Flick's Writing ♥ Flick's Journal ♥ ♥ Flick's Contacts ♥ ♥ Add Pictures ♥ ♥ Tags ♥ ♥ Calendar ♥ ♥ About Flick ♥ ♥ Update ♥ ♥ Search ♥

I ent ded ♥Apr. 5th, 2020 // 11:25 am♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks, foraging, garden, house ] I've had a couple of tellings off for the lack of updates: sorry chaps. We're fine, life is going on much as usual for us, other than a bit more use of the farm shop and a bit less supermarket delivery. I would quite like some self-raising flour, though. We've been doing lots of gardening now that it's dried out and warmed up, and I've been inspired to stick some spuds in the mix this year: if nothing else, we're unlikely to be driving around nearby farms buying new potatoes fresh out of the ground, this year. The horses are doing well, although Benny's a bit unfit after the horribly wet autumn and winter (and, just when the weather has improved, the BHS is advising against hacking, which makes sense). Bob had a little lump removed from his leg at the start of the year; it was cancer, but incredibly low-grade and it's not spread anywhere. Unfortunately, the wound got infected, so he's had a much slower recovery than he should have done, but he's almost back to normal now. The ducks are pottering happily, laying an egg or two a day, and I've been trying to decide if I want to get some more eggs for ZuZu to hatch, and if so what breed. The bluebells are coming into flower and the anemones are looking lovely. There's a pair of jackdaws building a nest in our disused chimney, which we've not had for the last couple of years. The seagulls seem to be flocking inland, which is presumably a reflection on the lack of chips to steal at the seaside. The wild garlic is going over now, but I have several tubs of pesto in the freezer. We had our drive re-done, the work was finished just in time. Hopefully this will be the end of the winter mud bath at the end of it. The delivery drivers all look pleased about it. Frequent visitors beware: there is now a step down from the drive to the garden path! Link 14 kisses // Who loves you?

Never again will we get Anagrama and Lucy mixed up ♥Nov. 18th, 2019 // 04:17 pm♥ [Tags | ducks ] We took Anagrama off to the vet this morning. As it happened, the boss vet was in the building, so he had a quick look and said he was pretty sure that the eye would need to be removed. It turns out that this is quite a complex operation. Because bird's eyeballs are much bigger than the eye socket, they need to shave the bone away to make room to get it out. They charge accordingly: the quote was £600. The vet was also talking about problems with granulation tissue. Given that I'm increasingly worried about the rest of the flock, who are still highly stressed and not eating properly, £600 seemed too much for something that would result in weeks more stress for them, so they took her downstairs and put her to sleep. (The vet seemed not at all surprised by our decision.) The vet also suggested grapes for the rest of the flock, as a high-energy treat* that ducks generally love. We dutifully bought some, chopped them up, and added them to the bowl of corn that they have in the garden. The ducks ignored them entirely. The crows were delighted by the bowl of eyeballs we'd provided, and carefully fished each one out before realising it was less tasty than they'd anticipated and throwing it on the floor. Given that grapes are bad for dogs, we then scrabbled around in the fallen leaves to pick them all back up and put them back in the bowl: we'll see if the girls eat them overnight. * The vet asked if there was anything we usually feed them as a treat, and I said not. In the car later, I realised that there is actually something, but I'm pretty sure that Tesco doesn't sell live snails. Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Head. Desk. ♥Nov. 17th, 2019 // 05:19 pm♥ [Tags | ducks ] When we left the vet last Monday, they gave us cat-strength metacam and a syringe marked in 0.1ml intervals and told us to give Anagramma 0.3ml a day. The 0.1ml syringe doesn't fit on the metacam bottle, so I've been drawing out 'some' into the metacam syringe (which is marked in kg of cat weight), then dribbling it into the 0.1ml syringe, spilling at least as much as made it into the syringe in the process. Yesterday, Mike suggested that we bring both syringes into the house and experiment with water so that we can find out how many kg of cat equals 0.3ml, and just use the metacam syringe in future. Today, I did that and it turns out that the cat dose of metacam is... 0.1ml per kg. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Duck news ♥Nov. 15th, 2019 // 06:14 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, weather ] (It's still raining. Bah.) We were back at the vet this evening with Anagramma. Good progress, and the swelling's all gone, so now it was time to have a proper look at it. ( Mike left the room for the gory details ) "We do have a standard price for eyeball removal, but it's for dogs so I'll have to ask my boss for a quote." Either way, she should make a good recovery and cope well if she does end up blind on one side. She is getting pretty reigned to being netted and handled (although I do still have to stalk her across the grass like the mighty hunter I am), but the rest of the flock other than ZuZu are still very annoyed with me and run away to hide whenever they see me. Actually, ZuZu's not terribly happy either, after I caught her this afternoon so that Mike could clip her wing! Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Bugger ♥Nov. 13th, 2019 // 08:23 pm♥ [Tags | christmas, ducks ] I went to order another box of the lovely hamper boxes that I use for Christmas, and they've been discontinued. I even emailed them to double check: they still have the die, so they can do me a special order if I would like 250 of them.... (They were brilliant: two drawers, and you could put a divider thing in the drawers to that wine bottles were safe and sound as long as the delivery driver wasn't a complete idiot. Only had two casualties in about ten years of using them. And I've still got eight unused shipping boxes for them. Bah.) I have two of them upstairs, so I'm currently crossing my fingers that a) my mum saved hers from last year for me to re-use and b) that they come to visit before Christmas, so that I'll then have three boxes and (because they can take some of them with them to hand delivery) only need to ship three of them by courier. (Hi Mum! Obvs will be nice to see you too, but priorities!) And now I need to figure out a new packaging solution for next year, or decide that I've had enough of doing hampers. They are quite fun, though, and mostly consumable. And I need to buy some less-good boxes for the rest of this year's. (Anagramma's eye looks much the same, but when I was putting goo in it today she was closing it, which she hadn't been doing previously, so presumably the swelling's going down. The ducks are all annoyed with me and keep running off when they see me, but I remembered that we have a net for scooping leaves off the fish pond and I've started to use that to catch her, rather than herding them all indoors and then trying to grab her, so hopefully the rest of them will stop sulking soon.) Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Duck tales ♥Nov. 11th, 2019 // 07:36 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] Over the weekend, while Mike was at Novacon, I noticed that Lucy Anagramma's eye looked... missing. Nothing there, just smooth skin. After a bit of wondering if we'd actually been so unobservant as to not notice she'd been born without one of her eyes, I dug through some photos and found some where it was definitely there. I asked around some of my bird-owning friends, who thought it was probably an infection. When I went to catch her at lunch time, to get a closer look with that in mind, it turned out that they were right: the infection had burst. ( I'm going to put this picture behind here, although it's not terribly gory ) We took her to the vet this evening, and confirmed that there was an infection, that there was probably a foreign body causing it, and that it had probably actually pierced the eyeball: she's unlikely to keep her sight, but should be fine otherwise. Now I have to put goop on her eye three times a day, which should be fun. Even if she gets used/resigned to being handled, all the others will go nuts when I go in the house to actually catch her.... In other news, still bloody raining. Another half an inch overnight, on (still) sodden ground, so the boys had to stand in yet again. I've given up any hope of weeding this year. Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Bits and pieces ♥Oct. 7th, 2019 // 07:11 pm♥ [Tags | computers, craft, ducks, games, quilt club, weather ] The weather's got a bit rubbish, which is a shame if not actually unexpected at this time of year. We had an inch of rain a couple of nights ago and, given that that was on the forecast and we had visitors over the weekend, we moved the horses back to our field at the end of last week. It does make things much easier when we don't have to keep going up and down the hill all the time. Little Quilt club has twisted my arm into at least thinking about doing them a class on Foundation Paper Piecing, which is the type of piecing that I most often do on my quilts (which is how I get the fancy pictures rather than just geometrical shapes). Almost all, if not all of them, have done at least one class on it before but they're all firmly convinced that it's too hard for them to do. Oh, and at any one time at least half of them are carrying on two simultaneous conversations (one sewing, one gossip), so it will generally be like herding cats. Fun. The animals are all doing well. We were a bit worried this morning when Anagramma suddenly started limping very badly, but she was ok again by the afternoon so we didn't have to put her through a trip to the vet. Mike mentioned earlier that my laptop is soon going to stop running some older software, so I went checking to see what's going to die. SubEthaEdit is a bit of a shame but these days we mostly use Google Docs to fill that niche. It would be nice if Docs made it easier to see who'd made which edits, though. Most of the things on the list are either tiny programmes I downloaded to do a specific thing once and then never used again or decade-old games, so I guess I'm having a couple of days of re-playing them for one last time. It feels very odd to be playing a game on a laptop. Moving the cursor around is ever so slow! At the Broadstairs food festival at weekend, I got talking to the guy on the Freddie's Flowers stall and said how I loved their flowers but had to stop using them when they swapped from DPD to UKMail, as our local UKMail guy is useless and kept just throwing them over the gate to lie in the sun/rain (and then, when I and FFs complained, started actively hiding them in places on the property that were much more effort than just walking to the front door and putting them in the porch). It turns out that they've swapped back to DPD, so he emailed the office and got them to reactivate my account. I'm looking forward to getting flowers again, although when I tried to log into my account to change the frequency to fortnightly I got a password error and, when I clicked on the link to re-set it, I got a 404.... The new website had launched that day, though, so I'll try again tomorrow before I phone them to ask what's going on. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

