When people come to stay at our home for waifs and strays, they almost always want to collect their own eggs for breakfast, unless it’s raining of course or like most of my family, their vegan. They come into the house with a basket of freshly laid eggs and instantly ask why they are different colours. And the most popular question is which hens lay the blue eggs?

     Quite often, we find ourselves giving a talk about eggs over breakfast. People seem fascinated when we tell them to look at the colour of the hens ear lobes to discover the color of their eggs. They have been known to leave their breakfast to check out this fact.

     The truth is the breed of the hen dictates the colour of the egg. It’s genetic. Our Leghorns lay white eggs and the Orpington’s lay brown eggs. The Ameraucana’s lay the all time curious blue eggs and our Warrens lay brown eggs. But they all taste the same...wonderful!

     Other interesting facts we tell our visitors, is that eggs are placed in cartons, large end up to keep the yolk centered and the size of the egg increases as the hen gets older.

      The flavor of the egg depends on the hen’s diet. Here at our home for waifs and strays, their diet is varied and organic where possible. Their free range lifestyle enables them to consume the minerals they need for themselves and their eggs. Needless to say, their yolks are dark, whereas the eggs from a battery farm are lighter.

       The next time you eat an egg, remember that it took 26 hours for the hen to produce it and 20 of those hours were required to form the shell. They certainly earn their keep by laying up to 300 eggs a year. And when their egg laying days are over, they retire and enjoy a hard earned rest...at our home for waifs and strays.

I was surprised to see that almost all the vegetables we grew last year had been eaten up by myself, my kind and unassuming husband and some nameless little creature. This wasn’t particularly strange, but it was rather odd, that the dark store shed was littered with bits of straw from the boxes.

     It isn’t easy growing lots of vegetables, enough to store through the winter, but it is so rewarding. We often leave the carrots and swedes in the ground, protected by a layer of straw. And I love the smell of the sleeping apples and drooling onions in the shed. There is such an earthiness about the whole thing. However, I do moan about it at times.

     I recently asked my kind and unassuming husband what he would like for lunch and he just disappeared down the garden path. How odd, I thought, but he soon returned, with a handful of  vegetables, looking and smelling as fresh as when we picked them, months ago. He said he would like nothing better than homemade soup and some seeded bread, also homemade. I set about cooking. There weren’t enough onions, so I strolled over to the store shed, which was just as well!

      How on earth he managed to stay all this time without being traced, I will never know. But a rather full hedgehog slept peacefully on a small pile of hay in a corner. I will keep a careful eye on him!

       Thank heavens our garden for waifs and strays has many safe houses for the amount of visitors arrive, often un-noticed. But I do wish they would tidy up after themselves!

        The soup and the bread were delicious! Just as well I made enough for an army, as we had more visitors (the two legged kind) and a wonderful afternoon followed.

 DIGGING by Edward Thomas,

To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;

Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;

The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.

It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth."

I have never known rain to be so wet! In fact, I have never known it to rain so much in all of my life, and that’s saying something, coming from Wales!

     We are proud, in Wales, of our green valleys and lush mountains, but all this greenery comes at a price. Rain! Big fat rain! Fountain rain! Sheets of rain! Lazy rain that would rather go through you than around you! Or rain like today that came bucketing down with a vengeance!

     ‘It’s raining old women and sticks,’ my granny used to say, or, ‘it’s throwing it down!’ Whatever we say about the rain, it is always wet!

      And earlier, as I drove my car over the old horse bridge, the rain fell in all its glory, causing the river below to bulge with waves like gulping fish. I paused for a moment and stared at the wipers flipping the offending water off the windscreen. This was Man versus Nature but Nature is rebellious in any attempts to train it!

     ‘You must always treat the sea with respect,’ my father once said to me, and as I watched the river flood the marchlands, egged on by the sea, I nodded my head in understanding. 

       As much as I love spring, the beauty these changing seasons have on nature, never cease to amaze me. So enjoy each day as it unravels, for it is indeed later than you think.

Boys will be boys, and Gilbert the Great was no exception. In fact, he often over stepped the mark. You see, Gilbert was a ladies’ man and all the ladies loved Gilbert. Well almost all!

     The posh girls, with their plumped up feathers, loved Gilbert and his amorous ways. The raunchy rooster would strut about the yard with his chest out, trying hard to make himself look twice the size and butch.

