Rooting for the Underdog

I guess it's that traditionally British trait, rooting for the underdog, but I am always surprised at how the process of introducing new chickens affects me.  I am always changing my mind about who I am rooting for, and it's usually whichever poppet is getting bullied.

Poppy, our fox attack survivor,  has been regularly lunging at the newbies through the netting.  I completely understand this.  She was bottom hen before,  survived the awfulness of Milly's constant bullying (which went way beyond henpecking, and  was so bad we had to cull Milly in the end), and doesn't want to be bottom chook again.

Gloria, the girl we bought back from the allotment to keep the orphaned Poppy company, is top hen. She harassed Poppy mercilessly to establishing her position,. Gloria  has been broody for some time now. She and Poppy are both excellent broodies, they stick to the nestbox unrelentingly, and seem to disengage their brain.

The newbies' Cube, run, and netted area  has been alongside Poppy and Gloria's area for many weeks now.Whenever Poppy encounters them at the communal bit of netting, she lunges at them and they run away.  Normal behaviour, nothing to worry about.  I hoped that she would just get on with it.



Lately, the two flightiest newbies have been flying into Poppy's area,  or following Poppy by flying into the garden.   The third newbie, a maran,  is too heavy to fly over the netting, so she runs up and down. I feel a bit sorry for her,  and I don't really want the other two to form a strong bond which excludes her.

When Poppy encounters them, she lunges at them. I feel a bit sorry for them.  They are young, and small, and naive.   Poppy doesn't persecute them though, she just chases them until they go away.

The newbies are 18 weeks old now. and a t some point we'll have to deal with introductions and integration. For the last couple of days, if they flighty newbies have followed Poppy by flying over the netting into the main garden, I've simply opened the entrance to their areas so that Fleur, the maran, can join them.  This way, they can all free range in the same area.

Today I spotted that the newbies had taken over the covered run.  They were scratching around in front of Gloria's nest box.  Oblivious to the fact that Gloria was there, even.   Poppy was nowhere to be seen.


Suddenly, I was very concerned - and sad -  that Poppy might end up at the bottom of the pecking order again.  I felt guilty for bringing in 3 interlopers who might push her out again.

I had a moment of clarity.

What I wanted was Poppy to still be second in command.   I wanted her to assert herself enough to establish this,  but not so much that the others were traumatised (as Milly had done).

I'm on Team Poppy now.

 

Corny

Corn on the Cob harvest today.  I set up a production line to strip the husks, chop the ends, sort the cobs by size; and then to blanch them,  plunge thenm in iced water to cool,  drain and dry them, bag them, freeze them. It's important towork really fast because the sugars start to turn to starch from the moment the cobs are picked.

I took some photos just as I got started.

First few cobs waiting to be blanched

Sizing the cobs (to blanch similar sizes together)

SOme of the stripped husks waiting to go in the compost

CObs in my icking bag waiting to be stripped

Cob ends for the chooks

It was a really good haul, and the kernels well developed, neat, and swollen.   32 very large cobs, 8 medium, 9  small (which are still quite big), all frozen.

 I'll miss being able to pick them and eat the raw (only do this with cobs that are literally just picked!),

Technology trap

Writing my last post - about scanning all those paper files - made me go and search for my word processing files related to our Boat.

I found them easily, and saw that since 2004 I had created PDFs of all the correspondence I sent, so I had that plus the original word processing format.

I could see that I had files going back to the original purchase in 1994.  Unfortunately, they were unreadable.  Whatever word processing programme I used back then is long since obsolete.

I've no doubt that the more recent files will become obsolete eventually,  as will PDFs.

I wonder how much collective data, information and knowledge will be lost because of this sort of thing?

Burning Memories

I have been ruthless in my clearing out.

Today I started on some files of paper.  I am already rigorous in my record keeping, and destruction of old papers.   There have been some bits that I had kept for many years.

One humingous set of papers related to a narrowboat that we owned for 20 years.  We shared her with some other couples, and m fules conained all the receipts, meeting minutes, correspondence for the entire time. It also included the orginal purchase, and the final sale. 

I took a deep breath, and burned the receipts.

I then proceeded to  scan all the meeting minutes and the correspondence. Some of them already exist as electroinic copies in my records,  but the paper files contained meeting minutesand letters with my handwritten notes scribbled over them  the pristine digital copies didn't have that.

