Yellow Poo!

Bloody hell..............I am slung another curved ball! However I won't moan (in light of my previous post-how could I?), but I will let out a slight exasperated sigh!

This morning, when I let the baby turkeys out I noticed that one of the little buggers has bright yellow poo!, which is a sign of the dreaded turkey illness Blackhead disease!

Boris and his previous mate Grace, caught the disease early last year and Grace died days after it was diagnosed by the vet, so I had great cause to worry. Thank God for having a sympathetic vet surgery, for within 30 minutes I had collected antibiotics for the entire flock and an hour later all of the birds had received their first doses.

The whole procedure of tablet administration was a herculean task in itself as the babies have to receive half a tablet twice a day,Gloria needs one tablet twice a day and big old Boris needs one and a half tablets twice a day. Boris is a powerful big bird, and getting the tablet down him resembled something out of all in wrestling days on tv's World of Sport!!! but after five minutes of grappling, down the tablet went!!!!

Let's hope all six birds survive this health challenge...Blackhead has a terrible mortality rate!

hey ho!

photo Boris and Grace as babies with a young Scotty

2010

Now I nearly got sucked into that introspective "black hole", which is NewYear's Eve, when I got to thinking about today's blog entry. As a family group ( and of course that extended group of friends that make up our "urban family"),we have had an OK 2009. My brother and his family has experienced some health concerns and they have dealt with them with fortitude, but for the rest of us, we have coped with the petty tribulations of life as we have always done.
I read the above facebook entry on the hilarious Passive/Aggressive.com web site

(http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/) and it kind of underlines for me, a good way to go forward into 2010.

ie. Shit happens......deal with it......be positive, proactive and try to be nicer.....

Let's hope we can all do the above...oh and let's have a good 2010 eh?

The Day Of The Triffids -

I only managed to see the first episode of this wonderful 1950s novel, and I must say I was so dissapointed with what I eventually saw.. Glossy, crisp and totally devoid of menace, this BBC big budget drama reminded me of the awful recent remake of the tv series "survivors" which was such a hit in the 1970s.
Hollywood (and the BBC) seem to be resorting to the tried and tested when it comes to new projects, and so many of these remakes have been such let downs,and I am sorry to say that the younger movie going public will totally overlook the original productions that on reflection, are classics in their own rights.
The awful remake of SHERLOCK HOLMES is a case in point., I know it will be a real turkey of a movie...but how many people, after watching Robert Downey Jnr grapple with his Englash accent and CGI effects will not bother watching the satisfying Basil Rathbone in the pacy "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror" (1942) when it gets a rerun on TCM
Where is originality in movies nowadays?
Why do we have to suffer these big budget, low tension,re hashes ?
Cannot we be treated to some more risk taking new enterprises? after all,, with the exception of recent "Star Trek" and "Aliens I cannot really think of a original and enjoyable remake in recent years....
answers on a postcard if any of you can"

Sob Story

Worked last night, and gave the whole staff such a sob story of how the pigs are struggling to cope with yet another heavy fall of snow, that they clubbed together and gave me all of the potentially out of date food left over from Christmas!
This morning the girls have Merrily chomped their way through a hundredweight of chapatis,croissants, a sponge Christmas cake in the shape of a champagne bottle, a selection of cheese and several dozen dainty party nibbles!
They especially loved the extra sweet cake, which had chocolate icing, and slurped it up with piggy eyes, tightly shut in glutton filled rapture.
The field population has not ventured far from the houses and coops, so braving the cold I stocked them up with corn and feed and have retired to the warmth of the cottage.
Chris is out at a pantomime with Janet tonight, and I have asked for a rain check from the cinema with Hazel......a night in in quiet solitude will be lovely

Eat Your Heart Out Virginia McKenna

Those post Christmas jobs need doing today and even though I am working again tonight, the feed has to be bought, the pigs need a new bale of straw and the duck house needs a good scrub. I was up with the light and decided to sort out the "babies" of the field first thing.
The turkey poults, I gently lifted out of their house and with difficulty (their wings are pretty tough) clipped each one's flight feathers. Then to the strains of "Born Free" (I was humming not singing it) I let each one go into the "wilds" of the turkey enclosure.
Nothing much happened.....then again with turkeys....nothing much does happen, as the four new poults wandered around, circled gently by Boris in full "sail". I suspect they will all be ok together

The guinea fowl, I have placed into their own ramshackle run, to get them used to the field. As usual they have spent most of their time smacking their bodies against any hard surface in noisey hysteria, and two of the pretty blue/grey birds escaped to fly haphazardly over the Churchyard and hedgerows. By 9am, they had all returned together to be fed, so hopefully in a weeks time (escapes permitting) I will let them fend for themselves.