     Although he was a great protector, Gilbert the Great was actually surplus to requirements. You see, hens do not need a rooster in order to lay eggs but they need one, if a chick is to be born.

     Gilbert the Great would sit on a fence at our home for waifs and strays and threaten anyone that came near his girls, especially those that were sitting on his fertilised eggs. I’m sure the poor postman dreaded coming anywhere near the place and often left parcels in a house across the road.  As you can imagine, Gilbert the Great didn’t make us very popular!

       Well as I said, all the girls loved Gilbert, but there were one or two exceptions and Sandwich was one of them. At least, she pretended to have no interest in him at all but she did watch him from a safe distance

        When Sandwich first saw Gilbert, she was pitiful looking, having just arrived from the battery farm so Gilbert didn’t pay her much attention. However, he did tend to watch her over the shoulders of the posh girls. And when Sandwich’s feathers returned to full shiny glory, she outshone all the others. In fact, she looked amazing.

         Gilbert the Great saw the transformation and would strut across the yard towards her. He would dance the cockerel waltz, with one wing stretched downwards. This amused our many visitors but certainly not Sandwich, at least, not at first. In fact, they almost came to blows, on many occasions. This, it seemed, only fuelled Gilbert the Greats amorous ways.

          As I watched the love affair develop between Sandwich and Gilbert, I often wondered if she knew that this raunchy rooster had the potential to fulfil her dreams. Remember the egg she craved for at the battery farm, the one that almost rolled away? I knew then, that Sandwich would make a great mother one day. But whether Gilbert the Great would win her over, you will have to wait and see.....It’s later than you think now, and the house is quiet once again.

It’s been some time since I wrote an update on our home for waifs and strays. Well here it is at along last.

The year began with chaos! A new intake of rescued battery hens with hardly a feather between them and an unwanted small dog! The hens I could deal with but the dog was a totally different story! We never wanted a dog, we never looked for a dog but she found us nevertheless, on Christmas day 2015.

The following three months were very stressful. I can look back now and see where I could have made things better, quicker. The cats took an instant dislike to Lolo, who, on the other hand, took a great interest in them, showing the whites of her almost toothless mouth. Although I shouldn’t say this, her missing teeth were probably her saving grace.

Despite their aging years, the cats soon put the wee dog in her place. They would take it in turns to whack her across the face whenever she went near them, their food or the sofa. Our once peaceful home was now a thing of the past. This dog meant business and meant to stay. And despite all attempts to find her a new home, she gradually grew on me. But it was no easy task, especially as it took a lot longer for her to bond with my kind and unassuming husband. It was in May, when a home had finally been found for her and after careful consideration, and for better or worse, we decided to give her a forever home with us, our cats and the hens.

Well things did improve. Lolo now gets on well with the cats (well most of them anyway) and is perfectly behaved around the hens. By the time summer came, we had settled down to a new way of life at our home for waifs and strays.

A variety of animals appeared at our home during the summer months. Some required help whilst others were just passing through, grabbing a meal on the way. One of the sad cases was that of a young gull and it was Lolo who found her down on the beach. She circled the bird, making no sound but drawing our attention to it.  The gull couldn’t fly and there was no obvious injury, so we took her to the small animal hospital in the woods.

‘Botulism!’ said the vet. ‘We’re seeing more and more of it lately. They catch it from rotten food and maggots.’ Thankfully, he told us there was no risk to humans.

     On December 7^th this year, we were told to lock our hens in for 30 days. This was due to an outbreak of bird flu across 14 countries including France and Germany. The reason for keeping them in is to protect them from wild birds and migrating birds, possibly infected, coming up the estuary. Well it has been 24 days now and the girls are coping well. Thankfully, they have a large greenhouse, attached to their coop so plenty of room for them to scratch and play.

      Christmas has come and almost gone. My family from Australia came to stay and are all musicians. We held a small concert on Christmas Eve for friends and family and everyone who came, took part. There was poetry and prose, singing, dancing, piano and guitar playing, African drums and harmonicas. It was amazing.

     The house is quite again now. The piano beckons for me to touch its keys and I smile. The guitars wait patiently on their stands and I close my eyes and remember the sound that came from them only days ago. My dear sister and her family have returned to Australia and a new year lays waiting for me and my kind and unassuming husband. I long to pick up my pen and write again. The wee dog sleeps by the fire and I feel blessed.

A happy new year to you all!

Remember that it is later than you think so make the most of your lives and strive to be happy and healthy.