It's taken me the entire afternoon to get through it all, and I had to stop myself from reading them as I scanned them. I could feel myself getting nostalgic over our lovely boat.

I'm drowning in piles of scanned papers.   Mini bonfire tonight - thank goodness for a solid fuel stove.

Onward and upward.

Accumulations

I'm having a very rigorous declutter  of the guest bedroom.  We have to empty it completely so the built-in cupboard can be removed and the walls made good.

It's a monumental task. The decluttering,  I mean, not the building work. Everything is rammed full of...stuff.

I've had to break it down into manageable chunks, and one of those chunks was to empty the bedside cabinets.  These, along with the triple wardrobe and the chest of drawers, gave been sold and so must be completely emptied.

One of the drawers was full of cery neatly organised travel  toiletries. I used to fly long haul once or twice a month.

The pics do not do justice to the number of moisturisers and toothpastes.

All gone now.

Making progress

I made a list.

The huge roll of stabiliser arrived, and we bought a japanese fine toothed saw to cut it. It worked beautifully, thanks to DH's patience and preparation.

I made myself make something.

In the end, I made two masks and  matching hairclips for one of the DGDs.

I felt much happuer with the machine after making these.

No Mojo

I don't know where it's gone, but I've managed to lose my Mojo.

I was excited when I got my new machine home, and I unpacked it.  I oooh-ed and aaah-ed as I tried out the sewing functions, and did a quick bit of embroidery.

Perhaps it's performance anxiety, with the new machine.  The ridiculous design of the small hoop was so wasteful that I ended up using one of the enormous hoops and trying to do multiple things at once.  It was not altogether a success.

The Horizon Link software is good in parts . I had been hoping that it might even replace my DIgitizer Junior, but it can't quite do everything that DJ does.  Don't get me wrong, it does some things even better,  but some core bits - it just can't manage.

I love the wireless functionality.  I love being able to send the deign without using a USB stick or having to plug the laptop in.  I love being able to control the machine from another room.  But the farting around getting multiple designs to stitch as I wanted them to, and for them to not quite work out, has drained me somewhat.

I ordered the new rectangular hoop for the new machine (see how I haven't named it yet?  See how I am not even calling it "her"?) which was an eyewatering price. It arrived quickly. It was a more sensible size. It was slightly larger than the hoop for my previous girl.  

The new hoop arrived a week ago, and I haven't used it yet.

What also arrived was the JTHoopitup I'd ordered from the US for the (previous) RE hoop.  I'd had to pay VAT on it, which wasn't horrendous, only £3.24,  but then I had to pay an additional £8 admin fee to Royal Mail.  All for an item which does not fit my new rectangular hoop.

To my surprise, I decided to sell my 11K combined machine, rather than the 6600.  There isn't any point me having 2 embroidery machines, especially as the old one is so far behind the new one.    Unexpectedly, and to my delight, my brother has decided to buy 11K so she's all packed up and ready to go.  She has a whole box of extras - like the JTHoopitup, and the duplicate hoops, and the cap hoop;  I've also included vast piles of stabilisers - cut sheets and rolls - which don't fit the stupid design of the new hoops.  They don't even fit the rectangular hoop, which is bigger than the previous model despite still only having the same embroider-able area.

I felt (and I feel)  dejected. 

I've told myself to make something easy, like some felt masks for the grandchildren, but  I just can't seem to knuckle down to do it.

I've ordered some Christmas fabric to make some Christmas bunting.

I've ordered some new stabiliser rolls, which I can cut so that hey fit the new hoop.

I phoned Janome to find out details of the course I've got a voucher for - but it sounds far to basic to be worth the overnight trip.

All displacement activities. 

I think I'm treading water to see what the new Brother machine is going to be like, and I suspect that I'm considering doing a swap. 

Surprise!

Dad was definitely surprised.

First me.  And then further round the supermarket, my brothers. Mum had kept the secret well.

Lunch at Sospan's was lovely.  Homestyle food, all home made and delicious.

It all went well.  