Jesus is still with us too, as no one has come to claim him. I Will contact the animal sanctuary next week to secure him a home. Now off to the feed shop, then I need to clean the patio of the carnage of dogs, snow and rubbish.......I need too to make a few lists out for the new Year.......Chris has kindly offered to buy me two new net fences in order to enclose the Churchyard loving hens.......soon the graveyard will be clear of poultry completely!

Thoughts of Ian Parry

Christmas is over! Today I will age will take down the cards and remove the fairy lights and the cottage will suddenly look bare and cold.
We have New Years Eve to negotiate at the end of the week, and although I am sure we will have a good time at my sister's house, New Year's Eve is not a "holiday" that I feel I have ever really celebrated.
Mind you many years ago, we used to do the fancy dress thing! where a large group of friends and family, dressed as clowns,celebrities and cartoon characters all crammed into a motley selection of cars, dashed back and forth between the hot and sweaty pubs of North Wales.
Hummm not very subtle, but all great fun!.

All this came to an end in 1989 when, just after Christmas a close friend of mine ( and of our family) died in a dreadful plane accident. His name was Ian Parry and he was only 24, when he died, but already in a brief but very successful career as a photojournalist, he had carved out a name for himself in the hard world of Fleet street.
As I recall he had blagged his way into Romania, to document the civil unrest, and had talked his way onto a Russian cargo plane in order to get his photographs home. The plane had been shot down (though this was not proved) and Ian's sister Ruth, had been left with the awful job to informing Ian's large, young group of friends who at that time had been untouched-by-death and grief, of his sudden death.

Since that time, I have never really "celebrated" New Year....oh we have had dinner parties right enough and have enjoyed them, but since 1989, I have never jumped into the party thing ever again. For many years after, I have chosen to work nights on New Year's Eve, anything to fill that slightly depressive void and melancholy that accompanied Ian's death over a time which used to signify humour and celebration.

I am not being a drama Queen here. The sense of not wanting to "party" was a very subtle and not an overly oppressive one; which seemed to creep into my life rather than to depressingly dominate it. Christmas has always held affection in my life, and after Ian's death, I personally and simply lost my interest in celebrating New Year, which was always the poor relation.

I don't think about Ian very much anymore. Of course I always swap Christmas Cards with his sister Ruth every year,and by most late Decembers, my mind wanders briefly to those salad days when Ian gave us so much vicarious pleasure and excitement when he recalled stories of his new dynamic London lifestyle. At that time, this 24 year old man seemed to carry many of the hopes and aspirations of a backwater small Welsh town......and his zest for life galvanised a whole number of people (including myself) to move forward to reach for what they wanted..Perhaps that is a better legacy than the Ian Parry Scholarship set up in his name

hey ho

(see The Ian Parry Scholarship at) http://www.europepress.com/ian_parry/ian_parry_scholarship.htm

A Christmas Orphan

The day after boxing day is usually a time for relaxation! Chris has embraced this idea with much gusto and has stagnated on the couch with the tv all day. At 4pm, he started to feel somewhat isolated and complained loudly that we "had not had any visitors all day", but then awful The Heroes of Telemark started on tv, and he returned to his sofa!
Last night after I had locked all of the birds up for the night, I was walking back to the cottage in the dark and spied Stanley, my white rooster running around in frightened circles under the street light way down the lane.
This threw me as the old rooster never leaves his enclosure, so I opened the field gate and called to him and he galloped over. Now all this was not interesting save for the fact that it turned out not to be Stanley! Standing in front of me was a young, buxom new cockerel. I reached down and picked the stranger up and squeezed him into my last remaining broody box for the night.
This morning I have walked around to two local houses (that have a few hens in their back gardens) and have left notes asking if the cockerel is theirs, but so far I have not had a reply....The only other explanation is a sad one.....for I am unhappy to think that on Boxing day of all days (by the way do you Americans reading HAVE Boxing day?),did a hen keeper sneak out from home to dump a spare cockerel in the road next to my field, in the hope I would adopt him?
Of course I cannot keep him, despite him being a handsome fellow...if he is not claimed in a few days I am sure the animal sanctuary in Greenfield will accept him in their new hen run. If I did keep him ( and I am not!) I would have called him Jesus!!!!
As Chris has been reclining, I have been busy cleaning coops and catching up with field jobs. As I took the dogs for their walk around the village, I noticed that the whole set of pensioner bungalows off High Street have had solar water heating panels erected on their roofs. I think it is a fascinating and forward thinking initiative by Flintshire Council to invest in such technology, and cost reductions to a significant proportion of the village population, is, I am sure, much welcomed.
I must say I was impressed!

