Pecked in the eye

I can blame Christina Perri's mournful song "Jar Of Hearts" on the "agricultural" accident I have just suffered at the hands of a frightened turkey and a considerable lack of concentration.

During a dreadful rainstorm at dusk I was locking up the animals, whilst listening to some popular tunes on my digital radio.

This rather sad song came on , and I was immediately struck by it and by the voice of Christina Perri...so much so that I was not looking at what I was doing and I lowered Boris into his house for the night without noticing that the other stag turkey Bingley was already inside sheltering from the rain.

Poor Boris, he was not expecting to be plonked right next door to his Nemesis and he panicked, lashing out at me with his sharp beak, as he did so.

He caught me a good one right in the corner of my right eye, and did so with so much force, he knocked me back onto my arse.

God I was lucky, apart from a nasty pain in my eye and a large bloodshot bruise on my eyeball, there was no more damage!.....I could have easily lost my eye.

Its very easy to forget just how powerful these domesticated animals can be....

Whatever next?

only a month or so ago, I was literally goosed in the goolies by Winnie....

Perhaps next week I will be poked up the rear end by a bolshie guinea fowl?

Show Preparation

Villager Stan reviewing the flowers in our 2009 show

Tomorrow the flower show committee meet early doors to set the Memorial Hall up for Saturday's Show and to collect and collate the entries.
There is a phenomenal amount to do, but traditionally as we are all under the mindful supervision of Show Secretary Sylvia "The Cleavage" Evans, who documents every step, most "i's" will be dotted and most "T's" crossed.
Today I need to  drive to Mold to collect notice boards on which we will display the school's junior entries (Mold ! What an unfortunate name for a town, I always thought)
I need to wash and iron all the Show's tablecloths for the tea tables (I used them all for my open day.)
I have to bake three cakes to be eaten by Show Visitors as well as collecting several of the entries from people that cannot get to the show "set up" on Saturday.
and I have not forgotten that it is my responsibility to sort out the cut flowers for the tables, pick up the milk for the teas and finally sort my own entries out .


Yes there is a great deal to do.....
Thursday is usually a day I look after my brother. This week he has been admitted to our local hospice for a week's respite care,so I have the morning free to catch up with the necessary flower show jobs. This afternoon William and I will call in to see him to drop off some dvds.
I was going to take Constance but I dont think his hospital issue ripple mattress is quite up to a 25 kilo bulldog's need for comfort and joy.
William with his gentle nature is much more suited for hospital visiting.

One more hen down with a bad chest....The rest seem ok for the moment

Bullied Girls

Jane,the little Araucana with Phyllis hiding away inside the broodybox 

Animals can be incredible bullies

 .

The victims of sustained and at time violent attacks react just like people can do when confronted with bigger and more aggressive individuals, they become shy, introverted and understandably depressed.creatures that hide away on the sidelines.
Two of my hens have had a hard time recently. Phylis Diller , the odd looking frizzle poland bantam, with her nervy nature and odd looks has been battered to an inch of her life by a whole collection of different hens over the past few days. The attacks have reduced her to a bloody wreck
and it was heartbreaking to see this little pathetic scrap of a bird cowering underneath one of the hen house yesterday.
I caught her with my T shirt and cleaned her wounds with witchhazel and warm water, a procedure she sat through with rather moving stillness and then I placed her into her own run with another gentle little soul, a new  araucana gray called Jane who arrived without  tail feathers only a few days ago.
Immediately the two hens hid away inside their tiny coop, but did so calmly, sitting together side by side watching the field beyond their netting like two old ladies resting on a couple of beachfront deckchairs..
Just like people, all these little scraps of birds needed was to feel safe  and secure.
Its not much to ask is it? 
Even if you look like Phyllis Diller on crack

Why I love New York

This photo from a Manhattan dog park sums up New York so well
Its been three years since we last went and its been too long!!!!
Chris and I have visited the Big Apple more times than I care to remember
and I miss it so

A Black Woman from Hackney tells it as it is

I didn't want to listen to the news...(see previous post)

But sometimes you see and hear something that makes a little more sense

There is always something.......

