Country matters

There is a new-born donkey at the end of the next road. The mother is called Lucy even though she is a jenny. And I learn that there are two emus in the paddock behind, which brings to umpteen the total of species I have noticed in that road: dairy cows, Highland cattle, sheep, pigs, donkeys, Shetland ponies, alpacas, horses, ducks, chickens and pheasants.  

There were goats but they died of old age. This afternoon I had a long conversation with their owner, who turned her quarter-acre front yard where they used to live into a vegetable garden and had people queuing up to buy her new potatoes for Christmas. She wondered whether certified seed potatoes were necessary every year – I say no but then I am not growing semi-commercially – and which varieties are best at this time of year. We moved on to lettuces and courgettes, and whether it was better to water the maize patch late at night or early in the morning. The latter, we decided.