Tonight, I am tired.... and will veg out in front of Cranford later

Late dinner

Aunt Judy came up for a late dinner tonight, and as usual it was lovely to catch up with her. Chris (above posing with Judy just before she left for home) made a very passable salmon supper and bless she put up with me even falling asleep after a couple of wines and only 2 hours sleep!.
Check out Judy's special elf video at:-
http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/Jk2KuQRyT5NZuGSL
enjoyxx

Christmas catch up

The above photo summed up yesterday's Christmas at my sister's house. Flashy, lively and fun. You can't quite tell from the action shot, but my brother-in-law is marching into the dining room with a flaming Christmas pudding in his hands!
The family all met up with good humour and a hundred weight of gifts, wrapping paper and good ideas. My two sisters and their husbands,my brother and his wife, Nephew Chris (below) and his partner Becca, Nephew Jon and his gran Pat and of course Chris and I made up the numbers, and of course the food, wine and company was enjoyed by all.

Below my brother Andrew ( the only musical one in the family) giving an impromptu guitar solo as some of the family (second photo below) massacred a Rolling Stone musical medley

Anyhow I had to make my apologies and leave the game playing to go to work at 9.pm ( as a family we never seem to succumb to TV watching over Christmas, as we prefer to play games and perform individualised "turns", This year a selection of quizzes. poems,magic tricks and an energetic dance game was the order of the day......)

Work was quiet, and to be honest I didn't really need to have gone in...but I showed my face and did the shift, though this morning I was shattered and just a little jaded.

This morning I moved the baby turkeys into Boris' enclosure to get them all used to each other and quite benignly the big guy ambled over to give the youngsters the once over.

Jessop- below pic- ( the hen with the prolapse!) has been put back into the field and although she is not eating too well and still has a rather grubby bum,she looks perky enough. I am guardedly hopeful that she may pull through.

Tonight My Aunt is coming around for supper, and I think we will then indulge in the typical "British" tradition of vegging out in front of the tv!

Merry Christmas

We have just done pressies ! I did very well (solar powered radio, clothes,wellie socks,lovely picture of the Rockerfeller Centre,cook books,Star Trek dvd (oh be still my beating heart- Zackary Quinto!) etc Chris was less fortunate with my gifts....but it is the thought that actually counts (thats what I keep saying and saying AND saying)
Doing jobs now then we are off to lunch with the family......then off to work later!
Tomorrow we need to sort of some proper fencing for the hens! A rather irate woman called to the cottage yesterday complaining about the hens in the Churchyard, she said their presence is "disrespectful" to the dead!.....I can understand it totally ( though I do not agree with her)....so I need to get my wildlife under control.!!
I felt like telling her "and a bloody Happy Christmas to You!!"

and the winner is?......................

I am not going to moan about the snow, even though the animals all seem to hate the cold and wet. I have plenty to do today so will leave a quick "Merry Christmas" blog to all the people I will not see this Yule! and of course to those unseen people that follow this personal diary rubbish from time to time!
I hope everyone will have the Christmas time that they want/need and deserve. For some, it will mean a restful time being quiet and useful,; others will have the usual family bunfights and interactions that sometimes will be infuriating yet comfortably traditional.
Yes there is always pressure to "do the right thing" and "to have a good time".....but hopefully for most of us, it will a time to realise that we are cherished and loved.
So!..........to old friends in Sheffield that read this rubbish (Mike & Bev, Jonney, Jane and a handful of others) Have a grand time and remember you re missed. To Nige....(I will ring you tomorrow) and to Nia and George (you are missed too!)....to my family members that we won't catch up with.- "have a safe one" and I send my very best wishes to any locals that pop in here from time to time
Oh and big "Happy Holidays"to those people that leave me comments from time to time. So to..Ruth, Cassie, Callie, Jess, Sara, Randy, David,Alex,Joanna,Kim,Steve,Tracey,Bel-ami, Kathy,Geoff and a score of others..........Happy Hanukkah!!!!

