A New Hobby and duckling watch

A mixed day today, as due to unit sickness I have had to work my requested annual leave time, and have had to go into ITU for 5 hours this afternoon. So I was up and out at 7am this morning, catching up with field work and walking the dogs up the Gop. The old Gop farm is now up for sale ( at something like 2 million pounds) and the villagers are bursting for news of who will buy it. The farm is one of the largest, well known land marks in the locality, and seems to hold a great deal of nostalgia for the older members of the community. The dovecote (above) which overlooks the village, is in a state of disrepair, but is a listed building and remains the best known structure for miles.
Anyhow I took the dogs on the path behind Gop farm ( where George caught and killed his first baby rabbit! yerch)
and spend a lovely hour or so naming local wild flowers, with my trusty pocket idiots guide to British country flowers as reference.
Early purple orchids cover the hillside (above) and in one square mile of so I counted cowslips,charlock,shepherd's purse,the tiny dog violet, red campion, and wood Sorrel (below). and strange as it may seem I have enjoyed learning about what actually is what.

For those who want news of the ducklings, they are as hysterical as ever and putting on weight and height at a phenomenal rate. Below is a pic of five of them watching my other hand sliding their "swimming pool" into view.

Wind Farms

This is The Svanen,a huge 260 foot floating crane way out in the bay beyond Rhyl, which is sinking the 25 supports for the new wind farm turbines which will compliment Prestatyn's huge and in my view quite scenic "sea windmills".
I do think that these deceptively large structures are quite beautiful in their own way, but I suspect that I am in the minority

Hard Work

Chris has felt the stress of animal husbandry today as I have worked a 12 hour day shift, and I think that the amount of work involved has surprised him somewhat. Usually with a night shift I can fit in a shift, do all the feeding,walking,watering,cleaning and bum wiping, sleep for an hour and still manage to clean the house and cook a meal. Multi tasking isn't in it, it is just routine and a product of an obsessional nature.
The ducklings alone need their feeding water cleaned out every couple of hours and their "swimming water" changed at least twice to three times daily (they are dirty little buggers!!!!!!!!) The hens drain their water feeders dry in hours in warm weather, and Broody hens such as Beatrice and Trinny, need to be encouraged to leave their nests morning and evening in order to eat and drink. In a week and a half there should be another 10 ducklings without the benefit of a surrogate mother hen to care for them,occupying the kitchen crate: so workload will be literally doubled.
I enjoy all this hard work, and to be honest the "slog" of job after job isn't really a chore, but it is easy to forget that the animals are my responsibility and Chris does not recieve the same enjoyment with their care as I do.

Friendly Rivalry

I realised that here in Wales I have many acquaintances and few friends. In Sheffield the situation was certainly reversed, and blog readers will realise that keeping in touch with the good friends I made in Yorkshire has always been important to me.Unlike the city, Trelawnyd is a community in the old fashioned sense of the word. Daily I meet at least a dozen people for a chat,gossip and idle banter. Yesterday it was a long poultry discussion with Mr Jones and his girlfriend (the new owners from Pen-y-cefn-isa, the Pretty farm up the lane), then Jenny from the post office showed me around her newly refurbished set of cottages and a whole drip-drip line of adults and kids have visited the allotment to catch a glimpse of the ducklings swimming for the first time.(it's amazing how their brith has circulated) Selling eggs and having the allotment always seems to open contact with the most unsociable of characters .

Hazel and I enjoy a friendly rivalry type of friendship. We enjoy and share an interest in film, home and gardening but do like to "out do" each other if we can, and although she lives in Prestatyn, she is still very much a Trelawnyd girl, having been born and bred in the village. Today she has totally out done me by buying a split level, designer eglu house for her designer hens, and although it would look slightly out of place on my field, I was certainly impressed by style and sleek lines.

I can't compete with her Thunderbird-ish hen house but will beat her arse with my entries at the Prestatyn Flower Show!

Off to Osborns in Llandudno later for another of Chris' University night out

Lords-and-ladies etc

I have spent an exhausting but lovely day in the sun on my field. Strimming nettle patches is a particularly dirty and irritating job, but the benefits of a neat allotment,and a reduction of fox cover was worth it. Another fringe benefit of my hard work was that a whole colony of woodland wild flowers (Lords-and-ladies) is now free of the overwhelming cover of weeds and now have a chance to flourish.(pic left)

The cottage garden now has taken on the mantle of Miss Marple set, but has not quite reached the prettiness of last year. I wanted to weed it this afternoon but got side tracked by preparing a brooder box for Blanche's sister Beatrice who is almost ready to sit on her first clutch of eggs.

The brooder box is in fact a cheap rabbit hutch, (below), and despite giving it a good lick of paint, and filling it with wood chippings and eggs, Beatrice is not happy as yet, to occupy it.

The ducklings are all fine today, and took their first swimming lesson like ducks to water. (see below)

They have spent long periods sleeping in the sun, when I have planted purple broccoli, and pumpkins ( kindly supplied by Ann's allotment co- operative), The peas,beetroot and beans that I planted last week are already showing in the sudden increase of temperature we have experienced this week.

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

I had to stop myself from being slightly churlish about the Trust's " going the extra mile" award, I won recently. However being cynical is not one of mypersonality traits (believe that one or not???) and today I had to remind myself to appreciate the accolade in the spirit that it was intended .
In actual fact listening to the director of nursing, stating why I had indeed won this award, reinforced what I know I am good at, and that isn't all the technical know how that ITU demands. I was thanked for providing holistic and individual care to a spinal patient AND his family, and although this kind of nursing care is second nature to me after 16 years spinal experience, I guess it was nice for my work to be recognised by my peers.
The "Thank you" awards and the nursing conference that accompanied them, was a surprisingly interesting and professionally run day, and the highlight was a jolly Hockeysticks but rousing keynote speech by Rosemary Kennedy the Chief Nursing Office for Wales on the subject of respect. I kind of warmed to her spirit-that-won-the-war approach to problem solving.
(right) pic of me with my award (the hair is a mess: just been lying down in the duck enclosure watching the ducklings.

Chris has been watching the ducklings like a hawk today as I have been away. They have been exercising in their run with doting Blanche and already look miles bigger than they did yesterday. I could watch them for hours

A sense of duty

This morning I heard the sad news that friend Mike has lost his mother after a short illness and true to form he is already organising the necessary jobs to be done without complaint or even a hint of resignation.
This is typical of him. Out of all the people I know, Mike is the one with the most pronounced sense of "what is right", and his duty to his family has always been enviable. This week , he will complete this task and that,organise a whole host of others and keep his siblings' spirits buoyant and well supported and will do so without an edge or any hidden motive.
His family are lucky to have him.
We are thinking of him today.

Troupers

Ripley drinking

There is something rather valiant about ducklings. Two days old already, and they are bouncing around with an optimistic excitement which is totally endearing. I have spent long warm periods in the sun, head in the hen house body in the duck enclosure watching the little comedians eat,sleep, and clamber all over the benign sweetie that is Blanche, who seems to take everything they have to subject her to and more.

Blanche and Newt

From Left to Right Hudson,Vasquez,Newt,Dallas,Ripley and Hicks

I promise not to saturate the blog with pictures of fluffy chicks too much, but please indulge my paternal pride for at least a couple of days....!