Sarah Todd: Chirping brings good news for the girl's poultry business

Lucky for her she ended up in The Shed which – touch wood – hasn't got the kind of drainage gullies, nooks and crannies that the rodents loved in our old granary. She's been called Misty, short for Mystery. Her young owner chose the name to mark the merry dance she'd led us on.

She'd been handed over on a roadside, one of six that were destined for a huge poultry farm. The Husband used to go to school with the farmer and had done a little deal for when the next consignment was due. The dog that went through a phase of "visiting" got one of her sisters and we thought this one and another had also fallen foul.

But we found them by accident weeks later, sitting on dozens of eggs.

One of them didn't keep sitting once moved to safer surroundings, but this one did and is the very proud mother of three chicks. Not a huge yield of young stock, but she'll doubtless hatch more another time.

Our village show has been the other thing taking our time up. It was sad to see the agricultural classes – ears of wheat, truss of hay etc – missing.

There's probably a very good reason, such as dwindling entries. But it's sad all the same. We only noticed they were missing when the "six eggs" was under the domestic section rather than the usual farming one.

There was the odd third place in the baking category, but none of the glories from the last time we entered. The Husband copped it as he'd turned the Aga off in an economy drive "just while we're away at the Yorkshire Show" and then refused to have it back on.

"Christmas Eve," was the last date he gave for sticking a match under it.

There's an old electric oven (must be nearly 20 years) that has the dodgiest temperature gauge going and we've soldiered on with it.

The lemon drizzle cake was tasty enough, but far from light. If it had been fed to those daft pullets they'd never have been able to fly over the fence and start making nests.

Some sloe vodka that was entered in the show got a prize, as well as the odd coloured card for the flowers. The children enjoyed entering some gingerbread men – we're not politically correct/daft enough to call them "people". You-know-who looked a little down in the mouth when none of his veg won prizes.

Anyway, He didn't stay downhearted for long, managing to swap three onions for three prize-winning rhubarb and ginger muffins…