Ah, yes, birthdays. ♥Aug. 24th, 2019 // 06:48 pm♥ [Tags | birthday, ducks ] After a few years off, my birthday curse strikes again: Ella got out and, rather than sit on the drive squeaking to be let back in like she usually does, she went for a toddle down the road. Where she met a passing car. At least they stopped and let us know, so that I could go and put her out of her misery. Hopefully Zu Zu will be ok without her. The flock is a lot more integrated since the babies came along. Other than that, I've had a nice day. At least two of the babies are laying now, so that's a positive thing. Link 10 kisses // Who loves you?

Worldcon, and so on ♥Aug. 21st, 2019 // 07:40 pm♥ [Tags | birthday, cons, ducks, garden, poorly, worldcon ] We've spent the last week or so in Dublin at the Worldcon, where we did newsletter things. Annoyingly, I picked up what's turned into a horrible cold (probably) on the flight out there. Sorry to anyone that I infected before I realised. I spent the last few days of the con feeling a bit poorly (as well as the usual under-slept and over-run). It wasn't really my favourite kind of con, as it didn't really have a good social space (I like to be able to wander off from the office, go and sit with some convivial people, and then realise an hour or two has gone by and I need to get back. Instead, I would wander off, wave at a couple of people as we passed on the escalators, have a couple of five minute conversations in corridors, and then go back to the office for a sit down), but it seemed to go well, and generally not had too many crises, so that's all good. We came back to about 5kg of tomatoes, several rather large courgettes, and one decided marrow: so much for asking the sitter to pick everything and then use what she liked. Ah well. The girls have been laying well, too, so we also came back to a literal countertop covered in eggs. Six eggs today, one very small at the usual time and one quite large in the afternoon. I *think* that was just Maggers being elderly and Letice being over-achieving, but it's possible that one of the babies is getting ahead of herself. Speaking of which: it looks as though the babies aren't going to change their plumage significantly, and (Mike says) we can't keep calling them "pale, medium and dark", so I think I'm going to go with Annagramma, Lucy and Petulia. While we were in Dublin, my necklace snapped. It's already had two new clasps, because the links holding them had worn through, and the last time it was repaired the jeweller said that was the last time. This time, however, it was one of the links in the middle that had gone and, looking at it closely, several others are on the verge of wearing through as well. Given that Pete bought it for me, it must be fifteen years old, though, so it's not had a bad run. This morning, we went into Canterbury and Mike bought me a new (to me) one as a slightly-early birthday present. We went around all the chain jewellers, and the only ones I particularly liked were similar to one I had a few years ago, which fell apart three times (and was replaced twice) before I gave up and went back to my old one, so we tried the non-chain, mostly-second-hand places, and I got a nice second-hand one in one of those. It seems to have rained a lot while we were away, setting the harvest back. We currently have duelling combines, one on either side of the valley, trying to get as much in as they can before another chilly, dewey night. We even closed the polytunnel and put rugs on the horses! Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Where did the second half of July go? ♥Aug. 1st, 2019 // 08:36 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, cons, ducks, garden, house, pictures, video, weather, worldcon ] It disappeared into a pit of Too Bloody Hot, mostly. My feeble English self is not very good at 34C, and there was a lot of lying on the sofa whimpering quietly. On the plus side, the garden appreciated it (and the two days of heavy rain that came when it broke). On the minus side, so did the weeds in the garden, and I lost a week of gardening at just the wrong time of the year. I did manage a very little gardening, and found a 'nest' of snails under a shrub in the back garden, which the ducks were very pleased about. The tomatoes, in particular, have finally got over the bloody awful June, and the cherry varieties are finally producing: The yellow ones are a new-to-us variety called Millefleur, and they live up to the name. The trusses are enormous, and covered in dozens of tiny yellow tomatoes. (Speaking of tomatoes: I was talking to someone who was of the opinion that bush tomatoes are doing much better than vine with the weather we've had this summer. As it turns out, I've only got vine this year: anyone growing both?) We also picked our first home-grown sweet cherries this year, which was very exciting: In a change from recent years, GB also decided to dress appropriately for the weather, and actually finished shedding last year's winter coat before starting to grow this year's. Not bad for mid-30s: We have a new bedroom carpet, and Bob has a matching new bed, and the bedroom is now done until the shutters arrive (hopefully, shortly after Worldcon). There was, I'm sure, other stuff in there as well. We had some visitors, and have more imminently. We went to a lovely BBQ, and have another one imminently. It's Worldcon soon, and there has been a certain amount of getting ready for that. Fortunately, there's another week and a bit to go, so maybe I'll manage to get something done in the garden.... Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Still busy; fewer eggs ♥Jul. 15th, 2019 // 03:37 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks, garden, house, pictures ] As anticipated, the weekend before last involved hay being delivered. This is half of it, all now safely stacked in the barn: The village fete was significantly better than the previous year, in as much as we stayed for a good half hour and had lunch, but then we're not really the target market. We've had a wee bit of Bob trouble, including a couple of trips to the vet. He was chewing one of his feet, so we took him in after a few days but the vet couldn't see anything wrong. A few days after that he was chewing again and when I went to stop him I noticed a raw and slightly oozy bit, so we took him back to the vet and we're now cleaning it and putting cream on it, plus the Cone of Shame has come out of the cupboard. We're unsure whether he cut it and then stopped it healing properly by chewing or had a splinter or similar, which industrious chewing managed to force out of the skin, but either way it's healing nicely and we can hopefully put the Cone away again soon. In between everything else, we've finally finished painting the bedroom, at least until we have the shutters installed. We went carpet shopping this morning, so that should be done in a week or two as well. Hopefully we'll be able to get on with the neglected garden jobs, now. The ducks are mostly having a bit of a rest after their epic couple of weeks, but we're still getting a couple of eggs a day. The direct sown beans are coming up and not getting instantly eaten, so I'm moderately hopeful that we'll get some sort of harvest from them, but it would be good if it could warm up a little (it's only 16C and cloudy today) and/or rain a bit (we've not had more than half a mm since the middle of last month). Last year, I started picking tomatoes on the 17th July, but then last summer was very strange all around. Link Who loves you?

Cossacks! ♥Jul. 5th, 2019 // 08:09 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, going out, horses, house, pictures ] We went to the Kent County Show today. It was a bit warm, but we had a nice time, with ducks and chickens and dogs and horses and flowers generally being my favourite bits. We saw the ferret racing, too: It looked very much like red was going to win, as his nose poked out of the end of the tube, but then he turned around and went back again, so it was blue who was first out in the end. Yellow and green decided that it was too hot, and stayed in their boxes. Exciting as that was, the highlight was seeing the International Dzhigitovka Show. There was some excellent trick riding on display, most of which I didn't get pictures of because I was too busy watching: (I do, however, feel honour-bound to add that the actual riding wasn't as impressive as the Met Police display team, who I've seen a couple of times now.) Seeing all the beautiful sweetpeas in the flower tent made me feel quite despondent about the pitiful state of mine this year, but back at home I was cheered when I went to tie them in and found a flower on one of them, so hopefully they will get going properly soon. I think I might start over-wintering them again, because they do get going much earlier that way. This week, in between things like visits from the plumber, Little Quilt Club and Mike going into the office for the day, we've finally started painting our bedroom. The ceiling and three walls are done, so it shouldn't take too much longer to finish it off. Except that we're expecting our hay to be delivered over the weekend, and it's the village fete tomorrow, and the boys' rugs are being collected for cleaning on Sunday, so we need to sort them out, and.... Also this week, I have given away four boxes of eggs, and made two four-egg cakes. We have quite a lot of eggs. The ducklings are twelve weeks old, now, and still gradually getting their adult colouration through. I've planted out the second-try french beans that Mike started a month or so ago, when it became apparent how destroyed the first lot were getting. I've also, more in hope than expectation, direct sown some more beans and peas. They'll probably get eaten as soon as they pop up, but we might be lucky. If only we had some sort of large carnivore that could keep the rabbits out of the veg bed.... Maybe we need to rabbit-proof that bit of the garden. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