B&B

Last week was busy, with a there-and-straight back, 5 and a half hours driving, to Devon,  followed by a there-and-straight back 2 and a half hour trip to Jampshire the following day.   On Wednesday morning this week I was up at silly O'clock, and off to my brother's (DB2) house..  All three siublings were leaving his house at 7.10am to drive to Wales to see our parents. 

We were gong to birthday-surprise our Dad in their local supermarket, take them to lunch and then go bak to their place for the afternoon and evening.  We'd stay overnight, see them the following morning, and come home in the afternoon.

I'd booked a B&B, which I had thought was fairly close to where my parents live.  It wasn't quite as close as I had thought, but it wasn't too bad.   "Live and learn", we thought.  "It's only 1 night".

In fac,t it was magnificent  Really, really lovely.   They only had 2 B&B rooms (although they also had cottages),  and the B&B guests had their own lounge area.   It wasn't stupidly opulent, but everything was really tastefully done.  It wasn't cheap nasty make-do bts of furniture and bedding,  nor did it have one o fthose mean showers that resent letting any water flow through.  Nor the mean plastic pots of UHT milk and grudging packet of bourbons.

The rooms were really well done out, everything you could want.  Good kettle, fresh milk in a small flask, an array of quality drinks to choose from,  biscuits and cakes.   The bathroom was large, spotless, and with a fab shower.  Decent towels.  Good bedding. 

The lovely Yola even brought us tea and cake when we arrived.  Breakfast was superb - no scrimping,  best quality bacon and sausagesm beautifully cooked.

View from my bedroom window

It was so lovely tha we've decided we'll go there next time too. 

Dead of night

By the time I'd had my bath,  I was aching. I told myself that I would NOT have forgotten to turn on the fence, I wold have done it automatically.  EVERY TIME I have driven back to the allotment, this has been the case.

At about 11pm. I got into bed. I couldn't shake the "Did I?" feeling.  I KNOW that every previous time, it turns out I did turn the fence on.

But this time, I had just fallen off a ladder, was trying to carry the damaged ladder and all the tools, and I was a bit preoccupied.  Maybe this time I really had  forgotten?

"What would be worse?" I reasoned.  "Getting up, driving to the allotment,  walking over to our plot, and findind that the fence was ON?....  or finding out tomorrow that all the birds have been foxed?"

When I put it like that, I knew I had no option.

I was cream crackered, my leg hurt, it was dark.   I put a coat over my jim jams, put my bare feet into my garden shoes,  and drove to the allotment.

When I switched on the torch and started walking to the plot, I wished I'd got dressed.  What if the PCSOs were called out, and they came to investigate?  

Of course the dratted fence was on.

Ouch.

I'm soaking in a bath at the moment,  my leg is bit swollen - and a little painful  - from where I landed on the ladder.  

We have some oak trees on the allotment. One of them has a branch which reaches over the Heras fencing a bit,  and I realised on Saturday that it wouldn't be long before it provided an easy access point for a hungry fox.  I decided I'd deal with it next time I came down,  which was today. 

So I packed my car with  a step ladder,  a pruning saw,  and a pair of loppers. We have an electric chainsaw, but of course that's no help on the allotment. In the light of subsequent events - or event - that's probably just as well!

It was drizzling. I put on my padded coat. I inspected the tree and decided where to cut.  I decided I might as well cut the thick branch, if I did the smaller ones I'd run out of steam too soon.   To my surprise,  my folding pruning saw  made quite a lot of headway, quite quickly.  The branch must have been dead or dying. It wasn't long before I heard a small crack, so I knew it wouldn't be long.

I moved round and cut from the other side, and from underneath.

I moved back to my starting point and moved up the ladder to cut some more.  The ladder slipped, I fell.

My first reaction was to get up, but  I made myself stay put while I checked out everything. My leg hurt a bit, but I could wiggle my toes.  Everything else was in working order.

I got up and picked up the poor  ladder. I was a bit shocked at the state of it (see previous post) and I realise my leg must have landed on it.

I looked at the branch and realised I had to finish.  It was leaning heavily,  and the easy access  would be irresistible to even an aged fox. The ladder was out of commission, but I found a chair to use.  I also realised that I needed to lop off all the smaller branches, otherwise it would get stuck coming down.

That took forever. There were so many of them.   Then I got back up and sawed and sawed and sawed. The branch finally fell off on to the heras panel.

