Lakin Farm

John Luke is nearly ten years old.

To celebrate some of his friends are going to see the new James Bond film Quantum Of Solace

John Luke really likes James Bond films because of all the gadgets and cool cars. However is isn’t very convinced about some of the special effects in the older films.

The tarantula crawling on Sean Connery’s shoulder in Dr No gets a particularly scathing review.

This picture was drafted by John Luke and myself, and used on his birthday party invitations.

It was a pretty simple job using a bit of searching on Google Images, and some basic photo editing.

Ten points if you can guess which James Bond actor’s head we replaced.

We have decided to keep chickens again. At the moment we only have three Bantams and hope to get some hybrids (brown chickens) in the spring.

Our last lot of chickens were eaten by mink, so I have moved the location of the chicken hut and built a wire enclosure.

We let the chickens roam around the land during the day but they are locked up each night.

John Luke does most of caring for the chickens, including mucking out the hut each week. A job he really hates.

Hopefully we will do a better job of looking after these guys than we did before.

Abby loves sticker books. She spends ages daintily ripping stickers out of books and sticking them back in.

Once she has decided were to put the sticker, she carefully places it, presses it down firmly, then immediately takes it off again. She will do this until the sticker loses any traces of stickiness and just becomes a bit of paper which falls off.

This picture shows her at the height of her sticking phase, where anything was fair game for sticking. Including herself.

The other day I managed to shoot a pheasant with my air rifle.

John Luke and I shared the job of plucking and gutting the bird. Here you can see John Luke plucking the feathers.

Although the bird had been shot three hours previously, when we took out the guts they were still warm. Not job for the squeamish.

We had the bird the next day, and it was very nice, although a bit tough (should have hung it first).

Since this deft piece of marksmanship I haven’t managed to get any of the other pheasants on our land. The main reason being I haven’t the patience to stalk them properly.

To be honest though, deft stalking skills aren’t always required as I can drive right up to them with the tractor and they don’t fly off.

Next time I’m out on the tractor I’ll take a big stick with me.

Abigail is developing quite a personality. She talks non stop from the time she wakes up to the time she goes to bed.

The only things that keep her quite are food (especially chocolate) and the television (particularly In The Night Garden and Pingu).

The other day she made up the word ‘booshuwa’, and ran around shouting it at the top of her voice. We all laughed and that made her do it even more.

As you can see from this picture she also really enjoys painting and like most toddlers she is not bothered what she paints on.

I have just installed a wood burning stove in the house.

This is a picture of John Luke helping to take out the old fireplace. He volunteered to help as the job involved demolition, which he really enjoys.

He is stood like that because I took the picture just as he was asking whether it would be easier to use the SDS drill to hammer out the stones in the fireplace.

We tried it and it was.

The stove is pretty good fun to mess about with and is a great way of getting rid of offcuts. Trouble is it’s a bit like looking after a baby, as it can’t be left for too long and eats (wood) like nobodies business.