Starting to harvest ♥Jun. 28th, 2019 // 07:48 pm♥ [Tags | birdies, bob the dog, ducks, garden, horses, house, pictures ] It's not terribly impressive. A couple of weeks ago, we had similarly-sized crops of broad beans and mange tout, and that's probably it for the broad beans. The peas and french beans have just been destroyed (slugs, bunnies, maybe pigeons too; we netted off all the legumes this year, to keep the muscovies from the peas, but I think we need to re-think that next year to get better slug control), the runner beans are spindly but at least alive. We have had a couple of courgettes, though, and the courgette and squash plants are just starting to attempt world domination. Lots of green tomatoes in the polytunnel, too, so that's good (and needed: Mike -- whisper it -- used a jar of shop bought passata this week). More encouragingly, the ducks are continuing to do their job, and we're getting three or four eggs a day (Zu Zu, having laid enough for a clutch, is having a rest while she tries to figure out what happened to it). Our riding instructor has a B&B; when we give her eggs, she always makes a point that they're not going to be for the B&B guests, but we're hatching a plot (ho ho) to possibly sell her eggs for the B&B once the ducklings come into lay. Speaking of the ducklings: Middle Duckling has developed a distinct brown patch above her beak, and both she and Pale Duckling seem to be coming through with cream feathers on their bodies (as well as the patch of whatever she was sleeping in: this is a pre-morning bath picture). Although there are only four baby swallows in this picture, we counted seven (five babies and the parents) flying around this evening as we were putting the boys to bed: The boys are doing well, although when I rode Benny yesterday and today he was being a bit of an idiot about the wind. It has been very windy here, although nice and sunny with it (except on Wednesday, when we had inexplicable fog for much of the morning). Tomorrow is supposed to be horribly hot, although not as bad as it is on the continent. Still, the vet came out to give them their 'flu jabs the other day, and to give GB a quick check-up: all good, and she was particularly impressed to hear that he'd managed to rear the day before, but then so were we. Bob, sadly, has discovered the delights of badger poo. On the plus side, he's an awful lot easier to bathe than Jodie was. Mike's been busy doing prep work for decorating the bedroom. This seems to involve a lot of trips to B&Q, as well as putting lots of polyfiller on the walls for me to then sand off. I'm sure it makes sense really! Annoyingly, when we moved one of the chests of drawers I found this: Some spot checking in the rest of the room, and the other bedrooms, suggests that we've found it before the moths really got established. We were planning to replace the carpet as well at some point, but that's now more of a priority than it was and in the mean time we'll have to keep pulling the chest of drawers out to vacuum underneath. I need to pull all the clothes out and check them, but it's mostly my riding and pilates stuff in there: mostly synthetic fibres, so I'm not too worried. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

All The Eggs ♥Jun. 16th, 2019 // 04:48 pm♥ [Tags | birdies, ducks, garden, horses, orchids, pictures ] All the (adult) girls are laying now, so we're getting four or five eggs a day, now: The ducklings are also doing well, and I think just starting to get their proper-coloured adult feathers (Dark Duckling in particular has a couple that are noticeably black, rather than grey). I went to take a picture of them, with Agnes and Letice, but Light Duckling decided that she wanted to hide in a plant, so you can only see the edge of her bum: If it weren't for the fact that I'm still keeping them penned in while they have breakfast, I think that the ducklings would spend most of their time with the adult runners. Zu Zu is in full-on "Ok, something went wrong with that batch, must try again" mode, so keeping her penned in with the ducklings in the morning is also a good thing, as it means that she lays her egg in her super secret nest in the corner of the stable, rather than somewhere in the garden where I can't find it. The swallow chicks have also hatched, so mum and dad are busy with feeding duty (to the extent that they've gone "Ah, sod it, just ignore the humans" rather than trying to avoid going into the stable if we're in there). They are less easy to photograph than the ducklings, but there are at least four small white blobs in the nest: Fortunately, the nest is above an empty patch of floor, rather than, for example, the saddles! The boys moved to their summer pasture this week, and are having a lovely time stuffing themselves silly. We always keep an eye out for orchids, Mrs Ex-Up-The-Hill having once seen a bee orchid in the field, but have never seen anything other than a couple of lady orchids until last year when The Bee Orchid deigned to flower. I put a post in the ground so that we could keep an eye out for it this year, but there's been no sign of it. On the other hand, in the last couple of days we've found two patches of pyramidal orchids, just coming into flower, and at least three (probably four) different bee orchids: I guess having the horses grazing in there is a good thing for the flowers! We popped up this afternoon and put some temporary fencing around the bee orchids, to stop the boys from trampling them. Benny came over to see what we were doing, and very nearly did step on one. This afternoon, I took a break from the weeding to do some pruning. Must have a bonfire soon: Hopefully it's going to warm up now, and the veggies will start to grow as well as the weeds. Link 8 kisses // Who loves you?

I forgot to say ♥Jun. 9th, 2019 // 07:42 pm♥ [Tags | ducks ] The Misses Level didn't happen. The whole thing fell through when the rescue couldn't find transport. Poor ducks. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

"I was hoping to see the ducklings" ♥Jun. 8th, 2019 // 05:10 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, quilt club, riding ] Said ex-Mrs-Up-The-Hill, mentioning that she'd driven past a few days ago but had only seen the adults running around the stableyard. Had to break it to her that those were the ducklings.... I've been out sewing today, starting what will end up as a purple quilt with stars on it. We were in a village hall that has fancy skylights, which open and close automagically depending on the temperature in the hall. Every time the sun came out, they opened. Every time it poured with rain, they closed again. They were very busy, today. It's been funny weather here (especially as Mike reports very little rain at home, fifteen minutes' drive away). Last night, we spent the evening sitting on astonishingly uncomfortable wooden bench seating in a drafty barn, watching our riding instructor's second-favourite riding instructor giving some lessons. Quite interesting to watch and, as our riding instructor was also there, we now have a very good idea what we'll be doing in our next few lessons. We're thinking of getting shutters with built-in blackout blinds in our bedroom, and in the course of getting a quote learnt that pretty much all wooden shutters (other than ones hand-carved by monks from 5000 year old trees fertilised with unicorn poo) come from a single factory in China, and are imported into the UK by one of two distributers. What I've been able to find online seems to support this, so it's interesting that there are so many companies selling them. There's obviously the installed vs fit them yourself distinction, but other than that I'm not sure what there is to choose between John Lewis and some bloke working out of his garden shed. Except possibly the fact that John Lewis don't seem to do the ones with built-in blackout blinds. Link Who loves you?

