laid chuckie-eggs and homemade brioche, courtesy of the new bread-maker. Michael sets off for work just after six a.m. with instructions not to stay out cutting stinging nettles after he has fed the animals. Breakfast will be at 8 sharp. At seven he returns, but my hopes of a restful start to the day are short-lived. One of our sheep - last year's bottle-lamb, Spotty, to be precise - has managed to wedge her head through the bars of a metal gate and, due to her horns, cannot be extricated. Do I have a hack-saw? No, I do not. And as she cannot be left in such a parlous state, I call the Fire Brigade and we both set off to the Car Park to await the arrival of professional help. The fireman show great gentleness and understanding, for their Easter breakfast has probably also gone by the board, and manage to cut Spotty free without any trauma, After staggering about a bit, she heads off for a rest in the shade before resuming her grazing. I would like to think she has learnt something about the value of seeking greener grass on the other side, but I suspect she has not!
Within an hour I am rounding up a dog which has strayed from one of our neighbour's houses and is running amongst the geese and their newly hatched goslings. These six babies, now gawky on long legs, were, at Easter, still helpless balls of fluff, zealously guarded by their parents and a gaggle of aunties and uncles who were bold enough to fly at the sheep if they came too close. But even a bold goose is no match for a dog. By the time I have chased him home and returned to the house, it is getting on for midday.
No matter, the weather is warm and sunny and the apple blossom hums with bees in the orchard. Perhaps an Easter lunch outside will make up for breakfast? We pile bread and salad onto plates and just as we head out of the kitchen the telephone rings: Is Michael there? There is water pouring through the ceiling of the Visitor Centre kitchen. It looks as if the tank has burst again...
Two emergency plumbing trips later, pigs fed, chickens shut away, and visitors and staff departed after the excitement of the Easter Bunny Hunt, we anticipate a quiet evening. But perhaps it would be better to make no further plans! Fate has such an arsenal of practical jokes to play on the unwary. Half way through dinner someone calls to say that a fox has carried off one of the goslings and the thought haunts me late into the night.
Next morning however, I find all in the top field still alive and well. In addition the noisy Canadas have hatched three young of their own on the Black Swan Pond. I count six ducklings, darting about, hunting flies on the water surface and also spot four moorhen chicks, hidden under the overhanging foliage that obscures their nest. The cuckoo has been calling for a week now.
This surge of life brings its triumphs and tragedies. With the warm weather, two sheep, though treated already, succumb to fly-strike and Michael and his grandson, Mike, have the unenviable task of dealing with the flesh-eating maggots which have burrowed into their wool. And the heron returns to the Black Swan Pond and perches at the top of the weeping willow, waiting to swoop on my unsuspecting nursery.
Two weeks on, I have four duckling survivors, but only one moorhen, lovingly tended, as only baby moorhens can be. The Canadas have taken their family to the safety of the Big Pond where they were welcomed by a raucous flotilla of geese. Meanwhile, despite their water drying up alarmingly fast, the top flock have continued to protect their goslings and their unflagging vigilance makes a very moving sight.
And already it is May. Today's news becomes out of date even as I write it. Elder bushes flower where the apple and rowan bloomed before. Great drifts of red campion and blue alkanet lie between the trees along the Big Pond edge, the best I have ever seen and May blossom foams in the hedgerows. You would not guess that we have been without rain for five weeks or more. Shaun McCullagh came at Easter and did a new bird count for us, recording whitethroat and lesser whitethroat, blackcap and reed warbler this time, in addition to our usual residents. And Michael has met a baby fallow deer twice on his rounds in the early morning, which is lovely for the blog and (deer being voracious eaters of roses) rather worrying for the Herb Garden!
We finally got our lazy breakfast on May morning!
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