Meee-owww!

H's final piece of embroidery,  a cat mask for his little sister

We both had hysterics at the pose.

Ta Daa

Clever boy. Did all the thread changes etc himself.

Clever boy!

All the grandchildren are lovely, and have skills in different areas.  I ike spending time with each and very one of them.

This post, however, is about one in particular:  My (step)daughter's middle child..

He's 9 years old, and loves to learn how things work.  He likes to say back to you what he thinks you've said to him, so he can make sure he has got it right.  He's both technically minded, and artistic.

He likes coming to stay with us, and is always full of enthusiasm for anything and everything.  He loves trying my sewing machine and embroidery machine - it appeals to both his technically minded side and is creative side.

Often children are mildly interested in something, but it's a momentary thing rather than a real thirst.  I don't mind that, I just adapt how much or how little detail I go in to.

Since he last visited, I've got a new embroidery machine.  He watched me thread it, and from then on, he was able to thread it himself.  He listened when I explained the buttons and options, and he's now operating it himself.  He picks out the threads to use, and checks with me.

We started with some simple pencil toppers...

To see whether he was really understanding what he was doing, I asked him why we had to wait until the final outline stitch before putting the back on. He looked at the partially stitched design, screwed his eyes up and thought for a moment,  and then said "because we wouldn't be able to get the pencil in".

I love that.  It makes the effort worthwhile!


And now he's making a Werewolf mask. I'd bought  the design thinking it was a quick 10 minute mask, but it's actually horrendously detailed.  He's sticking with it though, and is completely in charge of making it. It's over 60,000 stitches, and the stitch time (not counting the time it takes to do all the thread changes) is over 90 minutes.   He's about a third through at the mo.

Thief in the night

Izzy suffers from epilepsy.

She's on medication for it, and we have to try and give it to her at exactly the right time.  For a couple of years now she has been on 2 tablet, twice a day, 12 hours apart.  We usuallly do this at 10am and 10pm.  She has other tablets as well, and she always gets rewarded with some cat treats afterwards.

Recently the frequency of fits has increased, and we've now had to up her dosage. Looking at the pattern, and after discussion with the Vet,  we've had to change her to 3 times a day.  To get these evenly spaced out has been quite difficult.  We tried 8am, 4pm, 12am.    This has meant we're staying up much later than we're used to, and we're having trouble getting up in the morning. [DH is retired and I work from home]

We had a great idea. We'd take Izzy's morning tablets (and treats) upstairs when we went to bed, and then we could give them to her first thing, without having to get up, go downstairs, and fart about.  We put them in an egg cup on DH's nightstand.

The first night I drifted off to sleep and woke when I heard a little crinkle.  Immediately I knew what it was.  It was Izzy treading on the headache tablets that DH keeps on his night stand. 

Sure enough, Izzy was helping herself to the treats in the egg cup.  Not the tablets, of course, just the treats.

Once upon a time

I made some finger puppets for DGDs. I can't find a post with them in, so here they are:

Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma, and Wolf

Beauty and the Beast

Sleeping Beaity, wicked fairy, Prince

Witch,  Gretel, Hansel

 I also added some hair bits

Chocaholic

Found a suitably chocolatey design for my chocaholic daughter-in-law's birthday card.

I'm not sure that it's really the sort of chocolate that she loves, but it made me smile. Hopefully it'll make her smile too.

 I've embroidered directly on to felt, which doesn't pucker as much as ordinary fabric.  I also included a satin stitch frame in the design,  as this gives  a neat edge to trim back to for a tidy finish.   I used tearaway stabiliser and used double sideed tape round the edges and in an X across the middle to stick it to the card.

I printed and trimmed an A4 landscape insert (which I didn't photograph, sorry) which has stars on one side and a personal message on the other. That was lightly glued down the fold and pressed in. It gives a much better finish to the overall card.

Over it

Gloria snapped out of being broody.

After her dustbathing session with Poppy the other day, she went back on to the nestbox.  I went out with some pasta, called her (and the others), and she came running.   After the pasta, she didn't go back on the nest box.

She is now very interested in the incomers, and chases them whenever their paths cross.   She doesn't go out of her way to find them to terrorise them, although I am watching out for that.

At the moment, the littlees keep out of her way.  As soon as Gloria and Poppy vacate their run, the littlees run in. 

The two groups are sleeping separately, and I have no immediate plans to force integration.  I can see that, if I do, Fleur (cuckoo marans) will get the brunt of it.  The other two are nimble, light, and sprightly, and can fly up and out of trouble.  She can't.