They grow up so fast.... ♥May. 28th, 2019 // 08:05 pm♥ [Tags | craft, ducks, pictures, quilt club ] The ducklings have turned into ducks: This is probably a good thing, as Zu Zu is losing interest in them. She's been flirting with me and looking for a spot to make her nest. At some point, I'm going to have to let her back in the garden with the others (as it is, she's had to be rescued from the drive half a dozen times over the last couple of days, although I think I've now got enough of a barricade to keep her in), and I fear it's going to be before the ducklings can have adult food so they'll have to stay on their own at least for part of the day. This is Magrat, middle duckling, and Letice, on their way to bed. They are nearly as big as little Maggers. They are all girls, so suggestions for suitable Pratchett witch names welcome (and for the Campbells, who will probably be indistinguishable from each other; I was going to name them after the witch Tiffany trains with, who has two bodies, but it turns out that she's just "Miss Level" with no first name given, and I can't really call one of them "Miss" and the other "Level"). I admired a bag at Little Quilt Club a few months ago, and was subsequently presented with the home-written instructions for making it. They may have been the worst instructions I have ever had to follow, especially without a picture of the finished bag for reference. Now that I've made it, I do think I could make another quite easily, but actually it's turned out better than I thought it was going to, and almost all of the dodgy bits are hidden away inside. I do wish I'd realised how the handle was going to attach before I decided to make it two-colour, but there we go. Hand sewing the final binding was a bit of a nightmare: three layers of wadding and something like eleven layers of fabric to get through. Still, it is done. Link 21 kisses // Who loves you?

Ducks, ducks, glorious ducks.... ♥May. 24th, 2019 // 06:25 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] Although they've barely started to grow their adult feathers, the ducklings are not looking all that much smaller than Esme, Gytha and Magrat did when we first brought them home, especially in comparison to how Letice looked at four months old. This makes me wonder how old the original three actually were, and especially if they were old enough for adult food: is that why Maggers and Esme grew up so small? Is that why Esme was sickly...? (And hasn't Letice grown? As predicted, she is much bigger than Maggers, now.) Next week, we're going to be getting two new ducks. They are entirely Mike's fault, as he didn't need to tell me that there was a rescue looking to rehome 400 khaki campbells from a farm. It's ok, we're only having two of them. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Here, have some pictures ♥May. 19th, 2019 // 08:01 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, benny, ducks, garden, horses, pictures ] My leg is much less swollen than it was. This makes the bloody great lump more obvious, but at least I can wear my boots again now. We've been busy in the garden, both removing things (grass and weeds) and adding things: the courgettes and all the legumes are now planted out in the veg bed. The shade netting is there to stop the muscovies from getting at the legumes and eating their leaves. Ella spends an ominous amount of time standing on the hay bales and looking speculatively at them. When she's not doing that, she's often to be found harassing the ducklings. Not sure what's going on there, but she's forever having a go at them. Zu Zu doesn't seem at all bothered, though, so I guess it's all ok. The ducklings are starting to get their adult feathers in, and their voices as well in the last couple of days. We have definite quacking going on from at least one of them (and we think at least two; they're still peeping a lot of the time, so it's hard to be sure). This is excellent news: only the girls quack. GB's leg is bothering him. He was quite lame last night, and although much better today is still struggling a bit. He keeps scraping the skin off the back of one of his legs, which we think is because he's struggling to get up off the ground after lying down at night. Still, he seems alright in himself. I must take some pictures of Benny, who is looking particularly glossy and healthy in his nice new summer coat. (GB, of course, is still in his shaggy winter number.) Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Bits and pieces ♥May. 8th, 2019 // 07:51 pm♥ [Tags | craft, ducks, garden, pictures, quilt club, quilts ] Following on from last week's drowned rat, I noticed a couple of days later that GB's long-neglected not-salt lick was no longer dusty, and there were bits of it on the floor. The next day, I was entirely relaxed to find that a rodent had been chewing on some packaging: The day after that it had moved to the next shelf over, and when I went to refill the bait trap yesterday it turned out that the package was empty. My best guess is that drowned rat had a litter of adolescents at home, and when mum didn't come back they tried to find food on their own. Hopefully, there is now a small heap of dead rats somewhere. (Although the egg that I foolishly left on the bench this morning did mysteriously vanish, so probably not a clean sweep.) In more cheerful news, I let the ducklings out of their pen for an hour this evening. They are very taken with dandelion clocks, and mud. They went to bed filthy. Sadly, it's not as easy to get good photos when they have the whole garden to roam around in and they're on the other side of a pane of glass, but you can as ever click to embiggen. This morning, we had rain! Actual, useful rain, so this afternoon we headed up to the field and dug up ragwort, which will hopefully make the job easier when we do it again at flowering time. (I used this as an excuse to not do any weeding, because my wrists are having their usual late-spring too-much-weeding flare-up. Ho hum.) I've had a pretty quilty few days: Big Quilt Club on Saturday, a workshop on Sunday, and then Little Quilt Club yesterday. Mike was away in Dublin over the weekend, so I ducked out of Saturday's meeting early (and, as a result, half the paperwork has gone walkabout. *Someone* took it home, just not the person I'd asked to do it. I'm sure it'll turn up eventually). I was also going to duck out of the workshop at lunch time, but then the instructor overheard me saying so and said "Well, I don't mind if you bring your dog," with which other people agreed. The garden was sturdily fenced, a careful study of the hall's rules revealed no mention of dogs, and there were no signs saying "Guide Dogs Only", so during the lunch break I nipped home and brought him back with me. After about five minutes, he wasn't settling, so I thought he might still be feeling car-sick and took him outside for a bit of fresh air, at which point a member of the hall committee popped up on the other side of the fence and told me that dogs weren't allowed, inside or out. Sigh. The instructor very kindly brought forward the last part of the demonstration, so that I could see it, and half an hour or so later we were back at home. Poor Bob: two country lane car journeys for no good reason. I finished the sample piece off yesterday: The class covered two things: making improvisational (it's good to be wonky) blocks, and then making that circular 'porthole' surround to show them off (a lot simpler than it looks). I'm afraid that the former is a bit beyond my comfort zone, but I do like the portholes, and might well try to do something with them again. I've also been plotting future quilts. There's a big fabric sale next weekend (a company from Yorkshire that mostly does mail-order but also has a travelling roadshow that goes to various quilting groups a couple of times a year), so I want to stock up.... Link Who loves you?

