Whack-a-moley

Its not all death and disaster round here, we have long periods of time where nothing dies, calves are born and life is good.
My oldest child would really like some goats, but we have said no as we have more than enough to do with the livestock we have and goats are even worse at escaping than sheep!!!! So he has some bantams, little chickens for those with normal lives, Richard had 50 hens when he was at school and an egg round so he thinks poultry is good.
Tom had 4 bantams but one didn't survive the cold winter and he is desperate for some more and thinks half term would be a good time to go shopping, watch this space!
I dont mind chickens and I love the fresh eggs, the yolks are so yellow that they make sponge cake yellow. The eggs are smaller than hens eggs so if I'm baking I have to weigh them into the mix, but since we only get 2-3 eggs a day I am still having to buy a few eggs and I usually use those for baking and save our own for boiling, frying and making into egg mayo or salad.

Tom has been doing cooking at school in design and technology, its a fairly random sort of cooking, ie not much to give you the basics but he can learn that at home and he does enjoy it. He is year 8, aged 13 and a lot of the children are not interested at all, I think it helps that he likes most food and is very eating orientated, LOL.
This week it was cheese and onion pasties, we had to supply a block of ready made pastry, cheese, chopped onion and an egg, and they were much tastier than I was expecting. The children want to have another go, so next week being half term week we can do so, I will make some pastry and we may add some bacon for added taste.

Our soil here is very sandy, perfect for moles of which we have lots...... Mostly they stick to the fields but occasionally we get one in the garden. At the weekend we woke up to a large mole hill under the swing frame, the children cleared up all the soil heap after I banned just jumping on it to flatten it. Later that day mr mole pushed some more soil up and it turned into a battle, eventually Tom built a small edifice over the opening, he used some bricks and plastered it with mud! Frances decorated it with flowers, as 8yr old girls do, and we went to bed.

The next morning Tom looked out the window and announced that we're goint to need more bricks! Mr mole had simply moved his molehill so a place with no bricks on top. I am not having the garden bricked over so Mr mole has won this battle, we will go back to removing the soil heap and otherwise ignoring it.

Mind you the cats are enjoying watching the earth move, maybe they will dispose of the mole for us.

The children have referred to the whole escapade as "whack-a-moley" or to my ears "guacamole" which makes me giggle every time.