With all this dreadful news on the radio I have had to resort to Classic Fm for my morning listening...I know that the media has a duty to let us know what is happening with "the riots", the credit crunch AND a effing double dip recession, but, I for one have had enough of all the doom,gloom and depression and now am blissfully taking my cue from the mythical ostrich and am happily sticking my head into the sand.

Pirrie upset being away from his own hens

One of my Rhode Island Red girls had a swollen eyes over the weekend. "Bubble eye" can be a sign of a more serious respiratory infection and has to be sorted immediately as the infection can rage through a flock with devastating results.
I isolated the bird immediately and treated it with baytril and eye baths, The rest of the birds were checked and all seemed ok  (I make it a point of keeping hens separated into a whole array of small coops so potential infections can be hopefully minimised to one area )....but after discussion with my new vet we decided to treat the flock with  prophylactic antibiotics. Which is a decision I am happy I kind of pushed for..
(and no it was not the George Clooney lookalike vet ...mores the pity)


Yesterday, as the Rhode Island was more or less back to her old self, I caught, Pirrie, an old bantam cockerel looking slightly quieter than usual, and so I have isolated and treated him too. Good observation and knowing your animals is vital in keeping them safe. I just hope I have noticed the potential problem early.


I was discussing all this with the vet's nurse this morning. She had just bought four hens and I was trying to flirt with her just a little so that she would take one of my spare frizzle cockerels from me...and although she obviously knows animal care, she was taken aback just a little with the amount of work that is involved if you are to look after a  group of animals properly.


"When I started " she said ruefully " I thought you just stuck them in the garden and left them to it!"


........if only........

The "I LOVE YOU" Bridge

I am just about to leave the house to help take my brother to the hospice for a week of respite care. It's 8.40 am and I need more coffee as I have just got off from another night shift. My work days are just like the old crosville buses from the 1970's...they all seem to some at once!
Yesterday I caught a fascinating documentary on Radio 4 where filmmaker and Opera director Penny Woolcock discussed a piece of graffitti on a Sheffield tower block walkway which seems to have taken on a rather magical and indeed mystical life of its own, since it was written a few years back.

High up on the grade II listed Hyde Park Flats, sprayed in an unsteady childish scrawl is the message
"Will you marry me Claire Middleton?"


Was it Destructive? (yeap just a little) 
Is it Romantic? (well... we all love a love story)
But it is the myth around the whole message that has caught the imagination of the bog standard Sheffielders as well as  the "artists" of the city........photographs of the graffiti circulated in the press; the developers of the flats comissioned a neon lighting up of the "Will you marry me?" part of the message saying rather whimsically that it was ;
""an iconic symbol of hope and romance central to the heritage of the flats"
Humm....even romantic old me can feel the bile rising somewhat, at this rather cloying statement......

so I was intrigued when Penny Woolcock started to delve into the real history of Claire and her "beau" Jason who as it turned out "penned" the proposal! 
The reality of the message is a sad one. 
Apparently Claire died in 2007.....there was talk that drugs and a chaotic lifestyle took their toll.....the proposal, it was said, distanced Claire from Jason....and today Claire's family seem to hate the perceived fairy tale reminder of a painful reality even though her name is now allowed ( as Woolcock sadly concluded in her moving programme) "To fade into the concrete"


The whole thing is a example of imagination clouding reality

An afternoon Airshow

I see no ships ( or f*cking any of the Red Arrows Either)

Rhyl Air Show sounded rather good fun, especially given the fact the the famed "Red Arrows" were due to turn up around 12.30pm. Chris made a picnic and asked me to pick him up from Church, so that we could take the dogs up the Gop behind the village and watch the fun, so to speak from afar!
Chris got out of the service slightly late, we had a row racing up to the top of the hill and got there just on 12.30pm to find out that a large patch of pine trees were effectively screening the whole of the Rhyl coastline!

Pine Tree view

Like little boys on a school trip, we ate our sandwiches as soon as we sat down, bickered a little more and finally caught the briefest of glimpses of the "arrows" as they streaked impressively down the Vale of Clwyd towards the sea.
Just as the rain started we craned out necks around the branches to enjoy the odd loop the loop....then we gave it all up as a bad job to return home for a cup of tea and for me a sleep before night shift tonight.
Ah a typical British Sunday afternoon out!