A big white shiny egg nearly every day.

With the sun shining and the sky clear and bright this is the best time of the year to be out in the garden with something to do.  There is so much promise of new plans and endless possibilities on the launch pad. Today was one of the those days and Mike and I went out as we do every day to do at least one job, so after organising a meeting with the JCB man for tomorrow we both got our working clobber on and stepped out to do just one thing.  I always laugh at this statement because we never do just one thing and jump from one subject to another in no order of preference or urgency, it is just what we touch first or talk about or look at. The heneriera is on the way to the garden so we do stop to feed the hens and see to the ducks and today I did my routine clean and tidy up in the hen house. My hens are so untidy and disorganised but is only takes a few minutes to have all the poo shovelled away and nice clean French newspaper down with a whole new change of air and dry grass in the laying box. I have very fond memories of my Mum having a clear up and coming home to find everything I own back where it belongs and even some things in places I never thought to put them, it was such a treat that I hope my chicky chicks and the cock appreciate my efforts as much as I did all those years ago. This time of year has a comical side for us as Swanny takes to acting his male self and shows off his swollen what not on his beak and acts like a badly behaved adolescent with only one thing on his mind. Mike gets most of the bad attitude as Swanny chases him with his head and neck in attack pose and his wing feathers perched up over his back like a praying mantis. If you think I am exaggerating then you need to make a visit, this is one bad swan on a mission to act as delinquently as possible and show whoever is passing just who runs this joint. He seems to have entered this period early this year as I usually put dry grass out for him in late March so that he can build himself a nest. I have done this ever since we first saw him gathering bits of twig and grass to make a pretty inadequate nest in the first year he owned us, and ever since then I have been his local Ikea and delivered every thing he could possibly want to make a home fit for his queen, who sadly never turns up. We go through this aggressive stage and then he calms down, his, what not, goes back to normal size and he only shows a mild regressive slide into his early season behaviour by trying to mount the white ducks, but we forgive him because he is in his late teens and frankly, the ducks float, look a bit swan like and don’t complain too much to a quick chase around the pond. 

The ducks have made a nest for the second year running and are as normal firing blanks without a bloke on the pond. We have left the muddy eggs in the nest and every day Mike can see the latest ones shining bright and clean on the top of the pile so we know they are fresh and with his proficient litter picker device plucks them out whilst the girls are preening themselves down on the waters edge and presents me with a big white shiny egg nearly every day.