Disaster

I am writing this brief blog at work. I have no computer at home after Albert pulled my laptop onto the floor
How did we cope before computers?
disaster..................

This made my day

I have just got home after a long long shift and realised that I have missed Strictly two weeks in a row now.
The scene where the elderly John Sergeant dragged the slutty Kristina Rihanoff across the dancefloor reminded me of how I move 25 kilo bags of poultry corn.....
It totally made my day
I dare you to watch it without laughing

"I 'm in the mood for dancing"-not!!!!!!!

The old Nolan hen died today- which was a little sad-. Just to answer a question I was asked yesterday, she wasn't "Broody Nolan" (above) who hatched the chicks so successfully in the summer, but was one of her sisters. Chris gave her a decent send off in a black bin bag!
I have been working today and will be working all day tomorrow, so have just caught up quickly with jobs and dog walking before we talk Richard out for an Italian meal tonight

Just had time to drop a few eggs off to Arfon at Pen-y-cefn-isa, who kindly sorted out the debris from the hedge cutter without being asked......

A fine romance and Halloween

I am designing my own Christmas cards (as usual) and had the idea that a photo of a "happy" turkey may be funnier than the usual tinsel and Scottie terrier motif I usually choose..The above picture is one of the "short listed " Christmas photos. I think we do look as though we are in love.

I do not subscribe to the Americanization of our winter "holidays", and find all this trick and treating by scruffy kids wearing ripped bin bags and a cheapo "scream mask" all a bit trashy, but I do admit, I enjoy the tradition of making a Halloween pumpkin head, Tonight I lit my artistic effort up with a score of tea lights and set it up in the cottage garden.

We have only had two very very small trick and treaters turn up so far. Both dressed as diminutive Jedi knights !( with an embarrassed looking mum donned in an all-in-one pajama suit) They didn't stay long, Maddie was baying for blood when they knocked.

Chris is looking after Richard tomorrow and on Sunday, as I am working most of the weekend. As I write this my father-in-law is covered with dogs. Albert has yet to show his face, having an exhausting day bonding with the house canines. Funny he seems much closer to the dogs already rather than me or Chris

Mixed bag- Hedge cutting, a poorly Nolan,a work plan and Maddie's object of obsession

A local farmer turned up this afternoon and very kindly cut the field border hedge. For just a tenner he has done a cracking job, and now the neighbours will be pleased at the knife edge finish of hawthorn and bramble.

The poorly Nolan is on her last legs. Yesterday Eirlys gave me some intra muscular antibiotics from her extensive poultry medical chest, but like me, she feels that the old hen may beyond help.. The Nolans were some of my very first hens (Robina the pure breed being my first), so I want to try everything before giving up on the old girl. Today I have syringed the sweet juice from a tin of sweetcorn into her mouth, every couple of hours, and she has taken the liquid quite easily. At least, I feel that I have made her more comfortable.

The above picture is of an exhausted Maddie. I took the dogs to Janet's to meet up with the hyperactive Jess. Whist William,Meg,Jess and George spent 3/4 of an hour roughhousing in the garden, Maddie found a new toy-in the shape of a cheap plastic football.

Of all the dogs Maddie is the least playful character. She is standoff-ish with other dogs,and seems to cultivate the persona of a rather crabby elderly spinster. Today however, we witnessed another side to her.Hysterically she has chased,head butted,kicked and unsuccessfully bitten the discarded football with a excitement bordering upon obsession. On numerous occasions she managed to corner the ball in a flower bed or path corner, and when it didn't roll away to her satisfaction, her frustrated growling would raise to fever pitch levels and she would kick at it frantically, until one of us would pick it up and throw it back into the garden for her to chase once more.

When I finally got her home, she has slept for 5 hours without moving. It is the most energy I have ever seen her exert.

It was snowing all night, but most of it had disappeared by dawn when the runners went slip sliding on the icy ground.. A woman from Trelogan called today to arrange to buy a trio of the runner ducks. She remained rather vague about arranging a day to collect them, so I won't hold my breath. The 60 quid would come in very handy at the moment.

I think I will develop a bigger breeding colony of the expensive buffs, and will reduce my bog standard hybrid flock.I have the five young buffs as well as the buxom Shelley and Elizabeth, but will need a lot more breeding hens to give me a potentially larger profit margin.when I sell each bird for 25£ to 30 £. Clover and the smaller cockerel Poppy are just starting to crow (albeit rather pathetically) so it is not surprising they haven't even started to mate with the other girls. Non of the females have even started to lay eggs yet, which I find surprising.

Today I have bought some fertilized eggs off ebay in a hope to increase the flock.

The weather remains cold and miserable, so I have done a "swap" of some duck eggs for two dvd's we can watch later: Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Femmes de l'ombre, Les (2008) Thanks to C.F. for that.

