Another Lesson learned

Last night was stormy. The wind howled and the rain fell in buckets.
It was a night NOT to be on a small motorbike!
I picked up my aunt at 6pm and had suggested to Chris that if the weather had closed in, he was to have left his motorbike at her  house ( he commutes to his University by train and only "pops" back a forth from cottage to station on his moterbike) and I would take them both up the 600 foot hill back to Trelawnyd.

Now Chris was not at my aunts house when I arrived, so thinking that he had gone ahead we battled the elements and zig zagged up the hill back home. Chris was not at there , even though it was way past the time he usually arrived, so I checked he phone and my voice mail to see if there were any messages. Nothing!
I rang his mobile phone.... straight to answerphone. It was then that I experienced a creeping uneasiness that something awful had happened

I have never really had a big "worry" about Chris safety before,even though we have been together over a decade, and it is an awful, awful feeling to experience I can tell you. He is a complete creature of habit, so if he has been delayed messages are always left....so in my overactive and uncharacteristically worried imagination  I had visions of him being sideswiped in the dark by a blundering lorry or tractor.

Leaving Judy in charge of the food I ventured out to look for him on the country roads and minutes later passed him on the main road between the village and the next village of Dyserth. Apparently he had tried to drive up the 1 in 4 hill and just could not negotiate the steep road curves given the lashing rain, so had rode the long way around the country roads back home.

Prestatyn Hill between the town and Trelawnyd ( Araf is the Welsh word for slow)

 The lesson from this meandering story is plain and simple. We take our partners and loved ones for granted..of course we do, that fact is a part of life as normal as the preparation of a cauliflower cheese! but sometimes we need to stop ( ok I need to stop) to realise just what we do have, and what we have a potential; to lose given the fickle finger of fate!

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