Round the other side of the fence,  I couldn't move it. It weighed a tonne, and the "fingers" of  smaller branches kept getting stuck in the ground.  I lopped. I sawed.  And each time Ihad to drag the branches well away to make sure they couldn't be used as a ladder by Foxy.

After what seemed like several hours (but wasn't, I was only there for an hour and a quarter in total),   I finally managed to get the branch away,  and I was able to put the fence back up.  My leg was hurting by now and I was very thirsty.

I finished off seeing to the hens, put everything back in the car, came home and ran a bath.

And I cant remember if  I switched on the fence, so I am going to have to go back.

Fudge

.

Oh well. The tree looks better.

Lucky

I am so lucky.

Reasons
today it was drizzling so I wore a padded coat.

I didn't put keys in my pocket.

Nor my phone.

I put my bag of stuff in the shed rather than on the ground.

The chickens were eager to get out an eat grass rather than hanging around me to see what I was doing.

It had been raining a lot,  so the ground was soft.

I wasn't using a chainsaw.

The ladder wasn't so lucky.

Goodbye Sasha

Sasha, my lovely araucana cockerel, is a very lucky boy.

As soon as we suspected he might be a boy, I had started to look for a possible new home for him.  The other alternatives were to take him to the allotment and put him with the rest of the dinner birds,  where he would be seen as a new invader and bue bullied by all of them for the rest of their lives,  or to dead him.
I would not, under any circumstances, offer him on selling pages as "free to good home".  If I did,  he'd most likely either end up in the pot or, more likely,  he would be collected up by a perfectly respectable looking person but would actually be used as training fodder in illegal cock fighting.   It's a horrible world sometimes.

I had found 4 places (not counting rescue places) that looked like they might take him, with the intention of keeping him. .  The nearest was an hour and a half away,  the others were two to three hours away.

When we had irrefutable evidence that he was, indeed, a h - he was standing on the back of the bench, crowing his lungs out -   I contacted the first person on my list.  The lady I spoke to sounded OK. We chatted.   I then had an unplanned trip to Devon come up,  and I realised that I could deliver him en route.  We messaged, and it was all set up.

So today I caught Sasha and popped him into a cat carrier, along with some icenerg lettuce.  I put his suitcase in the boot, and set off.    He was quiet and calm for most of the journey, but he did get a bit chatty tomwards the end.  I gave him a few mealworms every 10  minutes for the last half hour.

Elaine was lovely.  We met at her brother's house. We chatted about hens in general, smallholdings, mealworms, Sasha's circumstances.  I swapped him into the dog crate she had ready,  I gave her the contents of the suitcase - pellets, so that he could transition to whatever she fed;  more lettuce for the journey ; a peckablock for the journey;, and a small pot of mealworms.  We continued to chat, talking about araucanas and what she had planned for him.

And then he escaped.

We hadnt realised that the dog crate was upside down, and the bars that are meant to be on the bottom are actually wider spaced than the rest. He managed to squeexe through and ran down the lane.

I grabbed the mealworms and walked after him, throwing a couple to get his attention. He stopped, ate one, and eyed up a field through a fence.

I told myself that, if it ended this way, he'd still had a good life.

I flopped to my knees, and threw some more mealworms.  I held one in my fingers and he stretched to eat it.  I shuffed forward on my knees, and put some more mealworms down, making sure both my hands were in front of me.

I put the pot down, and waited, still with my arms in front.  He shuffled forward, darted for the pot, and grabbed a mealworm.  I waited. He came forward again and started to eat a few more; I moved my hand and manged to get his back firmly enough that he couldn't run away.

I picked him up, gave him some mealworms, and popped him back in the righted crate.

Phew.

He's going to have a harem of 6 leghorns.  The female offspring will lay blue eggs, and will lay more eggs than an araucana would.

He's a very lucky boy.

Cock!

It's tha Araucana.

After a couple of weeks of nothing, and lulled into a false belief that it wasn't so,  it was. 

Yesterday and the day before, we had morning crowing, but couldn't see who it was.  This morning, DH thought it was the Aruacana.   I can now confirm this, as he's been crowing, standing on the back of a mini-bench, for the last 10 minutes.

