I am sitting on an old stone bench, facing the chicken run.
It was built as a step for mounting horses. The warm air has a sweet spring
fragrance. The chickens are industriously inspecting the upturned earth in
their run after Winifred and the young pigs finished their day’s work of
plowing it up for me. It is the golden hour, just before sunset, where
everything is still except for the cheeping chicks, clucking hens and twitters
of the white-browed sparrow weavers in the honey locust trees. Zizou, our Jack
Russell Terrier, has just jumped up to join me. She is leaning against my back
and staring across towards Lesotho over in the distance behind me. Next to me
is a bucket filled with a lanky cauliflower and a generous picking of broad
beans. The cauliflower is for tonight’s chicken soup, Jewish Penicillin, a
Jamie favourite. I will substitute it for the broccoli in the recipe because
that is what we have in the garden. The broad beans will be in tomorrow’s salad
for the Quilt Club’s lunch I am hosting.
Last night I picked a bucket of rainbow chard
and some young Egyptian walking onions. I cooked them up with 2 slices of
chopped leftover gammon and served them in toasted sandwiches with a little
grated cheese. The Swiss chard is such a faithful friend. It has carried us
through the winter frosts and drought. Once the weather warms up it will
probably go to seed, but not before new seeds have grown up in another part of
the veggie tunnel to replace the existing bed.
The spring sowing has begun. We have rows of
tiny carrots and beetroot, and lots of hopefulseeds trays for the tomatoes, peppers and brinjals.
Last years garlic’s and leeks are looking great and the new onion seedlings are
doing well. It’s a good start.
We have plenty of our own pasture-raised beef
in the freezer now, which will hopefully last us for a long time. In the not
too distant future, some organic free-range pork will join it. The pork is
rather too free ranging at the moment: the naughty rascals keep disappearing
leaving us searching all over, hence their being put to work in the chicken run
this week.
Marigold and Matilda are leading their chicks
to bed as the sun dips behind the hill. I will shut them all in securely, feed
the dogs, close the curtains inside and then finish making dinner while I watch
the last episode of Miss Marple. Decadent Dad is busy in his leather workshop.
Our son is at his drawing board. They are each playing their own music
selection while they work, so I will wear headphones to hear Miss Marple while
I cook.