Snowed in

The snow started at 8pm and hasn't stopped since

The cottage looks like something out of Cranford.....mind you I could not help worrying about poor Hughie roosting up in his bare Elm in the Churchyard

Christmas Shopping and Animal Bonds

The only decent shopping centre in the whole of North Wales is Llandudno, which is a thirty odd mile round trip for us. Dwarfed by the Great Orme which looms over the town, Llandudno looked the picture perfect Christmas set, and as I marched around the shops today, I was amused to see the tiny figures of the famous kashmiri goats grazing on the slopes overlooking the bay.
In just three quarters of an hour I purchased all of Chris' pressies, had a coffee and succumbed to some Christmas guilt and bought a "big issue" from a guy in front of the library who had the obligatory dog stuffed inside of a laura Ashley blanket.of all things.
I dropped into work to sort out my secret santa, then sorted the animals out before walking the dogs, injecting Jessop with her final antibiotic injection (she still has not eaten as yet) and dropping into a local art gallery (yes we do have them in Wales!) to buy Chris his final gift.
I have 30 minutes now free before picking Chris up at the station. We then have to face the yearly trial of the Supermarket Christmas trolley dash before we can come home and wrap pressies and make mince pies for tomorrow.

At dusk tonight I spied two small characters huddled together out of the cold behind the duck house and snapped this photo before the light changed completely. These two hens have amused and moved me greatly over the past couple of weeks. Both are very young, and were hatched weeks from each other in the late summer. The black rock is the only hen from a batch of six (the cockerels were taken in by a woman at the animal sanctuary) and the little red was the only hatchling from one of my hybrids. I have named them Ripley and Newt.
Both of these gentle souls have been bullied by the more robust hens, and have lived somewhat lonely lives on the periphery of the field,Over the weeks.It kind of broke my heart to watch them eek out their quiet isolated existence and I decided, then to do something about it.. . A week ago I caught Newt and placed her in Ripley's little hen house for the night. In the morning both hens went their own separate ways, so each night for part of the week after this I repeated the process, until now they are inseparable and a supportive little team.
Perhaps it is the silly and infectious because of Christmas,perhaps I am just a soft old pudding but it was greatly satisfying to see the pair of them tootling around together this afternoon.

Thought for the day

LIVE!!! FROM PARIS..........TO PRESTATYN

As it turned out the live ballet production from the National Opera House in Paris was four productions from the Diaghilev days of the Les Ballet Russes.
I very much enjoyed two of the four!
Le Tricorne (The Three Cornered hat-1919) is a lively and colourful ballet with a totally Spanish flavour and Le Spectre de la Rose (The Spector of the Rose 1911) a brief but quite beautiful duet between a girl and a rose "ghost", they were amazing to watch, but I didn't quite enjoy the controversial L'apres midi d'un faune (Afternoon of a Faun-1912) (humm a man dressed as a deer gets his sexual kicks by rubbing himself on a nymph's clothing!- not quite my cup of tea there I can tell you) and I found the famous Petrouchka (below), rather unsettling and uncomfortably racist
We had a gin and tonic in the interval as did the smattering of people in the audience.... sad there wasn't more people there

Jessop

I have been putting off dealing with the unnamed buff's prolapse all day, so when I spied a couple from the village out for a walk, I was galvanised into action. Asking them to hold the suture remover and the hypodermic needle with anti biotics in it. I took the buff out of the shed, gently cleaned around her vent and removed the sutures. (The couple seemed fascinated to be helping !) Then with a bit of difficulty I gave the antibiotics in the fleshy part of the bird between the wings and we all had a good squint at her bottom region to see if the prolapse did not rear its ugly head again, which was not the nicest of things to do given her condition

So far, so good.....so I replaced the hen into her cage where she stood uncomfortably in the corner, feeling very sorry for herself.

She hasn't been eating today, so I have put some cheap pasta on to cook, in order to tempt her.

If she survives, I will name her Jessop, after the gynecological Hospital for Women in Sheffield...(I experienced a very interesting placement at the labour ward there when I was on a High Dependency course )

Chris and I are off to the Scala later to see a live production of Les Ballets Russes from Paris...review later!

