Donated chickens

Jacki,the dog groomer has enough on her plate. She has three adopted children and two youngsters of her own, so she hardly has time to devote to her grooming business. She keeps perhaps a dozen customers now, including our three dogs, and states she enjoyed grooming them because they are so well behaved.

Today it was George's turn for a cut and brush...I have used around 2 lbs of his hair to plug the gaps in the hawthorn hedge on the field......apparently foxes HATE dog hair.

The unwanted wellsummers arrived this afternoon, and a pretty trio of hens they are too.

I have not got a hen house to set them up with on their own, so I have bunked them in with the ghost hens, who are all now laying small but very welcomed brown eggs.

My aunt Judy is coming for dinner tonight....the weather has been so bad I have spent the afternoon baking apple pies and comfort food like creamed cabbage and cauliflower cheese

It has been a nothing sort of day

Bluebeard and catch up

Hazel and I sat through 90 minutes of French fairytale dross that was the movie Blue Beard tonight. The film was incidental as it was necessary for both of us to catch up with life and news, so the chat and gossip in the car on the way to Theatre Clwyd was much more important. than a 16th century romp around French folklore.
When I got home, Nu had left a message that she is coming over to visit on the 17th of December and Bel (he of the lovely poem -last post) invited us to his daughter's wedding in Sheffield on the 4th of December!!......my pre Christmas socialisation plans have just taken a boost of 200%

Anyhow Chris was in bed when I got home, so William and I sneaked out to watch the badgers again for a while. Tonight a juvenile joined the two adults with their nightly mooch around the coops and I had to carry William with a hand over his mouth, as the terrier understood that we were there specifically to watch these beautiful creatures.

Tomorrow three welsummer hens are being "donated" to the field population....I received a phone call from someone in Holywell who wanted to re home some unwanted poultry...of course I accepted......With them the field population will number 95 

Night Watch

After I took the dogs out for the final walk of the day , I slipped out of the cottage with William and took up a silent vigil in the shelter of the Church Wall.
I wanted to watch the nocturnal exploits on the field, it is not a thing that I have ever done before and William is an ideal companion as he will sit and watch any given situation in typical welsh terrier silence.
Now I know a fox visits the small collection of 18 field houses regularly. I don't mind this at all, as every night the birds are safely locked away .....I do have a problem, however, with a daytime fox visitor, as a daytime predator is a dangerous one.. If I had a gun then a daytime raider would be shot......at night I would leave them well alone.
Anyhow, the little grey hen that was lost on Monday was a wanderer....on that level, her loss was her own fault. Leaving the safety of the field meant that she was in essence a wild creature, and you cannot blame an opportunistic fox or stoat or feral cat ( remember that awful creature that often attacks Albert?) for what comes naturally.
So, I sat down on an old deckchair in the dark and listened to the night , It was an interesting experience. Apart from the roar of the wind in the Church yard trees,you would have thought that there would be nothing to hear...... but you would be wrong.   The noisiest house is,of course the Indian runner coop. Constantly the seven adolescent ducks seem to react to the smallest of stimuli and they chatted quietly to themselves in a continual low murmur.
From the collection of hen houses comes the occasional flutter of wings as a hen repositions herself on a perch, and I can just hear a phlegm sounding  cough from one of the heavy ghost hens in the furthest coop, all of them together sound like a collection of asthmatic old ladies .

In the faint glow of the lane light I can just make out the silent face of Winnie peeping through the goose house window and beyond him the turkey houses are quiet, the bigger birds settled and asleep in their warm shavings. 
As we sat there we both noticed a movement to our right and out of the gloom of the graveyard fences,shuffled two large badgers. With their heads down, they searched the ground greedily hoovering up discarded layers pellets in the turkey enclosure. When one picked up the entire carved pumpkin I had left out for Boris to pick over, the other trotted over to the runner duck house and sniffed loudly at the door.
I almost laughed as the ducks suddenly went silent (I could picture them all holding their breath) and the badger slowly moved on, blundering in between the houses and coops.
Eventually William ( who was shaking with almost uncontrolled excitement at this stage) let out the tiniest whine and immediately both badgers raised their heads then shuffled off towards the safety of the field borders.
It was a fascinating and worth while 30 minutes out of my day 

Amazing Raw Video: Firefighters Resuscitate Dog

awwwwwwww

Belle Rosen's Law

Animal keepers in blogland will understand the phenomenon that I term "Belle Rosen;s law"

This law seems to enforce itself when you personally leave your animals, critters, call them what you will......alone or unsupervised for any length of time.

