Quick update

Sorry about the lack of posts lately - not a lack of things to write about, just a lack of time to write about them! In brief... on Saturday I spent half the day pulling broad beans and peas, podding them and freezing them (bet you are wishing you had been here for that Mike!) and the other half of the day adding a nesting box onto the white chicken's house - only to discover that 4 of the 5 chickens were happy to sleep in the brown chicken's house....(confused???). I got up at 4:30am on Sunday to make sure the chickens weren't killing each other after they woke up all refreshed and then spent most of the day pulling garlic, weeding etc. etc. until I got a call from a friend who had gone into labour and was at the hospital about 20 minutes from here (11 minutes if it is 4am and your baby is about to push his head out into the world... I know this from the birth of my son!). Anyway, she lives a long way from the hospital and it turns out her contractions were false ones, but just to be on the safe side she stayed here the night and shared our roast chicken (don't worry it wasn't one of ours.. yet!).
Monday morning was spent at the hospital to check if the contractions were doing anything more and then I took her home and came home myself for a short sleep before piano lessons.... well that was the plan, but the phone went 5 times, the doorbell twice and the fax machine tried its best to keep me awake too so I ended up giving up on sleep and went to bed at 9pm instead (after already sleeping on the couch for an hour... shhhh don't tell Tom!).
Today we have another group of girls arriving - by the time I get them back here it will be close to 4pm and then we have to leave by 11:30am tomorrow morning (having already fed them lunch) so I'm not sure how much of an "agricultural experience" they will get, but it means there is not so much preparation on my part.
The photos are of (if you haven't guessed!) the rice seedlings that we planted last week. They definitely grow fast! Rice planting in a few weeks time if anyone is interested....