Butter and bicycles

Today Springy and I heard some more from Rumer Godden's The Dolls House. Marchpane is causing a lot of trouble for Tottie and her family. We're nearly at the end.

Springy also heard more from Mummies in the Morning - the third book in The Magic Treehouse series. I like the stories but have to say that the author needs some writing lessons to learn how to write proper sentences.

This afternoon we baked some chocolate chip biscuits and then we made some of our own butter in a small kilner jar. I have some lovely milk that is very rich; it's made from Jersey and Guernsey cow milk. We poured off the top cream and dolloped it into a kilner jar. Springy and I took turns in shaking it and it wasn't long before we had some golden butter and a small quantity of buttermilk to drink. I'm hoping that when we go strawberry picking we can do this again and use the buttermilk in the recipe for scones and then have strawberries, scones, butter and cream - yummy!

This afternoon we went for a bicycle ride (well I went on my scooter since I don't have a bicycle). It was so warm today - the breeze was from the East and I managed to do two loads of washing as well as some orders that needed sending off.

My cold is improving but I still have tonsilitis and pharyngitis. My left ear still feels strange too. Yesterday I had some sage tea as well as a steam inhalation.

I forgot to write an update on the duck situation. We get mugged every day by the three ducks. Mrs Duck escaped from the fox but has abandoned her nest. This resulted in her being courted again and her regular white-breasted suitor and another male have been hanging around with her. We gave up incubating the duck eggs (I'm sure I posted on this but can't find it).

Ducks

Mrs Duck has gone from her nest. We waited for her to return but the area around her nest smells of fox and C heard a distressed but quick duck noise early this morning. She has either abandoned her nest or the fox has taken her altogether. We waited and waited and some of the eggs that were in there have already been taken (either fox, stoat or ?).

Anyway, we now have 2 duck eggs on our hands that appear to be fertilised and feel heavy as if ducklings are in there. We improvised an incubator (flower pot, silver foil, lightbulb on, temperature gauge, a bowl with water in at the bottom to keep the humidity up and...well it's very improvised). We cannot afford to get an incubator and we have no idea if we are going to meet with success but it is the best we can do as Mrs Duck has had her nest in our garden for at least 3 years and until now has been successful. We have never had to intervene before and it's not something we were hoping to do either. It's rather upsetting to think that she has gone but I've been reading up on what to do (I have actually incubated geese and cared for ducklings before for a wildlife trust thing but that was when I was in my teens so this is like a new experience).

http://www.duckhealth.com/duck.html