On Tuesday Senga one of my Scot's Grey hens appeared back, abandoning her hidden eggs which were due to hatch in a few days.
Wednesday was such torrential rain Jim had to anchor down the little bridge in case it swept away down the waterfall. We've never seen the burn in such spate, even after the Winter's thaw. The bridge is a good, simple construction and enables me to get across to the veggie patch without sliding on the slimy rocks across the burn. We call it In-Laws leap.
Maybe Senga knew the weather was to turn and decided to give up the nest.....They aren't as daft as they look you know.
On Thursday we had to travel 80 miles to the vet with Wee Mon our tabby cat who has aquired an eye injury. Possibly Spider our black monster cat had scratched him, or he'd been pricked by a jaggy bush?
Wee Mon appeared 13 years ago in a bad way. We later found out he'd been dumped in a skip by the son of someone who sits in the House Of Lords. He's still scared of men, but a wonderful creature - very intelligent and likes going for walks down to the shore.
The vet was great, examined it thoroughly, reassured me it was probably salvageable and gave us drops. We have to go back next week - go through it all again. He's scratched his cornea, not ruptured it as we feared. Wee Mon was brave, dignified and sat on my knee on the journey home.
I'd picked up a copy of the Daily Mail while we were over on the East coast, a paper I dislike, but get it once or so a year to see if it or I have changed. There was an article about the knees of models and actresses over the age of 40. There were numerous photos pointing out 'the flaws.' I have never thought about knees aesthetically before. Mine crack and creak now and again, but serve their purpose. The writer was pleading with women over the age of 40 to wear longer hem-lines. Maybe we should all start wearing a burka I thought sarcastically, but on the letter page there was someone wanting burkas out-lawed. You could almost forgive the writer of the 'flawed knees' article if it had been a man, a young, silly air-head, but it was written by a woman.
I don't wear short skirts, but I might start to so as to offend the sensibilities of Daily Mail readers.
This morning I rolled up my trouser legs, asked Jim if my knees look old. No, he said, but they're all scratched.
And so they are - must have been Wee Mon clinging on on the journey home.
Today we lifted wood, tons of stacked wood that had been delivered to the roadside. We loaded it into a van, took it down to the house site, unloaded it and stacked it.
We ache, didn't eat until 9pm, but it kinda feels good. Feels like we've squeezed every last drop out of the day - are quenched.
Friday, 24 July 2009
Monday, 20 July 2009
Hectic, hot week past.
Last week was hectic - hot and hectic. I have an allergy to clegg bites and I managed to get a few. My leg and hand swelled up during shearing. I wasn't shearing - thankfully. The wonderful Robert came with his electrickery ones and it was all done and dusted in a couple of hours and beers.
It's great for the sheeps to get their jackets off during this heat. You always worry about fly strike, and dread finding maggots - which I never have - yet, at least not in the sheeps......
Last Monday the borage brew was ready - it's an organic feed that I water onto the veggies. It does stink like a corpse, but it's grand stuff & free - I like free things. I chop the plants off near their base, stuff them in a mesh sack, place it weighted down in a water-filled dustbin, then leave it for three weeks to fester. You dilute it 1:25 and use it like tomato feed. I put the slimy leaves out of the sack onto the tattie patch. The tattie patch is near where Mrs Hopperty was sitting on eggs under the scrubby tree. I feed the ophans their bottles just over the fence from there.
Tuesday morning was hot again. Harriet and Gem were waiting at the fence for their bottles.
( Don't read on if you are at all squeamish. Cruel scenes of nature content warning.)
I could smell a nasty smell - that unmistakable sweet scent of something putrid. Harriet distracted me by leaping onto her bottle with such force her teeth caught my finger and dragged off a bit of flesh. It's remarkable how sharp their little teeth are.
I peeped in at Mrs Hopperty on the way back. She seemed fine, but there was quite a few bluebottles and greenbottles buzzing around.
When I told Jim, he blamed the borage leaves on the tattie patch, said they honked to high heaven.
I could hear the peeping of a chick. Kept checking and still heard just the one peeping. All day I checked and started to feel something was not right as the hot day wore on.
A shell appeared later on and then she moved off the nest with just two tiny chicks leaving a couple of half dead chicks that appeared swollen at the back-end. Fly strike. We, by that I mean Jim, had to dispatch them. The nest was filled with another couple of dead chicks and unhatched, unviable eggs. This is so spooky, as a few weeks back I wrote a flash fiction for the weekly challenge on writewords (which I won - brag,brag!) and had put Mrs Hopperty in it & had 'Mother' cleaning up dead chicks & putrid unviable eggs after the hatch. I'd best be careful what I write in future, don't want to tempt the fates. Make mental note to self to delete stories where I have written about a prostitute in the first person - which I haven't been and am probably too old & ugly to now - although there's probably a market for that too. There seems to be for most things if the price is right.