Of course he stopped by te time I had got my phone out to take a pic.  But I did get some nice snaps of the 4 of them at once,

  He'll have to go, so there won't be many more pics of them together. Gosh, that thought brings a lump to my throat.

Picky-uppy

Introducing 2x8 week olds to my remaining 2 x8 week old "girls" was straightforward.  No fighting (that will come when they are introduced to the 2 older girls later).  However, it did mean that the 2 established girls forgot all about being hand tame.

It's taken a lot of concentrated and consistent effort to get 3 of them to accept (and actually sput themselves forward for) picking up.   Every day, at least once a day, whatever the weather, I play "picky uppy" with them.

This involves taking something irresistable (like mealworms, or corn on the cob) out to them. They then get gently picked up, are fed a reward, and are put straight back down.  Sasha, the ladyboy araucana, was the quickest to catch on.   Fleur, the new maran,  took a while, but she understands too.   Larna, the appenzeller,  forgets every day, but remembers again after the first successful pickup.    I haven't been able to pick up Fay, the new fayoumi, at all.  The most I can do - and this is some achievement - is get her to eat from my hand.   I need to try and spend some time concentrating on her,  but she really does not like that sort of thing.

While I am at it I've been trying to remind Gloria and Poppy how to fly up on to my outstretched arm.  Both are refusing to be caugt at the moment, so this is the best I can manage. I can understand Poppy's reluctance to be caught and picked up - she's well into moult and probably feeling a bit fragile. Gloria is just being awkward I think.    I've had a lot of success with the arm landings, but they'll ONLY do it when they can see the food in my other hand.  If it's on a nearby shelf, they won't cooperate.

At the allotment, the young evacuees seem really happy.  We have to be extra vigilant  this year because we have 6 boys and only 2 girls. We're going to have to go for an early call just to be on the safe side I think. 

Glut-tony

With the garclic safely harvested, dried, and hung up, the gluts of everything else has started.

A couple of weeks ago DH made his first tomato  passata batch of  the year. It yielded 3x500ml jars, and it wasn't worth pasteurising  such a small amount.  A bit later he made another 3 jars.   We've been using quite a lot of it.

About a week ago, he made a batch which yielded 5x500ml jars, so we got preston (our pressure canner) out of the utility room, and canned those.   The next batch was 9x500ml jars.

I've also been enjoying tomato sandwiches - only ever worth making with home grown tomatoes that heave never seen the inside of a chiller.

Today DH is busy transforming some 8 or so kilos of tomatoes into passata, so it'll be 2 goes with Preston I think.

The courgettes are also starting to come through.  Some were little marrows by the time they reached the kitchen, so I blitzed them and fed them to the chooks and the chicks.  That went well.   The next few I turned into courgette bread, which was rather good.  We've had courgette bread quite a lot since then.   I made another loaf today, but I don't know what I was thinking.  I managed to leave out the yeast, so we have a very heavy lump.

My courgette repertoire is limited.  I like it in home made coleslaw; I use it in pasta sauces;  I like snall quantities thinly sliced (with a potato peeler) and dry fried;  and I have a realiable recipe for courgette lemon drizzle cake.  And the chools like it.

We're also getting a reasonable harvest of pears. The pears have some sort of scab on them, which makes them look unattractive. It's a shamwe, because it makes them hard to give away.  However, the fruit underneath is fine.   Pears typically go from rock hard and inedible to rotten within the space of a couple of days. 

 True to form the pears have been rock hard every day for the past couple of weeks; 3 days ago I found one that was edible, and I made caramelised roasted pears with a couple more;  2 days ago I picked some more that were ready (they came of when gently twisted), and I'm psyching myself up to make something with them .  The picked ones have now reached the stage where they are juicy and very ripe, but they have tht grainy pear texture which I don't like.

I've got a recipe for lemon and pear butter, which I'll try.  I'm reluctant to process them or dehydrate them, because I know we just won't eat them once that's done.  

Showing their good side

Finally, for now, we have loads and loads and loads of shiny green chillies.  We've sliced and frozen them, I can't imagine we'll get through what we have!

Snapped

At last, Poppy has snapped out of her broodiness.

Some hens are more prone to broodiness than others. Some breeds, Wyandottes for example, are known as being particularly broody, but it still comes down to the individuals.