A Huge pile of Sh*te

I have watched some tosh on Sky over the past few years but the Halloween "Special" from Most Haunted, truly takes the biscuit. Last night I watched a gaggle of failed tv presenters, fake mediums, false cameramen and a rather fat unattractive make up girl stalk a whole plethora of supposed ghosts and spirits that inhabit a disused psychiatric hospital in Denbigh, which is only a few miles away from us here.

The whole programme is flim flam. The fake medium warns the "ghostbusters" that a violent patient' spectre is smashing the hospital windows as a bellowing front-of-house presenter (the odious self publicist Yvette Fielding) screams then goads the "spirits" into other forms of unseen and unheard actions. Fielding's husband (the show's producer Karl Beattie pic) is perhaps the programme's most slimy and irritating character. It is obvious to anyone with a brain that he is constantly making up his own supernatural experiences and does so with such a lack of conviction,that I am surprised that the paying audience (all sat in the psychiatric hospital's wrecked dining hall) does not lynch him from the nearest camera light. I could have shoved his hand held infrahead camera somewhere that the sun doesn't shine

I am surprised that this sort of cheap showmanship is alive and well, but I guess that it mirrors today's populist newspapers , in sensationalism and in it's ability to blatantly lie...................shades of Oda Mae Brown me thinks......................see...http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=33922

Rain,sleet, snow & good manners

The Good life is not always warm and fluffy

Not a bird in sight

It is still October and boy does it feel like deepest January. The weather was so rough this morning that I suggested Chris take the car to the station instead of using the moped and by mid afternoon it was freezing and snowing hard. The animals with the exception of Boris and Gloria, all retired to the warmth of the coops, and at the height of the storm I found my favourite duck Stanford (the only black female) trapped in the electric fencing. Somehow she had wrapped the wires tight against her wing, and with my hands blue in the cold, I had to cut a hole in the fence to free her.The runner ducks panic dreadfully when threatened, but strangely she remained calm and still for twenty minutes as I helped her out.

The sick Nolan sister looks poorly in the shed. I have treated her for worms, and checked her for an impacted crop and a nasty sounding condition called "egg bound" (I will leave that one to your imagination!!). She has had some antibiotics with a little water but no food today, so I doubt she will improve.I will take her to the vets tomorrow but perhaps it's just old age catching up with her after two years of strenuous egg production.

Not the best of photos but I did manage to snap Albert swinging on William's beard, during a rough and tumble this afternoon.I find it amazing that William in particular will interact with other animal species quite easily.

He has a particular interest in ponies and horses and will often go nose to nose with them inhaling deeply as they breath in and out in greeting, but will also sit still for ages watching the hens to-ing and fro-ing.

Today, with incredible patience William has allowed Albert to claw his face, bite his ears and kitten box his head, and never once did he loose his cool..

The village has been all but deserted today, and many Coal fires seemed to have been lit in response to the cold weather. The Crown Pub had its big fireplaces going full blast when I passed even though the place seemed empty.

Last night Geoff and I came a fairly respectable 6th place against the other regulars,and I had to smile at the locals' traditions of being parked in their own particular seats before the quiz starts.Whoa betide anyone who makes the mistake of poaching the wrong seat!

Pressure for seats is always an issue on Monday night, and some vague acquaintances of Geoff's tried to join our table without actually asking us if we minded. One opinionated women actually started to move the table and re arrange the chairs and seating to her liking,which I thought was incredibly rude.In the end I made it clear that I wasn't happy and we moved to another table...god I know I am a grumpy old git sometimes.....but I do hate rudeness in any shape or form..

Speaking of bad behaviour,..... the owner of the stables still has not turned up to pay for the damage his Alsatian did, the attack was over two weeks ago now....now if that was something William or George had done to his property I would have been round the next day...I will write the a letter about the matter this evening

Back to Normality

Winter has hit home with a vengeance today. By rights I should have curled up next to the fire with a book, but it was so nice for me to be able to be outside, I managed to fight the hail, rain and freezing temperatures.
With my trusty plastic pants tucked into my wellies and a scarf and woolly hat on, I cleaned every hen house out, moved the ducks to fresh grazing and carried one of the Nolan sisters who is fading somewhat (she is getting old) into the shed for some TLC. I sorted and delivered some eggs,walked the dogs and collected the veg shop out-of-date lettuces' before taking Albert down to the animal sanctuary for his inoculations.. The vet couldn't quite believe how fat and just how confident Albert had become in the few weeks he has been with us. Having 4 larger dog brothers and sisters must have something to do with it.
At lunchtime I tucked into a bagel whist sitting inside the duck house (well it was the only warm place on the field!!!!!) and was joined by the lugubrious Boris (above), who shared most of it.The rain by this time was non stop, and I had to forgo pulling up my leeks, as the allotment had become practically waterlogged, which is a rarity as we are 700 feet above sea level.
Chris working late today, so I am off to the Pub quiz in the village later.