We have friends in a neighbouring township who rescue animals, birds - insects. You name it, it's crawled over their kitchen surfaces, slithered under their settee. They had a spate of hedgehogs - if that's the collective name, probably should be a prickle - in early Spring. They had one who had a spine rot thing. It lifted up it's front end and spat all the time - sort of hissed, then it sicked up and rubbed it into its spines. Bit how I imagine a cross between a punk and Hell's Angel would do as a party piece. But apparently it's normal in hedgehogs. That penultimate bit was prejudiced - apologies to anyone who I may have offended.
Anyhoo - Rescuer friends had a solitary chick hatch from an entire incubator filled with eggs. Poor wee thing had no peers. A neighbour had given them a few weeks old chick with a broken leg as company for it, but that needed dispatching as it wasn't in a good way. It wasn't healing & it was swinging it's other leg out of kilter and using its wing tips as steadying props and, and....well it was all a bit tragic. So I suggest they bring it over & pop it in with Mrs Hopperty and her two wee ones.
We tried it, and Mrs Hopperty was brilliant, putting food down to it, trying to foster it, but the orpan just cheeped constantly in a high-pitched distressed way.
It eventually went in the newly constructed house and settled down. Mrs Hopperty and her two chicks settled down out in the run.
Everything seemed calm, so I set about weeding the fruit bushes as they're in ear shot.
Jim set off to mow the top two fields with a brilliant Allen Sythe thing we've borrowed and covet - we must return it this week or a friendship may become strained.
After a couple of hours of quiet weeding, Jim appeared back talking to Harriet and Gem who followed him across the fields. The potential foster chick started cheeping, ran around the run barging into the tiny chicks. Mrs Hopperty's had had enough - in a good natured way she fanned out her wings, got her chicks protectively beneath her and glowered at the interloper. It wasn't going to work.
It had to go back.
Thinking about it now, I believe that hearing Jim's voice had excited it as Jeff the rescuer sat at night with the chick on his shoulder and its crippled pal on his lap. I think the chick thought Jeff was its Mum & hearing Jim's voice......thought its Mum had come back! Or am I being daft?
Talking of poultry - which I do too much of, Jock The Cock (photo enclosed), my magnificent Scot's Grey cockeral has started attacking Jim. He's become so aggressive he may have to go to that big soup pot in the sky. ( Jock - not Jim )
As an aside I just watched The Street on BBC 1 by Jimmy McGovern - It is brilliant writing, excellent acting. Best thing on the telly in years.
It's great for the sheeps to get their jackets off during this heat. You always worry about fly strike, and dread finding maggots - which I never have - yet, at least not in the sheeps......
Last Monday the borage brew was ready - it's an organic feed that I water onto the veggies. It does stink like a corpse, but it's grand stuff & free - I like free things. I chop the plants off near their base, stuff them in a mesh sack, place it weighted down in a water-filled dustbin, then leave it for three weeks to fester. You dilute it 1:25 and use it like tomato feed. I put the slimy leaves out of the sack onto the tattie patch. The tattie patch is near where Mrs Hopperty was sitting on eggs under the scrubby tree. I feed the ophans their bottles just over the fence from there.
Tuesday morning was hot again. Harriet and Gem were waiting at the fence for their bottles.
( Don't read on if you are at all squeamish. Cruel scenes of nature content warning.)
I could smell a nasty smell - that unmistakable sweet scent of something putrid. Harriet distracted me by leaping onto her bottle with such force her teeth caught my finger and dragged off a bit of flesh. It's remarkable how sharp their little teeth are.
I peeped in at Mrs Hopperty on the way back. She seemed fine, but there was quite a few bluebottles and greenbottles buzzing around.
When I told Jim, he blamed the borage leaves on the tattie patch, said they honked to high heaven.
I could hear the peeping of a chick. Kept checking and still heard just the one peeping. All day I checked and started to feel something was not right as the hot day wore on.
A shell appeared later on and then she moved off the nest with just two tiny chicks leaving a couple of half dead chicks that appeared swollen at the back-end. Fly strike. We, by that I mean Jim, had to dispatch them. The nest was filled with another couple of dead chicks and unhatched, unviable eggs. This is so spooky, as a few weeks back I wrote a flash fiction for the weekly challenge on writewords (which I won - brag,brag!) and had put Mrs Hopperty in it & had 'Mother' cleaning up dead chicks & putrid unviable eggs after the hatch. I'd best be careful what I write in future, don't want to tempt the fates. Make mental note to self to delete stories where I have written about a prostitute in the first person - which I haven't been and am probably too old & ugly to now - although there's probably a market for that too. There seems to be for most things if the price is right.
We have friends in a neighbouring township who rescue animals, birds - insects. You name it, it's crawled over their kitchen surfaces, slithered under their settee. They had a spate of hedgehogs - if that's the collective name, probably should be a prickle - in early Spring. They had one who had a spine rot thing. It lifted up it's front end and spat all the time - sort of hissed, then it sicked up and rubbed it into its spines. Bit how I imagine a cross between a punk and Hell's Angel would do as a party piece. But apparently it's normal in hedgehogs. That penultimate bit was prejudiced - apologies to anyone who I may have offended.