Poppy is a super-broody.  Every year she goes broody at least once.  She doesn't just do the 3 weeks that a broody normally does,  she sticks like glue for 7 or 8 weeks.  In the past we've tried various methods of "breaking" her out of her broodiness, and they've all backfired.  They seem to re-set the clock, and so we've learned to just let her get on with it.

She was starting to go broody at the time of hte fox attack, when the eggs had been in the incubator for a week or so.  The fox attack temporarily suspended her broodiness.  We thought that the introduction of Gloria might stop it, but it didn't. 3 weeks ish after Gloriana joined the Garden,  Poppy went fully broody.

In the last week or so she's been off the nest box more than once a day,  and she has been hurling herselves at the chicks in a bit of a rage.    Poppy was around most of yesterday,  and came out of the est box at first light this morning.  I know this because she was complaining bitterly about the run being shut. (Beofre the fox attack, the pop hole opened at 4.30 in the morning to let them all out to free range).

Poppy is particularly angry about the invasion of new chickens.  

Glory has seen the chicks grow (wwell, OK, she's seen one set of chicks grow plus the sneaking in of two new ones) and is only bothered by them when they come close to their partition netting.  Poppy seems to think she went to bed one night and came down in the morning to find 4 usurpers, eating her grass, and being talked to by her pet human.

Now that we know it's possible to introduce chicks to each other without bloodshed,  we'll definitely let Poppy hatch some of her own next year, and they can then join with any that we hatch in the incubator.  

Assuming, of course, that the timings collide.

Silence

No cockadiddling today. Not a peep.

Not that I'm grasping at straws or anything, but I did say out loud that maybe the cockadiddling was a girly cockadiddling...like Gloria sometimes makes.  And Roobarb used to make.

I know full well it isn't that sort of cockadiddling, but I can live in hope.

Cockup continues

We were discussing the cockup last night.

"I rhink i might be the Aruacana", said DH, "Ir's very upright".

I had wondered that myself, but when I;ve seen pics of female araucanas, that's how they look. Very upright birds.  And this one looks very different to the other one, who is definitely a boy and is now an evacuee at the allotment. (It is a boy, isn't it?  It definitely looked more like a boy, even more upright... oh gosh, this could get messy).

This morning I was making the tea, and the kazooing started. I watched. Was that the Araucana I saw with it's head up?  Of course s/he didn't do it again while I was watching.   I took the tea upstairs.

"I think it's the Aruacana" said DH "I'm not sure, but it looked like the Araucana was crowing".

We took turns to watch the birds for a while, but of course no kazooing occurred.

I realised that we need to be watching the Appenzeller. If we can see that the appenzeller isn't crowing when the kazooing occurs, we'll know for sure. In fact, it's the only way (unless we're right by the crowing bird when it happens).

My lovely fluffy grey monster.

I have to confess though that, if it has to be one of them, I'd rather it was the araucana.

Cockup

Having coffee in the kitchen this morning, DH and I were chatting.  I stopped mid sentence. "Did you hear that?", I asked

"What?"

"That!", I said, as I heard the unmistakable kazoo again.

We can't tell who it is though unless we catch them doing it.  We need to get the culprit down to the allotment to be reintegrated with the Evacuees as soon as possible.

We're not sure who it is. It definitely isn't the Marans; I don't think it's the Fayoumi. It's going to be Sasha or Larna.  Larna the Appenzeller is looking like the likely culprit.  When I went out to look, she was suddently very upright.    She's back to being hen shaped now.  

 It's going to "Mrs Lumpy*" all over again.

Lumpy and Mrs Lumpy 

When we first started to raise chickens for the table, we bought in some 6 week old chicks.  They were Ross Cobb types, all white, apart from 2 of them who were a strange mottled colour.  One was a boy with a rather limpy walk, I called him Lumpy. The other was a hen called Mrs Lumpy.

I got quite attached to Lumpy,  and had considered keeping him to breed from. However, DH and Other Chap (OC) didn't want to go into breeding at that stage,  so Lumpy was culled along with the last of the other boys.

Overnight, Mrs Lumpy came out of hiding.  She suddenly sprouted a glorious multi coloured tail, huge comb and wattles, and became a boy.  She was one of those cockerels who have no interest in being top cockerel and manage to live qin harmony with a dominant cockerel because they hide their cockerelness.