I have removed the fencing that separated their two pens though.  I'd had the "gate" open for a while anyway. I left the fence up as a potential barrier for the littlees. However, I can see that they might get cornered on it, so I've moved it right out of the way.

Step by step. No rush.

Changes

It's been several weeks since I've been down to see the chooks on the allotment.  DH has been going, I've been working.

I went down today to muck out.  It was lovely to be greeted by a sea of chickeny faces waiting to be let out for a munch on the grass.  Henry looks great, but many of the girls are moulting and are in varying stages of oven-readiness.  The two oldest hens,  Siouxsie Sioux and Not Norman (Norman's sisters) are over 6 years old now and are starting to show signs of their age;  I'm wondering if they will live through the winter. 

The biggest changes were in the Dinner Chick pen.   As I feared, we have only 1 girl, and so we have to take action sooner rather than later.   The cuckoo marans boy is stunning;  the Araucana is covered in lemon feathers;  the Wyandotte boy has blossomed into a really handsome chap;  and the remaining 4 boys look like small Henrys.

They are 21 weeks old now, and I think we'll have to do a cull before we get any problems. 

I really dislike this part.

There are too many to cull in one go, so we have to make some decisions.  It's probably best to leave the dominant male until the end - otherwise we'll create a vacancy and it'll cause the remaining boys to fight.  The araucana isn't going to get to a sensible table size anyway, so he might as well be part of the first group.  We have only 1 girl, so it's probably best that she goes.  And I guess 2 of Henry's sons. That';; be 4 gone and 4 remaining. 

Just need to organise it now. 

Sew slow

I'm working at the moment and it doesn't leave much time for anything else.

I did eventually complete a banner for a Texan friend's new baby.

I'm waaay behind on my making.

Gloria took time off from her broodiness to have a dustbath. Poppy was ecstatic.   They aren't bosom buddies, but Poppy has definitely been lonely while Gloria has been occupied.  I'd often dfind Poppy sitting next to Gloria's nest box.    My heart  smiled when I saw them having a joint dust bath today.

I couldn't get to the camera in time to capture the moment...but I did snap them together.

After this, Gloria charged at the Littlees for a while.   She ignores them completely when she is on the nest and they are right in front of her, so it was a bit of a shock for them all.

I was really hoping that Gloria would snap out the broodiness, but she settled back on the nest again.

Untl I went outside with some pasta.

She was off that nest and down the garden, like a hen being chased.

I had to separate Poppy and Gloria from the Littlees while the pasta was around.  There are NO manners where pasta is concerned.

Fleur, the Marans, timidly ate some from my hand, running away with a strand in her beak each time.   Sasha, the Appenzeller,  and Fay, the Fayoumi, would not come and take any from me, although they did attempt to mug Fleur each time.

When it was over, Gloria went back to the nest.

But Poppy crouched for me!  Maybe she's thinking about coming back into lay.

Should I be embarrassed?

We have a couple of bird feeders outside our kitchen, and we get lots of birds visiting.   Lately, we've had quite a few birds (or the same bird over and over) taking off from one of the feeders and flying into the kitchen french window.

In the last couple of days. we've also had a bird fly into the house by mistake, when the french window has been open.   The first time the birdie flew into the living room, landed on the living room window ledge, and I opened the window and it flew out.  Today, the bird landed on top of the kitchen cupboards. Then it flew across the kitchen, and landed on top of the cupboards on the other side.

Wash, our ginger cat,  sat in the middle of the floor to watch the show.

I decided to go and do something else, in the hope that the bird would fly out of the kitchen. I came back some minutes later, and the bird flew across the kitchen, covered in....fluff.  The cupboards on that side of the kitchen reach almost to the ceiling.  Not enough of a gap to get my arm in to clean,  but a big enough gap (obviously) for all sorts of old spider webs, dust and fluff to settle.  Until a little birdy comes along and fluffs it all up.

The poor bird had trouble flying, it was so weighted down by the fluff it had picked up.  I considered trying to help, but every time I went towards it, it flew away.

I opened both french windows, put a coat on (it's bloody bold with the doors open) and left the room.

Later, I couldn't hear any more fluttering and I assumed that the bird had found it's way out.

I was wrong.

It flew in front of me in the living room, and landed on the curtain rail.  Then the curtain rail at the opposite end of the room.  Then it hit the window.  Then it started to try and get out of the window, but just keep hitting it.