Ah, karma.... ♥May. 2nd, 2019 // 02:55 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] We were greeted by a satisfying sight this morning in the water bucket outside the duck house. It turns out that stealing and eating ducklings doesn't give rats the ability to float for hours, or to fly out of tight situations. They're three weeks old tomorrow, and start to move on to their next kind of feed. I think that, if it hadn't been for ratty, that 20kg bag wouldn't have been too much duckling food! Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Spot the difference ♥Apr. 28th, 2019 // 02:54 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] After some carpentry and more crowbar work, we're really sure we've blocked up the holes now. Hopefully. They're definitely growing, though. We have now reached the stage where the pen really has to move every day, and you can see where it's already been because of the layer of poo covering the grass. A busy week in the garden, followed by a busy weekend of visitors (featuring Dealing With Eastercon-Acquired Issues), and I expect another busy week in the garden before Mike heads off to Dublin next weekend for more DWEAI. We are still very tired. Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

And then there were four.... ♥Apr. 23rd, 2019 // 06:23 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] On Thursday morning, when the ducklings came out there were only six of them. I wasn't sure how many had gone to bed, so we figured that a cat or crow must have got one of them on Wednesday. On Friday morning, there were only five. Mike then spent an hour or so with a crow-bar, pulling off the panelling around the walls of their house, and finding two somewhat eaten bodies in the process. Our best guess is that a rat was going behind the panelling outside their house and then coming out again inside. After we'd headed off to Eastercon, the sitter stuffed various bits of wood into the gap, and we crossed our fingers. Another one vanished on Sunday night, after which some bricks were added to the mix, and so we came home to ducklings reduced in number but significantly increased in size: A job for tomorrow is going to be a more sturdy fix, which will hopefully make sure we don't have anything similar again. (There are many jobs for tomorrow. Those tomatoes are going to have to go out to the polytunnel, for a start.) Eastercon went well, but we are now very very tired. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Busy growing ♥Apr. 15th, 2019 // 05:04 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, pictures ] The ducklings and us! This morning, the ducklings were already outside when I went to let the ducks out. Sigh. I guess the duck house door isn't quite duckling proof. We got them sorted out, and they immediately dived on their food, so I guess they went out because they were hungry. We've had a busy day in the garden: Mike set up the irrigation system for the polytunnel, and mowed the lawn, and I assembled supports for the peas and beans, some of which we then planted out. It's amazing how much better the soil is in that bed compared to last year, but that's what happens when you put a nice layer of horse manure on and leave it to the worms over the winter. We've rearranged the veg garden this year, so that we can fence part of it off and keep the muscovies away from the legumes. Fingers crossed. Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Those ducklings aren't Schrodinger's, they're mine. ♥Apr. 12th, 2019 // 04:18 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] At least seven out of eight, I think. ZuZu was not happy to see me, so I'll go out again in a bit with an assistant to have a proper check. I suspect that Mike will want me to deal with ZuZu while he wrangles the ducklings! When I went out, two of them had fallen out of the nest and not figured out how to climb back up. I think I might have to move the box onto the floor for the first few days.... Edit: a couple of the ducklings got out of the nest and couldn't figure out the ramp to get back up, so I roped in Mike as Faithful Assistant and went to move it to ground level. Being Chief Duck Wrangler, I tackled Mum. - Hooked beak: immobilised - Flappy wings: pinned down - Taloned feet: well away from me It’s ok, though, because a devoted duck mum, who only leaves the nest for a few minutes in every day to eat and perform her toilete, still has one more weapon at her disposal. Still, nest and ducklings safely moved, and Mum is back on duty now. Got out of the shower and into clean clothes. Could still smell it. Oh, right, better clean my bloody glasses.... Link 12 kisses // Who loves you?

New quilt! ♥Apr. 9th, 2019 // 06:47 pm♥ [Tags | craft, ducks, pictures ] Mike bought me a stack of fabric for Christmas, and I've been making a somewhat experimental* quilt with it: More pics. * It's pieced wrong sides together, and then I've snipped the seams. It's also got three layers of poly batting, and is hand tied, so it's incredibly soft and poofy. Zu Zu tried to go for me when I was cleaning out their house yesterday; she's been squeaking and occasionally hissing at me all along, so I'm hoping that this is a good sign that she's feeling movement in the eggs, but it's made me realise that, in retrospect, I probably should have been at least stroking her every day to keep her used to being handled, 'cause she's not going to be happy when I start picking up the babies.... Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