Anyhoo - Rescuer friends had a solitary chick hatch from an entire incubator filled with eggs. Poor wee thing had no peers. A neighbour had given them a few weeks old chick with a broken leg as company for it, but that needed dispatching as it wasn't in a good way. It wasn't healing & it was swinging it's other leg out of kilter and using its wing tips as steadying props and, and....well it was all a bit tragic. So I suggest they bring it over & pop it in with Mrs Hopperty and her two wee ones.
We tried it, and Mrs Hopperty was brilliant, putting food down to it, trying to foster it, but the orpan just cheeped constantly in a high-pitched distressed way.
It eventually went in the newly constructed house and settled down. Mrs Hopperty and her two chicks settled down out in the run.
Everything seemed calm, so I set about weeding the fruit bushes as they're in ear shot.
Jim set off to mow the top two fields with a brilliant Allen Sythe thing we've borrowed and covet - we must return it this week or a friendship may become strained.
After a couple of hours of quiet weeding, Jim appeared back talking to Harriet and Gem who followed him across the fields. The potential foster chick started cheeping, ran around the run barging into the tiny chicks. Mrs Hopperty's had had enough - in a good natured way she fanned out her wings, got her chicks protectively beneath her and glowered at the interloper. It wasn't going to work.
It had to go back.
Thinking about it now, I believe that hearing Jim's voice had excited it as Jeff the rescuer sat at night with the chick on his shoulder and its crippled pal on his lap. I think the chick thought Jeff was its Mum & hearing Jim's voice......thought its Mum had come back! Or am I being daft?
Talking of poultry - which I do too much of, Jock The Cock (photo enclosed), my magnificent Scot's Grey cockeral has started attacking Jim. He's become so aggressive he may have to go to that big soup pot in the sky. ( Jock - not Jim )
As an aside I just watched The Street on BBC 1 by Jimmy McGovern - It is brilliant writing, excellent acting. Best thing on the telly in years.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Blog Day.
I've been told I 'need' a blog by Peter Urpeth - the nice chap from Hi-Arts, so here goes.
It's all rather strange, being a private - some would say secretive person. It also seems fraudulent, as I live remote, in a caravan on a croft surrounded by wild things.
A blog is for someone urban, young, trendy with a sense of fashion, a minimilist apartment. Is not for someone who spends most days outdoors up to wellie tops in mud and shit and sometimes the hours of darkness hunched over a key board tapping in flash fiction.
As I say somewhere else, I write with the curtains closed, so know one sees. It's my dirty secret, or was until now.
It all seems a bit odd, a bit blabber-mouthed, but I will get used to it, just like the nail gun, the eccentric gas cooker, the device for ringing the male lambs. T'is only a tool after all.
One of this evening's tasks is to do link thingies. But first me and better half are to construct another hen house for Mrs Hopperty who is sitting on 13 eggs (mostly not her own) , under a scrubby tree.
She was run over years ago and has a strange gait, like a drunken sailor's. She rolls along, one leg bowed. I think she needs a disabled ramp really.
I got her for free as she stopped laying, so her previous owner said, was too ancient, but she lays fine tasty brown eggs every now and again. She raised a small brood last year of her own eggs.
Now she is sitting on mainly Scot's Grey eggs. They're very rare breed. The original crofter's hen.
I breed them - or rather the hens do.
Will be interesting to see what hatches out.
It's all rather strange, being a private - some would say secretive person. It also seems fraudulent, as I live remote, in a caravan on a croft surrounded by wild things.
A blog is for someone urban, young, trendy with a sense of fashion, a minimilist apartment. Is not for someone who spends most days outdoors up to wellie tops in mud and shit and sometimes the hours of darkness hunched over a key board tapping in flash fiction.
As I say somewhere else, I write with the curtains closed, so know one sees. It's my dirty secret, or was until now.
It all seems a bit odd, a bit blabber-mouthed, but I will get used to it, just like the nail gun, the eccentric gas cooker, the device for ringing the male lambs. T'is only a tool after all.
One of this evening's tasks is to do link thingies. But first me and better half are to construct another hen house for Mrs Hopperty who is sitting on 13 eggs (mostly not her own) , under a scrubby tree.
She was run over years ago and has a strange gait, like a drunken sailor's. She rolls along, one leg bowed. I think she needs a disabled ramp really.
I got her for free as she stopped laying, so her previous owner said, was too ancient, but she lays fine tasty brown eggs every now and again. She raised a small brood last year of her own eggs.
Now she is sitting on mainly Scot's Grey eggs. They're very rare breed. The original crofter's hen.
I breed them - or rather the hens do.
Will be interesting to see what hatches out.
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