George

See, I can "do" kids! Nia sent me this photo this morning...thank god little George is more photogenic than I am.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse, so after a particularly wet dog walk I have baked bread,tied up my allotment onions for drying, made a cottage pie, cleaned the cottage and fanny-arsed around tidying drawers and cupboards.
I have cleaned out the shed too in a hopeful readiness for potential turkey chicks which are now due in three weeks time. My friend Eirlys has two young turkeys and hopefully we could do a swap of stags or hens if either of us are short.
I am off out to see Les quatre cents coups (400 Blows) tonight with Hazel. I remember studying this 1959 French New Wave film when I started my Film Studies degree in Sheffield, and found it a little hard going even then.......well I am a little older and wiser now, so perhaps I will understand it a little more...who knows?

.......and finally

....and finally....I had to smile this evening as I helped my sister Ann move a load of tables from my brother's house to Prestatyn's vicarage. The large gates of the vicarage were closed when we drove up. so Ann got on her mobile to ask the vicar to open them...

I was so amused, when the huge wooden gates opened "automatically"......and with not a vicar's hand in sight!...I thought it rather funny that a vicarage would have installed expensive electric gates!

I couldn't resist shouting out "it's a miracle"!!!

Dusk thoughts

There is a stillness around dusk that I really like . I think it all has to do with calm routine, hierarchy and an order that birds seem to possess in droves and I never tire watching their behaviours when the light suddenly changes from day to dusk.
Tonight, almost as one, the hens slowly make their way towards their own respective hen houses The cockerels stand tall around around the doorways, standing sentry, and they growl periodically as the shadows of barn owls whip silently above the gravestones

As each cockerel growls, his own group of hens stand erect and still (below) as they ready themselves for danger, then slowly,as they realise that they are safe, they stalk sedately, in single file to their coop sleeping positions.

Kate Winslett, the buff mother(top pic), clucks tiredly and leads her 6 chicks into their broody box where they bicker and cheep over the best positions for the night, and from the neighbouring single coop, Blanche gives me a reassuring snipe as she sits tight on her remaining egg and tiny yellow chick.

In the far hen house Scotty, waits for his five hens to come in from the field, and with him waits Halleh, who has adopted the big buff cockerel's house as his new home. After the massive buff tip toes his way through the door, the duck meekly follows, and all settle down on their bed of sawdust, in one large warm tangle of wings and beaks.

They are the last animals to settle. The pigs have been asleep for over an hour already (they had a huge feed from the grieving family who visited them earlier, and the ducks and turkeys, (both groups still chattering quietly amongst themselves) had been put to bed earlier before the light changed.

I love the time that follows the shutting of the last coop door. With only the wild eyed Albert for company I stand in the cool of the evening and smell the grass and scents of the hedges and last vestiges of honeysuckle and rose as he chases unseen mice and moths.

The animals are settled and safe, and the field is still and dark.
I slowly return to the cottage to walk the dogs

Coming and goings

Sorrel left for Broadstairs this morning, and was as excited as a little girl when I showed her Blanche's first little yellow chick, which was hatched minutes before I checked the runs at 9am.(below Blanche comfortable on her second brood).
I had just enough time to bleach the kitchen floor, before Nia and little George turned up with a whistle stop visit before they fly back to Australia.
It was lovely to have the opportunity to say goodbye, and Nia's constant ability to be upbeat,loyal and consistent never fails to move me.

One of the young cockerels has been adopted by a lady from my chicken course, and she collected him this morning, which is a load off my mind. Now I only have three young males to relocate! I may put one with the new black rock girls to calm them down a little, as both of the bigger hens seem not to have been socialised well and already have bullied the two younger hens as well as the bantams in their enclosure.
I removed them to their own small run this morning, and will introduce them again after things settle down.
So that leaves two males....I may be able to sideswipe any culling yet!

Four Scruffy hens & Sorrel kicks some ass!

The chap that wanted to get rid of some unwanted hens didn't turn up today, so after a bit of ringing around I went to see him! He was friendly enough, but some of his girls were, shall we say, a "little below par" and most had seen better days! After a long time checking each bird (I found one cockerel with scaly leg mite which he knew nothing about) I chose 3 underweight black rocks and a shy bullied brown hybrid which were housed in a tiny dirt run and said I would take a pair of guinea fowl off his hands too, The guinea fowl were out in his back yard, and would not be caught, so I asked him to keep them safe until I could collect them at another time.

Many of his old hens and bantams, needed some TLC, and I had to draw the line in accepting any of the obviously frail birds, but at least I could give six birds a good home.

When I got the girls home, I bathed each one in a tea tree bath, treated them all for mites and worms and placed them in their own green run with plenty of water and feed. The corn was finished off in seconds, and it was lovely to see them pecking excitedly at grass(I don't think they have ever experienced grass before) and some melon seeds that I put out for them. Hopefully they will make buxom, happy hens.