Put simply....the law states:-

When you are away.....even if it is just for a minute......some shitty thing will happen to one of your animals

In the past I have come back to the field to find a chicken strangled in some disused twine, Winnie and Gloria entangled in the poultry fencing; a pig with a torn ear and a score of other little disasters too numerous to mention.

So being away for the entirety of yesterday I was not surprised to see that Belle Rosen law had been evoked and at roll call this morning , I found that a pretty grey hen was missing from my newest hen house.
Obviously she had been taken by a predator  sometime on Monday

Belle Rosen Law is a shitty rule.

Hummmm anyhow.....speaking of shitty rules... I had to pay my membership to the NMC today.(The NMC is the Uk Nursing & Midwifery Council)....without paying for our registration, nurses here are unable to practice, so I have to pay 76 soddin quid a year to have the pleasure of  slogging my guts out, (albeit for only one shift a week).

76 quid would pay for alot of chicken feed,,,,,,,then again....it could also pay for a small second hand gun

I am beginning to hate foxes 

work

I don't usually do a 7.30 am to an 8.00 pm shift in the week......caring for the animals just does not allow for it.But the new computer system at work allocated me to a full day, so in I went leaving Chris to cope with the cut and thrust of research bids coupled with the watering of the quail and the feeding of the ducks.
It has been a bloody awful shift
All I can hear is the "bing bong" of the fukuda monitors ringing in my ears.
I am just about to take the dogs out into the windy lane...... just the blowing of the autumn gales and the odd cry of an owl in the night
Bliss 

Downton Abbey

Now I am not a follower of this "Upstairs Downstairs" drama DOWNTON ABBEY ( the blatant rip off of the flower show storyline from Mrs Miniver was unforgivable) but I have noticed the rather sweet performance from the Yorkshire actress Joanne Froggatt as the spunky maid Anna......

Look out for her, she's a find

The Burtons depart and a gift from the ghosts

Chris' family left for their long journey home this morning. It has been a nice and therapeutic visit. I use the word therapeutic personally here;  the commitments of animals and the long distances between North Wales and Broadstairs has meant that my own contact with the in laws has been somewhat limited and one sided and it has been lovely to rekindle a family relationship and to share the facets of our lives with each other after so long.

Last night Leo burst into the cottage with full wizard make up on. William was somewhat intrigued by the presence of such an ugly midget,(above) but the mask was soon removed so that the usual bout of dog hugging, stomach tickling and muzzle kissing could continue.
I have been fascinated with each dog's reaction to Leo. They are obviously not used to the maelstrom which is a child's behaviour, but each one has reacted rather benignly to the rough and tumble.
George spends most of the time being dragged into uncomfortable looking positions so that ears can be scratched and tummy's tickled and has enjoyed every minute of it. William has been tolerant and polite which is his way and Meg  has surprised me the most with a sudden and rather moving show of concern when after a rather tiring day Leo had a fit of the sobs.
Hearing the commotion, Meg raced over and to the astonishment of the room climbed up on Charlotte's knee to search the face of the distraught Leo.....I have never seen her do that before.

So with the family gone, the cottage has resorted back to it's quiet "normality"......I caught one of the ghost hens looking rather stooped and unwell. After a brief struggle I managed to give her the once over and caught sight of a small egg stuck firmly in her vent! Bless.... not built for egg laying the battery hen had defied the odds and had produced her first,somewhat undersized but perfectly formed prize!
I had an inkling to how to help. I gave the fat girl a gentle prod with my plastic rake and she started to waddle towards her hen house ( the plastic rake means bedtime in Ghost hen language)
When the ghost hens move they invariably increase their abdominal pressures ( because of their big weight) and when they walk they fart and expel poo with a fair and rather disgusting gusto....
Getting her to break into a hefty trot, she let out an almighty raspberry and the egg shot around a foot and a half out of her back end!!!
Half pleased with herself and just a little surprised, she turned to check out her first egg., lying in the grass and I managed to snap the above photo!
Never a dull moment