wild food, wild places, wild times
The bees are dying. All was, or seemed, well. We had weeks where the bees were busy busy. Collecting nectar, the clover in the field surrounding the hive a-buzz with 40,000 tiny beating wings. Bringing in pollen, little globes of yellow and orange and chestnut brown attached to their legs as they arrived home from…
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Some exciting news – in between wrangling chickens and running away from wasps, I am going to be writing a regular column for Locavore Magazine. “Who?” I hear you cry. Well, in their own words: “Locavore is an editorial-led magazine, defined by beautiful photography and intelligent writing. Firmly based in the British Isles, we’ll also…
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Spring, it seems, may finally be here. It’s been a long, hard winter. I have spoken of winter at length (thank you for your patience), but now my thoughts and my hands turn to warmer work. We are still battered by the occasional gale, and in fact a great many trees in the area have…
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The mornings are cold. Frost clings in sharp little lances to everything, the sky is a pale blue blanket, and we all shiver underneath. My morning routine is a chilly one; let chickens out, defrost chickens, feed chickens, stare at the sunrise until my eyes freeze over, drink tea. I worry that the chickens are…
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When I was a child, we had an orchard. I remember the day we moved in to that house like it was yesterday. Me and my sister paced the length and breadth of the field, wading through grass as tall as we were. We’d never seen so much space. I remember dragging an old plastic…
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The chicken run is finished. Finally. It became something of a personal Hadrian’s Wall. (Hen-drian’s Wall? Anyone? No?) This is the first fence I’ve ever built, and it’s a surprisingly satisfying thing to do. We found a chap in a village about two miles away who makes and sells acacia fenceposts. He has a massive…
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kieran jefferson 