No Internet! hen's toilet parts and shopping

I am writing this blog entry on my netbook's notepad, as our Internet connection is down at the present time.......which is a bit of a worry.....can I cope without my daily blog "fix"?...perhaps not, which is more worrying, I think I am more addicted to my daily diary than I would ever admit
.....Yesterday was dominated by one of the buff Orphinton's gynaecological type of problems....by luck I noticed that she was a little quiet and on impulse as I walked past her I reached out and lifted her up. on inspection I saw that she had prolapsed her vent and was dragging a medium sized egg around with her. To explain this to any "non hen" owners. The immature hen had tried to lay her first egg and it had got suck in her"tuppence!", after straining, she had managed to expel the egg but had prolapsed her "bits" as it were with it!......are you still with me readers???? anyhow very gently I removed the egg and cleaned her bottom with antiseptic and tea tree oil. The prolapse was more than I could deal with at home ( I am baffled with any female nether regions) so I sat her carefully on the passenger seat of the Berlingo and took her up to the vets.Luckily hen expert Zoe was on duty and deftly she sewed the prolapse back in place (with me acting as scrub nurse) and then dusted the ripped membranes with antibiotic powder.She gave the poor girl an injection of antibiotic with instructions for me to give her a further 2 injections at home and then to remove the sutures in 24 hours. I placed her into the spare cage in the shed with the guinea fowl and left her to settle in the dark.Time will tell if she pulls through, but I suspect a peritonitis may claim her in the end.
Today everything is "stable", Chris was up at 6am, having a lively conversation with the BT internet technical team, as the broadband still was not working!, whilst I hid under the duvet with the dogs desperate for some more sleep. I took him to the station at 8am, returned home, checked all the phone plugs and hey presto! broadband working!!!!
I am so excited, I treated myself to a blog and an extra strong cup of coffee!
I think I may need the caffeine! Taking sutures out of a chicken's bum, is something I have never done before, and I think I may need some fortification. Please forgive me if I don't photograph the "operation" for the blog!
As for Christmas! I only have Chris' main gifts to get, which will be the job for tomorrow. Of course there are a couple of smaller gifts I have forgotten.....the "secret santa" gift at work; a small "thank you" pressie for the sister that has allowed me to come in work late on Christmas Night and a couple of others.
Today is cold and frosty.......it is starting to feel like Christmas

Jennifer Jones 1919-2009

It was with some sadness that I read today of the death of the actress Jennifer Jones at the age of 90.
A nervous and mentally fragile performer, she gave some memorable performances in films over four decades, but of course to me , she would always be best remembered as the widow that fell out of the scenic elevator in The Towering Inferno

Miss Pole steals the show

In film, I am driven with performance and the acting rather than the just the visual mise en scene. It is the dialogue and characterisation that interests me, so of course I knew I would enjoy the "one off" Cranford Christmas which aired this evening.

Who wouldn't enjoy the wonderful ensemble cast of British theatre Royalty...Judi Dench,Jonathan Pryce,Francesca Annis,Julia McKenzie,and Barbara Flynn, they all make this reworking of Elizabeth Gaskell's original novel highly entertaining, but I didn't quite enjoy this second visit to early Victorian Cheshire as much as I wanted to, as writer Heidi Thompson had literally over filled the whole thing with wall to wall characters, many of which we had never seen before...

Thank God for the brilliant Imelda Staunton who plays the vital and hilarious Miss Pole (above), with a face twitching with constant indignation under a succession of bonnets, her clever portrayal of a village gossip had me chuckling into my dressing gown!

Snow at Dawn

Dawn, was all cold and crisp and even this morning. Now we cannot compare our meagre precipitation with the downfalls experienced by North America overnight, but for me, it is quite enough to be coping with, thank you very much. Everyone in blogland are posting photos of snowy backyards...so not to be outdone, here goes

Halleh, slightly uneasy with snow which he has not really seen before. Tonight I will try and put him into the duckhouse with the other runners, with a bit of luck he will realise that trying to shag the hens is not a good idea.

Scotty, my most gentle of cockerels with his five hens (Sheila,Faye,Jennifer,Patty and Maureen), these five hens were the only surviving hens from a fox attack at my friend Helen's farm and seem to be very happy here in their new home.

Bill and one of my two buff hens from this year's brood....I have just realised that I have not named them yet