By this time, I'd reached the window, and managed to get the key and unlocked it. I then had to scoosh the poor little thing out, trying not to give it a heart attack.  It fell out of the window, just as Wash jumped up on the window sill to "help".

It's been sitting in the shrub for some time now.  I'm assuming it's a bit disorientated, but I guess it's best left to sort things out itself. It seems to have managed to remove the great clog of detritus, so I guess that's something.

I guess I should be embarrassed at the obvious state of the top of my cupboards.

Giant

I was spreading my time between making finger puppets for DTGDs (twins) and measuring out and mixing ingredients for several Christmas puddings.  I kept hearing a sound which, at first, I thought was a baby crying,  and then I realised it was a cat growling.  I ran outside.

Washburn was having a face-off with the most enormous cat I've ever seen.

DH was already in the garden, and had accidentally interrupted the stand-off, which had started on the shed roof.   I left the house and walked round to the park,  following the sound.  And then I found them,

Two cats,  sitting, facing each other,  gato a gato.

Wash v Enormous B&W cat

It went on for a looong time.  Eventually, the enormous cat turned away a little.  Then, imperceptibly,  a bit more.  Eventually, he was sideways on.   

The creeping movement continued.  After some time, he had his back to Wash.  Then he started to walk away.  Not running,  he walked in very, very, slow motion.

 He climbed up on to a hump of earth, and sat, facing Wash.

Wash started to move.  He turned around, and had the same, slow motion walking, as he moved away.  He stopped and marked the territory, then continued, and then climbed on a pile of sandbags. He was higher than the other cat.

I suspect it was a respectful draw, with Wash having a slight edge as he hgad been the last cat standing.

Both cats turned and looked at me.

I crept away.

Much later, I went to check for dead bodies.  There were none.

Wash was asleep on the chair in the summerhouse.  He purred when I stroked him.  I realised that, in his mind, he is the Giant.

Patience of a Broody Hen

Gloria continues to be broody.  She is glued to her chosen spot, getting up once a day to eat, drink and poo. It doesn't seem to matter what happens in the area around her, or the area immediately in front of her, she concentrates only on her taslk of brooding.

I often pop some corn (or a tomato, bit of cucumber, whatever) in the nestbox with her, so she can eat while brooding. She seems to appreciate this.

Poppy sometimes tries to steal the stuff, and Gloria doesn't do much - if anything - to stop it.  This is most unlike her, and is just a feature of the single-mindedness of the task in claw.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, I've now progressed to opening the dividing netting (between Poppy/Gloria and the Littles) each morning, and leaving it open all day.  I can see that Poppy isn't happy. She asserts herself every so often, but I think that 3 newbies in one go is a bit too much for her.  Now she has access to the newbies area, she comes as close as she can to the house, presumably for our company. I've also seen her sitting next to Gloria's nestbox.

The Litlees love the extra area.  They especially love the covered run, and seem to spend a lot of time in there, rooking around on the ground, or sitting around on the many perches.  They haven't noticed Gloria sitting in the nest box. Or, if they have, they are blissfully unaware that she's only letting them get away with it because she has a more important task to manage.

 

Littlees unaware of Gloria (in the egg shaped nestbox)

I'm hoping she snaps out of it soon.  If she doesn't, I think I'll have to keep them separate until she does, so that she and Poppy can manage them together.

Mask

We went to visit DS2, his lovely partner, and the DTGDs (darling twin granddaughters) yesterday, first time we've seen them in their new home.  Lovely house, lovely area.

A couple of quick presents.  Firstly, a leopard mask (and matching hair grip) for one, made with plush fabric

And for the other, who's not keen on masks and hair hrips, a moustache shaped pencil topper.  I didn't get to take a photo of that though. :-(

No fly zone

Poppy, followed by the two littlees, continues to fly over the netting.  It's extra extra tall netting, but it doesn't stop her.

I'd set my machine up to sew (rather than embroider) so I could hem my jeans, so, before I went through the palaver of of switching it back to embroidery, I whipped up some no-fly bunting.

I'd bought lots of variations of ripstop fabric, some months ago,  to do this . I selected plain black and a birdy pattern.  I cut some strips,  turned the strips into squares, the squares into triangles,  and then sewed them into some apron tape.

It was a bit of a quick and dirty, but it's good enough to test the principle.

It actually looks quite sweet.

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.