The silence of NO lambs

Two days early, and five chicks have already arrived amid a wreckage of egg shells in the kitchen incubator. Sorry about the slightly blurred image, I had to be quick so that the humidification didn't dissipate too much.
I have raced around all day sorting a dozen things in preparation for the lambs arrival. The shed has been cleaned out and sawdust and hay laid down. I collected lamb food, milk powder and feeding bottles and setup a new heat lamp in case we needed it. I also called in to see friend Eirlys who is a bit of an expert in sheep husbandry. She gave me a brief yet detailed pep talk on the dos and don't of lamb care!
Anyhow, the farmer who owns the lambs didn't turn up with them this afternoon and said he will do so the day after tomorrow! Chris is disappointed as he is working away in London....I will wait and see patiently aware that itmay or may not happen...I understand the vagaries of farmers all too well.

Next week I am having a night off from wellies and muck. I am meeting up with Nuala in Sheffield (we are staying in a hotel) and will hold court on Friday evening in some nice wine bar!
I have already enlisted old friends Mike, Bev,Katherine, Jane and Jonney H in joining us...and I can't wait to see them all...it's been too long. I am very excited..........at 47...how sad is that?

Swings and Roundabouts

I am not going to dwell on my dark mood for much longer....there was a reason for it, and all will be made clear at some stage fairly soon....all I can say at the moment is that I have appreciated your words of support and I have now got things into some sort of perspective.(Friends can e mail me if you want to know!)

I was incredibly busy last night and looked after a spinal injury patient, so I sort of enjoyed flexing my specialist knowledge muscles as it were.
Today I have driven up to Denbigh (to pay the rent on the field),visited my brother and sorted the break light on the Berlingo before the car's MOT on Thursday, in between jobs, I was amused to watch an odd three way interaction between George, Maddie and the now testosterone filled cockerel Jesus.
The cockerel seems to be shagging any passing hen he can get his randy claws on, and all fired up, he seems up for a challenge from any passing male regardless of size AND species!
Poor George! as he was doing his usual nose down, eggs stealing run into the duck house, he came face to face with Jesus, who started his usual show of dominance and threat with a sudden head up and loud wing flap!
George barked in a half arsed way then tried to leg it as Jesus attacked him. Nothing too amusing in that, you may think, and I would agree if it wasn't for Maddie who was standing nearby.
Like lightening the old girl flew forward and with a growl ripped a huge mouthful of feathers from Jesus' rear end.
I didn't know who seemed more amused with this sudden show of valour...me or Maddie as with a huge "spit" of victory, she expelled her feathered prize and ambled off.......at a smug trot!

By late afternoon most jobs had been completed; and as I walked back to the cottage my friend Helen stopped her car to ask a favour.
A friend of hers has a glut of orphaned lambs and is in dire need of some foster "mums" to take care of a couple of baby ewes........ever the sucker for a sob story I said I would ask Chris and immediately ( and rather surprisingly) he said it was a great idea.....
Now I guess, that he does not quite realise just how much work may be involved with a couple of new babies, but to be honest it will be me that does the majority of the leg work....
Tomorrow the lambs arrive!

Gulp!

ps. it's 10.30pm...and in the kitchen incubator the first pipping of the chicks within their shells has started

New York in Plain Sight

I can't quite shake this dark mood of mine today, despite having numerous common sense lectures from Chris and a couple of hours therapy planting brussel sprouts, cabbage, shallots and onions.
A diverting blog site which always seems to lift the spirits is the fascinating "New York in plain Sight"...blog which laboriously chronicles the street corners in the Island of Manhattan in hundreds of photographs.
http://www.richardhowe.net/zMSC/index-msc.html
Our favourite area of midtown is set out clearly for me to explore! The much visited deco bar and restaurant "Docks" located off 42nd Street and 3rd looks a little bland ; as does the Beekman tower hotel at Mitchell place..but to me the photos bring back so lovely memories of the big apple.
Have a troll around the blog site, it is fascinating
Below - a brown stone house on Gay street and Waverly place
Above The street vendors outside Central Park on 59th Street and 8th.

Midtown Lexington Avenue and 49th Street

Working night shift tonight.

Bah!

Received some news today which pissed me off big style.....can't go into it as yet, it is not the right forum, but I do need to clarify some things next week......then I will be in a position to discuss more.....

