DELIVERIES have slowed to a standstill. Of lambs that is. John still gets up in the middle of the night to see if here have been any new arrivals, but no joy over the last few days. The lambs that we do have are a joy to watch. A spring lamb is truly a spring lamb. Why amble, trot, or run, when you can bounce, bound, leap and hop for joy in the sunshine. It is the most uplifting sight.

Other spring deliveries are important too. Six goose eggs rock gently as they glide back and forth in my incubator. It will be a few weeks yet till they hatch ( fingers crossed) and in that time I am hoping that a couple of our hens go broody. That way I can slip a few eggs underneath each prospective Mum and let her get on with all the hard work of caring for the goslings. It may come as a surprise to them when instead of a clutch of fluffy little chicks they get a couple of leggy goslings, but maternal love will conquer all. In next to no time the foster Mum hens will be parading their “offspring” round the paddock. And oblivious to the fact that the goslings will soon rapidly outgrow them, the foster hens will still try to tuck these duplicitous nestlings underneath their feathers at bedtime. I am keen to find foster Mums for the goose eggs because I have other plans for the incubator. One of the bantams hatched last summer, has just started to lay eggs. They are bright green. I have never had a hen lay them that colour before. We had Indian Runner ducks that laid quite a vivid blue green egg before, but never a hen. I also noticed that this little hen does not lay her eggs in the approved nesting boxes. She has rustled together a nest of straw beneath the nest box stand, perhaps an attempt to hide her eggs from any marauding predator. Like me. The sadness is that these eggs are going nowhere. Well, apart from the frying pan or a cake mix. We do have a cockerel, but he is a Rhode Island Red I think. Not entirely sure as he , and two of his companion hens, are fugitives from a local village school. When lockdown first started last year, there was no-one in school to care for them, so we were asked to rehome the birds. At the moment the bantams are a female only group. And any chicks resulting from a love affair between Mr Rooster and my green egg producer, would be a motley crew. I shall have to rethink my breeding programme.