Eggs and seeds

A welcome surprise yesterday morning - Gina is back into egg production! Yippee! A perfect brown egg was waiting for us nestled among the hay in her sleeping compartment. Now we just need Georgie to get back on track and we can forget buying local eggs until next winter.

Spring is obviously just around the corner. It's not just the eggs that give away the (slightly) warmer weather, but the onions and garlic are showing their first green shoots through the sodden earth (more garlic than onions though, but never mind) and there's buds on lots of shrubs and trees in the more sheltered areas around our home.

We got seed catalogues falling through our letterbox too at the weekend which make for lovely browsing with a cuppa and piece of choccie cake. Katie is keen to stock up on some unusual varieties of veggie - purple broc. and carrots etc., etc., but we have so many seeds left over from last year it seems daft stocking up on more. My friend has very offered me some runner bean and pea seeds she harvested last year. I'm going to plant her runners with my dwarf beans to get a really good crop (hopefully). Peas will be new to us - the birds love them apparently so I'll need to tackle that one.