Schrodinger's Ducklings ♥Apr. 2nd, 2019 // 05:31 pm♥ [Tags | ducks ] ZuZu is still faithfully brooding her clutch, and doesn't seem to have thrown any of them out of the nest, so I've taken a leap of faith and ordered duckling feed* and a puppy pen today. * Hmmm. Wonder how much ducklings eat? All these websites are rubbish, they just say 'ad lib', 20kg sounds like a huge amount for just the first three weeks of their life, should I just buy 5kg on eBay? Ah, this thread looks good: "We are getting 4 runner ducklings [...] on the advice of the guy working there, we ended up with a fifty pound bag [...] seems excessive for four ducklings"... - They eat like crazy - They eat a lot! And produce 100 X the amount of food they eat in poo. - Ducklings eat their weight every day. Iam pretty sure. - we bought one 50 lb bag of duck feed when we got our four ducklings (two pekin, two mallards) six weeks ago. I just finished off the end of the bag this morning. Ok, 20kg bag ordered. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

Eggses! ♥Mar. 15th, 2019 // 05:46 pm♥ [Tags | ducks ] The eggs arrived today, which meant that I then spent the rest of the day popping outside every half hour hoping to catch Zuzu off the nest (she comes off once or twice a day, to eat, poo and have a bath). When she came out, I dashed over and swapped the fake eggs for the real ones, and she was back on the nest as usual when I went out just now to put the animals to bed. All being well, they'll hatch out a week before the start of Eastercon: not great timing, but better than a week later would have been. Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

Duck plottings ♥Mar. 12th, 2019 // 08:01 pm♥ [Tags | ducks ] I had been planning on waiting until Ella got broody before I bought some eggs: she's very good about laying indoors, and spent a good month last year trying to hatch a fake egg (until I took it away), whereas Erzulie kept sneaking off into the garden to make nests under bushes, and never really got broody. It turns out that Erzulie really likes the raised nest box that I made, ready for Ella to use out of the way of the Runners: she started laying in it a bit over a week ago, and she's spent the last couple of days industriously brooding the fake eggs I've been swapping for the last few that she's laid. So this morning we ordered some eggs, which should be with us by the end of the week. And then we wait. (Letice is doing much better with the others, now: barely any feather pulling from the grown-ups, which is good.) Link Who loves you?

Meet Letice ♥Mar. 1st, 2019 // 04:27 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, pictures ] No longer will we be able to refer to Magrat as "the little white duck" (although Letice will probably end up bigger, given the size of her parents). DW cup third opinion was "No more than £500", for those who are interested. Shortly after getting home from that trip out, Mr Up The Hill phoned to say that he'd just popped home from work for five minutes and seen a dog running around the boy's summer field and howling like mad. We headed up there with a lead and a handful of kibble, thinking it would be a five minute job, and half an hour later managed to get close enough to her for Mike to take a blurry photo of the address side of her tags. Fortunately, when Mike phoned our vet they had the address in their records and phoned the owners to give them Mike's number, so shortly after her owner appeared and took her home. As I suspected when I first saw her, she's one of the three whippets I've seen a few times charging around the woods with no owner in sight; I hope that this scares the owner into keeping them under closer control, because they terrify me in case they come too close and Bob goes for them before I can react. Then I pruned the apple tree, and now I'm tired. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Things I have been doing rather than update DW ♥Feb. 28th, 2019 // 07:55 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, craft, ducks, eastercon, fandom, fanzines, garden, pictures, quilts, riding ] - Setting up a Top Sekrit Grow Room in the study. The tomatoes are doing well, but the germination rates for the chillis have been pretty bad (we're now experimenting with soaking them overnight in camomile tea, which apparently both softens them and is mildly anti-fungal). - Eating duck eggs! Zu Zu started laying last week. Hurrah! Poached eggs, and tasty pasta, and yellow cakes! (This is daylight-related, rather than temperature, although I'm sure the sunny days helped with the light levels.) - Hatching (ho ho) a plot: muscovies are supposed to be good mothers (as opposed to runners, who just lay an egg wherever they have to be, including in the pond); fertile runner duck eggs are about a pound a pop on eBay. Ella was particularly dutiful in her attempts to hatch a fake egg last year (I had to take it off her in the end), so I'm going to wait until she starts getting broody and then order her some eggs. - Writing, with lots of help from various people, biographies of past-Doc Weir winners, with varying degrees of difficulty: some of the early women winners are almost cyphers, some of the early men required a huge amount of editing of their many recorded achievements. On the other hand, many of the recent winners, who I thought would be easy ("I know her!") are actually quite tricky to write anything substantive about ("And the only fannish thing that she does is faithfully do that one job every year without fail or fault"). See the recent Eastercon PR if you'd like a paper copy of it. - (Possibly) destroying Doc Weir mythology: a decade or so back, the cup was valued at about £4000 (because you can't buy an equivalent today and so would have to get it custom made; a source of some stress to winners as they then had to pay to add it to their insurance). The paperwork was lost, though, so I contacted a local auction house to ask if they could do a valuation. When I sent some photos and the history of it, their silver expert said he could buy one tomorrow for £250-£350 so it wasn't worth paying for a formal valuation. - Riding in the weird weather: very odd to be going out, shivering in a t-shirt, to the frost-covered school and being too hot fifteen minutes later when the sun finishes rising. Benny and I went down the lane and back, for the first time since I had that fall. Planning a tiny little hack on Saturday. Benny is shedding (this is also daylight rather than temperature); on recent form, that means GB will start shedding some time in about June. - Doing a bit of gardening, mostly tidying up last year's dead perennial growth. The wild garlic is just starting to poke leaves up, and the early irises are now just about over but were lovely a week or so ago: - Taking Bob to the vet, where he unsuccessfully tried to fake the vet out and pretend that he didn't have a limp on his front left leg (worried I'd leave him there if he showed weakness, maybe?). Nothing obvious wrong, so metacam and rest, and trying not to identify too many parallels with this time last year. - Working on an experimental quilt. I have no idea if it will completely fall apart, or just look crap, or actually work as planned. - Failing at email (sorry, Carl, Juliet and others not on DW). Tomorrow, we're going to take the DW cup to another auction house for a third opinion and then collect a new, white runner, provisionally called Letice (but better suggestions are welcome: I don't remember any of the witches being famous for dressing all in white, does anyone else? One day I will find someone to sell me a pure black duck, and she will be called Tiffany). Link 10 kisses // Who loves you?

