it will be green

‘When I die I shall go to May,’ wrote Monty Don in the beautiful Ivington Diaries, ‘it will be green. Not environmentally correct green, for things will just be, without measurement or judgement, but actually the colour green in all its shining faces.

The oilseed rape fields, overbright sulphuric yellow, their heady oppressive pollen suffocating the fields of Leicestershire and Rutland, are lost to me.  I too, rejoice in the green, the fluidity, the mesmerising soft promise,  ‘the shifting, growing hymn of light and colour and leaf.’

And here, with my love, is my tribute to May.

orchard cuttings

jesus

Home from university for Easter, and my daughter has brought a chicken home with her. Apparently the boys’ house near her ‘adopted’ a chick, one of those fast growing broilers, heaven knows where they found him. Early on they dropped him, and thinking he had died, they were about to bury him, when he burst into life again, so they named him Jesus, I know, I know!  He's been growing up in their house, I know, on a diet of beer and chips, and knowing he would be spending the Easter break alone in the back yard of a student house with only a loaf of bread occasionally thrown over the wall for him, my daughter has managed to kidnap him and bring him here. Jesus (yes, I’m so sorry!) is settling in well, he’s a bit of a bully, but for the first time enjoying proper chicken food and fresh air.

of chickens and men

My lifetime of keeping chickens began as an army wife, when, living in an army quarter we had to register all our pets.  My husband, then adjutant, and with three chickens in a box on the back seat of the car, was told by his 2IC we weren’t allowed to keep livestock in our army quarter. We’d done some serious homework on this, however, and pointed out that, legally, livestock does not include poultry. Poultry are definitely pets, insisted my husband. Having lost to us on that point, the 2IC glared at my husband, picked up his pen and rather sarcastically requested their names, which is how Alpha, Bravo and Charlie came to be our first hens, living happily in an old dog kennel in the garden, until our Staffordshire bull terrier puppy, Angus, couldn’t bear the sight of them any longer and murdered Bravo while I was on the phone. Alpha had to go to the vet who sprayed artificial skin on her badly wounded back, (the fee for doing so could have bought exactly twenty more chickens) and shortly after that, went with Charlie to live with my parents when we emigrated to Scotland.

moving (hen) house

Moving everyone south...........

...........my husband had the brainy idea to put the hen house on a trailer, and drive the six hours south with the hens inside. He managed to do the difficult bit and get the hen house onto the trailer, while I was left with easy job of rounding up the chickens and putting them in. He thought we’d be able to coax them in with a few bacon rinds, but in reality I ended up tearing around, furiously grabbing at them, eventually catching each one using a landing net. We didn’t stop at all on the drive down; we never did without a hen house perched on a trailer, why would we with one? It was quite a jolly trip with plenty of cheerful waves and honking from fellow drivers, and when we reached our new home in Rutland we could see why. The main door to the hen house had worked its way open and the chickens had been clinging breezily to their perches by the open door to the motorway. Perhaps it was my job to check the door was secure too, I never found out, but at least they were all still there.