The chickens have escaped!

So, the cute kitty featured below now has a name. She’s called Corky - we live in France and drink eight bottles of wine a day… it seemed the natural choice.

Of course at the moment she smells funny and goes to the toilet in strange places; but we’ve had two kids and we know what to expect. Apart from that she is showing good signs of being a fierce hunter and we’re sure she will grow up to be a ruthless killer. Ahhh!, so sweet!

This little bundle of fur has just joined our family. She is no bigger than my hand!

She may look cute now, but have no fear - she will soon be the most feared mouse and rabbit hunter in the whole of Normandy! She was actually discovered with her mother and siblings in the old sheepfold of a big estate down the road, so she is completely wild - but this hasn’t stopped her enjoying all the attention we’ve been giving her since she got here.

She doesn’t have a name yet (we’re the family who called 3 successive cats “Kitty”, imaginative, eh?!) so name suggestions are welcome!!! I think “My rabbit problems are over” is a bit long as names go!

Obviously I’ve spent a lot of time planting recently. Here in Normandy, the magic date after which one can plant out the frost-intolerant plants is 15^th May.

I’ve also taken part this year in a campaign run by the French Association “Kokopelli”. It’s an organisation that works to protect heritage seeds, doing battle against GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) and also giving seeds to people in third world countries.

Monsanto is currently lobbying the French government to allow farmers to grow genetically modified corn IN SECRET. This means that people growing corn in their vegetable patch won’t know that it’s being contaminated by the neighbouring farmer! As part of the campaign, volunteers are sowing a packet of heritage corn (given on request by Kokopelli), and at the end of the season we will all post one cob to the Minister of Agriculture with a demand that it be tested for genetic contamination.

It’s probably not too late to take part. If you are interested and live in France you can send an email to semences@kokopelli.asso.fr or phone 04 66 30 64 91.

Kokopelli also sell a wide range of heritage veg and plants.

And no, it’s not the name of my new ‘adult’ website. Bunny shooting has been stepped up a gear. Generally I get Ian out of bed at 6 am to go and get rabbits while I get the kids ready for school. And in the evening I take my turn for the 9 – 10 pm shift.

Once I’ve shot one, I’ve found that if I stay put for 15 minutes or so, the others will come back out again, giving me a chance to get another. So far the toll is at 18. That’s 18 fewer bunnies to munch on our veg; eating up to 30% (yes, 30%!) of their own body weight a day. That’s even more than our 8 year old son puts away at dinner time!

It’s a good idea to leave a clump of nettles growing somewhere in your garden. This is partly because nettles are a breeding-ground for early aphids and thus provide spring food for those very helpful ladybirds coming out of hibernation, giving them a head-start in life.

The other reason is so that you can make nettle “tea”. It’s a great concoction which will thrill and delight your veggies. It’s also free and doesn’t involve giving away your hard-earned money to the multinational corporations who make plant feed products (who knows what’s goes into those!)

To make: put on a pair of gloves and pull up or chop down a load of nettles, and chuck them into a bucket (adjust size of bucket to size of garden). Press down occasionally to fit the most nettles in possible. Fill the bucket with water, and put on the lid. Leave to stand for around 3 weeks – you’ll know it’s ready because it will stink like hell and make you run into the house when you catch a whiff of it, but don’t worry, that’s how it should be! Dilute 1 part nettle tea to 10 parts water and feed to plants, then fill out your application form for the local horticultural show. (You can also make this kind of tea with comfrey, etc.)

Of course you can also use nettles in the kitchen: nettle soup, real nettle “tea” for human consumption, use as a substitute for spinach, etc etc. They are full of iron and very good for you. Once cooked, even lightly, they don’t sting.

Long live nettles; at least I have some good excuses why the garden’s full of them!

Yes, they’re still out there. It seems they’re breeding like rabbits.

I’ve bodged together a dog-shelter with some (yes, you guessed it!) pallets. I’ve put it right next to the veg patch and this is where the dog has been sleeping at night. She doesn’t have the killer instinct to actually catch a rabbit, but she will chase them away from my precious peas if they decide to come looking. However, as the rains have finally come, she’s not been out there for a couple of days. It’s a fair-weather plan.

This means that for the last couple of nights they’ve been back in the veg patch, scoffing all the onions. I’ve read that rabbits are very territorial, which is why they leave droppings everywhere in warning to outsiders. So I have considered bringing in rabbit dropping from somewhere else and scattering them around in the hope it will scare away the ‘locals’. However, I don’t know where to get hold of any, and I feel my reputation won’t survive going round to the neighbours asking for rabbit poo!! If anyone wants to send me some by post, I shall be running a competition and awarding prizes at the end of the month – categories will include ‘Strongest smelling’ and ‘Largest pellets’.

I’m also considering getting a cat. This is the first time we haven’t had a cat, and (coincidentally?) the first time we’ve had a real problem with veg-munching vermin, so I think cats work. I know for a fact that they catch baby rabbits, as previous moggies used to bring me them regularly as presents.

Here’s a picture of the un-lethal dog. Don’t send any kittens by post.

Plenty going on outside – most of which involves carrying watering-cans to far-flung corners of desert which I once called a garden. WHAT has happened to the rain?? Luckily the piles of straw dumped in strategic spots during winter (“when are you going to tidy up the mess outside?”) means that some seedlings can be planted out, like the peas. We are still under bunny-attack, but I have been reliably informed that they aren’t interested in peas once they are more than a couple of inches tall. The rabbit toll today is at 7, not bad although only one was big enough to eat, which is a shame! 

Other updates… Well, finally I can confirm that The Chickens Have NOT Escaped! Four weeks ago we finally got around to putting up the 50 m of chicken wire which I had prepared for with my fence posts, see post (ha ha!) and now we have happy chickens as well as a happy me. I’m so pleased that I have even made this photo of them ‘behind bars’ my desktop picture! Egg production went up overnight and hasn’t stopped since; the cockerel crows from 4.30am ‘til dusk and, most importantly, my sheet mulch is intact. To make them feel even happier, I have planted two crab apple and two elderberry trees inside their yard so that they will eventually have extra fruit to eat. I’m also planning to plant sunflowers along the fence for them, followed by other ‘forage’ plants in years to come.

I’ll be back out there tonight waiting for the bunnies to pop out. Hopefully I’ll get a bigger one this time so I can try to perfect my gutting and skinning skills, plus experimenting with some of the recipes people have been sending me… I can’t decide between mustard and bread-crumbs or rosé and anchovies…