"I'll admit I may have seen better days, but I'm still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, "(Margo Channing)
Funerals
Onions and Chris wears a bra
Calon Lân- A pure Heart
I spent the afternoon settling the Turkeys into their new enclosure, but stopped to listen to the amazing congregational singing. Members of the male voice choir as well as a strong female
set of singers performed natural decants as they sang my favourite Welsh Hymn, Calon Lan, and the whole experience literally brought tears to my eyes.
Calon Lan, is a joyous hymn that all Welsh Children learn in school. The chorus can be really belted out with some gusto
"Calon lân yn llawn daioni,
Tecach yw na'r lili dlos:
Dim ond calon lân all ganu
Canu'r dydd a chanu'r nos"
The English translation is as follows,
A pure heart full of goodness
Is fairer than the pretty lily,
None but a pure heart can sing,
Sing in the day, sing in the night
....and sing they did
Boris and Grace seemed to settle into their outside run quite quickly, and I took advantage of the dry afternoon to set up the five buffs into the same enclosure. Turkeys can get bullied terribly by chickens, but the buffs are so good natured I am hoping that the seven of them will get on quite peacefully.
YMCA Day
As a group of the most butch looking workman shuffled past, I asked them if we were to loose our electricity supply for the day, and immediately received a rather defensive unanimous "YES". Chris made a run for his bike to get to work as he sensed that I was ready for a minor altercation as he knew we had the four new chicks under a 24 hour heat lamp in the shed. I explained that I had no knowledge of the power cut and we had the chicks welfare to worry about.Without heat, the day old chicks can chill and die very quickly.
There then followed a minor standoff, with one hairy-arsed workman stating loudly that he has pushed a leaflet detailing the proposed work through our letterbox last week and me stating that "obviously" I had not read it, as I must of thought it was "junk mail". We were getting no where until I had a stroke of genius. I opened up the shed and pulled out one of the tiny excelsior leghorn chicks, all black with sweet white spots,and thrust the little chap at the nearest workman
Immediately a score of men's men all sighed a collective "arrrrrrhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!" and I knew something constructive was to be done
well, within two minuted they had collected a small portable generator and had set the thing up in the garden. The chicks had power, I was happy and they all felt that they had done the "right thing".and had saved four fluffy babies from certain death.
I left them all a load of free range eggs as a thank you.
Going Gently
I found Uncle Bert, deeply unconcious and fading after a major stroke earlier in the week
The strength of this book does not lie in the mystery within the story but with the power of the family relationships portrayed ,Being surrounded by people that love you at the very end of life is something we all kind of want, and need, David Nobbs captures all this so very well in Going Gently, and seeing the reality of Bert with family, Margaret, Karen and Ian was a weirdly strange deja vu sort of moment. It was lovely to see them all together.
There was nothing I could do to help last night, save for the odd platitude and some time and effort.but I was glad I called in to offer at least some support.. The night shift last night was dreadfully busy (when isn't it ?) and I didnt get home this morning until 9.30 am., which meant that I had no sleep again (well until I had a nap at 5pm this evening)- which has totally buggered up my body clock.
Nu rang with the sad news that her sister died today after a long illness. It has been a weird, terminal kind of 24 hours.
Lazy Sunday
The last of the chicks have hatched overnight, and we now have an extra 4 mouths to feed (2 white and 2 black excelsior leghorns). A local farmer has shown an interest in some of Broody Nolan's black chicks, and I intend to put an advertisement in the farm shop for most of the ducks this coming week, so perhaps it will be time to start the let the bird numbers dwindle down from a slightly exhaustive 72 individuals!
Working tonight.....
Treats,chicks and " Happy Birthday Mike"
The whole visit will now be a total treat! (except for the inbred train journey from Wales to the airport)- with a glass of wine in departures, a quick flight down, big chats with Nu, a theatre trip, a mooch around a museum, then a quick flight home.....bloody hell, all very cosmopolitan
Apologies for the quickly snatched pic of the first of Stanley's chicks, but I had to be quick so that the humidity in the incubator was not lost too much. You may be able to tell that at least three of the other white eggs are pipping away and almost free of their chicks, so we may have 6 or so out of the 8 eggs in there.The "nursery" is already set up in the shed with the heat lamp all switched on, so Boris and Grace who are still banged up in the big dog crate, will have a bit of company.