The whole thing has put a cloud on the entire day.....

so much so, that I have eaten my chocolate bunny 24 hours early

Midnight insomnia thoughts

Blogger Dan @ www.allthatcomeswithit.com asked me recently what are guinea fowl used for...is it for eggs or is it for meat?
Well my answer is Dan, it is for neither! The three guinea fowl I have (from left to right-Ivy, Hughie and Alf) have once single job, and that is to provide me with an early warning alarm that predators are lurking around the field borders!
Tonight is a case in point, as from their advantage point in the Graveyard Elm, the amazingly loud calls of "buck-wheat, buck wheat!" from little Ivy and the more distinctive "ah,ah,ah,ah!" call of the males warn us (and all of the households in a half mile radius) that something is creeping around that shouldn't be there. Already tonight I have been outside with my trusty wind up torch, to see what the problem was and to be honest all I can make out is the white flashes of rabbit tails as they disappear into the hedgerows......but I trust the guinea fowl, I am sure they are reacting to something slightly more sinister than a baby rabbit!

I have slept too long today..ok, I feel miles better for doing so, but I suspect that I shall now be wide awake until the wee small hours of the morning!....tv has been crap tonight....re runs of the vapid Lewis and the bloody awful Peter Jackson's King Kong.....so I have been trolling through ebay listings and have put bids on some goose eggs for the incubator!......more field security guards me thinks?

Anyhow , the other morning I was racing around like a blue arsed fly, trying to get birthday pressies for my great nephew and feed for the pigs, and it was only then that I realised that shops and businesses seem to open at 10 am nowadays!
Whatever happened to the old fashioned 9am start?
Am I that out of touch with things? I just presumed that most retail outlets start work at the traditional time, a time that I was sure that all shops used to open at when I was a kid in the 1970s?
How wrong I was....performing a straw poll in Prestatyn ,I found that nearly all of the shops clearly don't bother themselves until 10 am or even 10.30!.....is this because shoppers don't drag themselves out until Jeremy Kyle has solved his first bit of dysfunctional conflict resolution? or have shopping habits actually changed?
.....hummm more likely, I am only annoyed by this "deterioration" of standards when I was inconvenienced by the mid morning, coffee break time, opening hours...otherwise would I have noticed?
am I living in a sort of fantasy world where shopkeepers always wore a friendly smile and a fresh apron and the shop girl didn't say "I dunno" when asked if a particular item is in stock?...or am I just a grumpy old git?
Time for another diet coke

Not so Good Friday

I have caught a bug from somewhere.
At 5am I was crouched around the toilet feeling very sorry for myself indeed......
and the silence of the cottage was only broken by Chris yelling out rather helpfully from the bedroom
"You've caught bloody salmonella from those f*^king hens!!!"
I got up at 8am feeling like shit, fed, watered and freed the animals then returned to bed until 11am.
I then walked the dogs, returned to bed until 3pm when I dragged myself up yet again to feed the animals re walk the dogs and climb onto the couch to eat some soup in front of The Robe.

Jean Simmons looked quite lovely in this 1953 fictional romp through the bible..though I have never really liked Richard Burton as an actor....he shouts all the time, which I find terribly irritating.
Anyhow...that about sums up my Good Friday
Off now for another doze

Clash of the titans

I let Boris out of his pen today as I was repairing the damage done by yesterday's storm, and like a galleon in full sail he majestically glided across the field to mirror the juvenile male, Darcy in his pubescent posturing in the far enclosure.
I love watching the stags doing their masculine thing. There is no overt aggression in this kind of joust, no sudden moves and not much noise. just the gentle rattling of their wing feathers as they scrape the grass and the heavy snorts of concentration as both birds circled each other in a half moon shaped dance.

I could have watched them all day

Les Miserables (in tights) The Flames Of Paris

The live performance of The Flames of Paris ( from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow) was a truly wonderful experience. It is not a ballet that I am familiar with, and on the surface it does resemble a jolly romp through familiar Les Miserables territory!
After all we do have a French revolution, revolting peasants , much flag waving and barricade rushing.......but more importantly we have some of the best dancing I have ever seen in a ballet production.
The flames of Paris is a cracking ballet! A huge cast of pure talent is given space and time to show what they can do, and I loved the fact that even the smallest characters within the ensemble perform some spectacular set pieces, the best being the heart stopping "Dance of the Basques" at the start of Act 2.
The Ballet's two leads; Ivan Vasiliev, (he who has buttocks like two rockhard footballs stuffed inside a condom!) and snow white look-a-like ,Natalie Osipova have to be seen to be believed! I have never seen dancers that can leap so high and so powerfully in a production before, and their ability truly takes your breath away.(see photos)

I will have to give the Bolshoi production a magnificent 10 out of 10......eat your heart out Cameron Macintosh, Jean Valjean and "One Day More"!