Sorrel and Chris have enjoyed a day's shopping but Sorrel was completely exhausted on her return home. This was not just due to some over excited retail therapy, but was a result of a battle she had with a tenacious horse fly in the middle of the night!

This might not sound too interesting, but I must admit, it was a little shocking as the level of noise and violence was considerable! First there was a succession of loud TWACKS with a paperback,,, followed by a few muffled cries , then a brief silence before what could only be described as ten murderous slaps of a slipper accompanied with some triumphant "arrrhhh haaaaas!!!". Not being content with merely flattening the fly, she followed all this up with a final set of bangs with her glasses case, pulverizing it into the carpet.

suffice to say, Sorrel doesn't "do" pests of any sort....I sometimes think that the countryside holds too many horrors for her to relax completely in it.......worries that Albert would sneak into her room with the body of a small dead mouse, meant that her bedroom door was always very firmly locked!

We have enjoyed having her!

An afternoon at the cinema

We have dragged Sorrel down to the beach for along dog walk, had a very passable roast dinner in a local pub and spent the rainy afternoon watching the pretty awful The Time Traveler's Wife

I have never read the book by Audrey Niffenegger, but I was reliably informed that it was a cracking good novel....you would never have guessed watching the movie though! as I thought it was all rather bland, unmoving and just a little pedestrian .

The central story could have lent itself to an interesting and thought provoking film, as the idea of a married man's ability to see-saw back and forth through time boggles the mind somewhat when you think of how it could affect your close relationships. Alas this film concentrates more on the rather saccharine love story between Eric Bana, and Rachel McAdams to the detriment of the other significant relationships in the time traveller's life.(parents, best friend (Ron Livingston) and daughter)

A brief, underplayed and very moving scene between Bana and his unknowing and dead mother (a nice all too short performance by Michelle Nolden) indicates just how good the film could have been if it had the guts to move away from the crowd pleasing chick flick audience . 6/10

Tomorrow, Chris and Sorrel are off to Manchester for a day's shopping....I am getting stuck in with clearing the garden and a local guy should be dropping off some more unwanted hens to add to the the other waifs and strays in the field.

I have been working all day today and most of the shift has been concerned with preparing a poorly patient for the worst......so it has been a little tough. Respite came at 9pm when I wandered around the field locking the animals up and experienced the glorious cool of dusk.
I did have a small panic when Halleh was missing from his small duck house, but was amused to find him curled up with Scotty and his small group of hens in the far hen house.
I managed some small talk with Sorrel tonight, but didn't really do her justice, so I will make up for things tomorrow.

Last night I watched a bit of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds on tv, and I must admit that I did enjoy some beautifully crafted sequences in this rather "mainstream thriller" Spielberg often does this! amid the popular film, there are always snippets of pure gold!- and one overlooked scene in particular (when Ton Cruise and his kids are escaping the aliens for the first time in a stolen car.) is absolutely amazing to watch, In it the camera pans around and around the speeding car, shooting the action from all angles and freezing sporadically to allow conversations to be watched more closely. If you blink you will miss it, but the complicated choreography of the camera movement alone, is worth the price of a cinema ticket!

Anyhow I think we are off out for lunch tomorrow and then may take Sorrel to the cinema to see the very sexy Eric Bana in The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)......I think it is going to rain all day!

Margot Leadbetter

I was doing an extra shift this morning, so completed all the chores at 6am, before driving to work at 7am. As it turned out, I was not needed, so by 7.45 I was back home again, and caught William snoring UNDER the duvet, with his head on my pillow!
Anyhow, we have all spent the day at home as we have been waiting for a friend of Chris' to collect the five junior runner ducks (including Wellington).
Chris has spent the time dozing in the chair on the field and Sorrel has tried manfully to look interested in the livestock, but if the truth be known, she is generally terrified of hen,turkey and pig and she does remind me so of Margo Leadbetter in "The Good Life" , especially when she was almost pushed into clambering over the pig fencing to say "hello" to Gladys and Nora!
She came along with me to check Belle on her eggs, and bravely kept the bile down, when we found a blown, discarded and badly infected egg. Belle abandoned her nest and remaining three eggs soon after this, so Sorrel and I dashed the eggs back into the kitchen to check if they were still alive. We bobbed the eggs in some warm water and two of the three "jumped" in reaction so these two we placed in the hastily set up incubator in the kitchen. The ever broody Blanche is again sitting on some eggs, so if and when my promised turkey eggs arrive, then perhaps Blanche will take charge of any little ones that come along!.
By teatime I am sure she had totally been overdosed with animals , so after making them a nice tea, she has gone with Chris and Janet to their ballroom dance class-----not a chicken insight
I am definitely working all day tomorrow! The whole animal shebang will be in Chris and Sorrel's hands....gulp!