Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

A much drier day today thank goodness and so the work on the drainage system has begun in earnest to take advantage of the good weather. Our poultry numbers are now decreased due to selling ten birds to the friend who supplied us with our lovely Muscovy ducks last year. She took a range of ages and breeds as like us, she enjoys having a variety of types and colours. We are sure they have gone to a great home. We have also culled the remaining male Muscovy ducks for meat, they could all have grown a little more but being ducks, their dabbling in the many puddles yesterday was not at all good for the land and as more rain is forecast, we felt we should minimise any future potential damage.
The photo of the Muscovies below was taken at the start of the week: we have no idea what they were all looking at but this is a lovely shot of Banana with her four remaining 'ducklings' who despite sleeping apart at night, can often be found together during the day. Banana is on the table at the front with two females behind her and two males on the grass. The continuing bond here is extraordinary: Banana officially left her ducklings at four weeks and here they are at 11 weeks, still spending time together: is this mere chance or deliberate behaviour? We are sure that there is something deliberate going on here: after all it cannot be coincidence that they all end up in the compost heap looking for worms at roughly the same times of day most days???
And finally the harvest continues in the polytunnel with salad leaves, cucumber and radish on the plates for today. These three are interesting together because they show how we can eat different parts of the plant: the leaves (salad), the fruit (cucumber) and the tuber (radish). No matter that two out of these three grow above the ground, they all need to be washed to remove any bugs, beasties and soil - it would be interesting to make a chart of types of food and where they grow: on a vine; trailing along the soil, underneath the soil or perhaps even in water!