Not-Novacon ♥Nov. 14th, 2018 // 08:39 pm♥ [Tags | cons, craft, ducks, pilates, weather ] It was Novacon last weekend, but Mike went without me: November sucks, I'd rather stay at home in the torrential rain. No, wait, hang on. Anyway: sorry to anyone who was hoping to see me there. Instead of Novacon, we had a very select Crafty Day here, which featured Bob barking furiously for five minutes and then spending the rest of the day trying to climb onto people's laps and/or steal their food. Thank you to the people who came, braving the flooded roads and ferocious hound! Having spent the last few sessions fiddling with various wonkinesses, my Pilates instructor decided yesterday that we were going to actually do some work. I am now sore. Must get back into doing more at home. On Friday, on the way out to the Kent quilt show, I put my coat on and something jabbed me in the arm. I assumed it was a bit of hay caught on my top, although I couldn't find it. Half an hour later, I had a big red lump on my arm, and it's still slightly itchy/sore. Can only assume it was a solitary bee or wasp that came into the porch and decided my coat made a good place to hibernate. I'll have to remember to shake them out before putting them on in future. Magrat is very unhappy about the reduced number of minions, and is spending a lot of time shouting her complaints. Unfortunately, Ella has taken the opportunity, now that the muscovies are no longer outnumbered, to assert herself, and keeps chasing poor Maggers out of the house every evening when they go to bed. Fortunately, they're not hens and the associated pecking is pretty ineffectual. Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Esk ♥Nov. 2nd, 2018 // 03:17 pm♥ [Tags | ducks ] I decided yesterday that I wanted to get a vet's take on Esk's falling down. Our vet doesn't have a bird person any more, which is annoying, but they suggested a place down in Dover, who fitted us in yesterday evening. The vet thought that the most likely problem was aspergillosis, a fungal condition that’s present in a lot of healthy ducks but can cause problems if they get poorly or run down. It’s usually a lung / air sac problem, but as it progresses then it can also start to cause nerve damage. (She didn’t have any visible trouble breathing, but sounded raspy when the vet listened.) She went back to the vet this morning for x-rays, and they showed significant plaque formation on the lungs, enlargement of her heart, and signs of a bacterial infection as well. The vet did give the option of 2 months of antifungals and antibiotics, but said that even if they worked she’d be left with scarring and damage and would never really be healthy, so we agreed that it would be best to not wake her up. So we're back down to two runners again, and I must make more of an effort to get some more in the spring. Link 6 kisses // Who loves you?

The lighting doesn't matter on the radio.... ♥Oct. 31st, 2018 // 03:45 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks, going out, pictures, radio ] Last night, we went to see a recording of The Kitchen Cabinet, in the banqueting hall at Dover Castle. Fortunately, the lighting doesn't matter on the radio: The show will air on Saturday week, and neither of us appears on it (except in the background noise). It was fun to see the recording, well worth the £0 ticket price. We really must actually go to Dover Castle some time to look around. Today (boo, hiss, I got caught for customs charges, which are fine except that the handling fee is larger than the actual tax), Bob's onesie arrived from Australia (the woman half an hour away who'd said she could make him one having then gone silent). It's a good fit (I ended up getting it from Aus because I was pretty sure none of the many greyhound / whippet ones would fit him, and I could only find two people who were doing customised ones with more than a couple of measurements), but quite difficult to put on and take off, presumably because of the extra bulk in his chest compared to the standard pattern. I've ordered some velcro, so I just need to decide whether to put the cut on his back or his chest. Chest seems more logical (as I can cut straight through -- it leaves his belly bare), but the struggle is getting his front legs in / out, so back might give more extra play. (And, now I've got it, I can make myself a pattern to make some more....) There's Something Wrong with Esk, who's taken to faceplanting while running along, and seems a bit subdued generally. Vet in a few days if she doesn't improve, I guess. Link Who loves you?

Bloody animals.... (Insects are animals too, right?) ♥Aug. 24th, 2018 // 10:03 am♥ [Tags | angelo, benny, ducks, horses, owie, pictures ] On Wednesday evening, as I was leading the boys in from the field, Benny decided that he was sick of having to walk as slowly as GB does and started rearing in protest. The first three times weren't really an issue, but on the fourth he managed to hook one of his forelegs over my arm as he came down: My back also felt rather peculiar, so Mike played it safe and told work that he wouldn't be at the company away-day yesterday (he was devastated, especially at the prospect of not having to go out at 6:30 to drive there). As it turns out, it wasn't too bad (although I skipped our riding lesson yesterday afternoon and let Mike have a longer session), and he's off in London today. As well as my various scrapes and bruises from Benny, I'm covered in mozzie bites. I seem to be getting half a dozen a night, and am not sleeping well as a result, so I'm quite pleased that it's going to be chilly tonight so that I can spray the bedroom and, with the windows closed, hopefully not get nibbled on. Even Mike has had two or three bites over the last week.... I think I prefer horse fly season. Grump. GB is also suffering from the insect life, getting nibbled on his feet and face by harvest mites, which appear in the grass at this time of year. The poor things has some horrible open sores on his feet, and is terribly itchy. Actually, I think that Benny's getting a bit bothered by them, too, which might explain the grumpiness the other day. Still, it was *lovely* to be out first thing this morning and feel a bit of an autumnal chill to the air, even if it did warm up fairly quickly. We're actually going to close the polytunnel tonight (which will at least stop Bob from stealing the tomatoes...), and maybe put light rugs on the horses! In good animal news, I'm very happy to report that Ella, the new muscovy, has started laying (I guess they mature more slowly than mallards), and is doing so in the duck house. Even better, Erzulie has taken the hint and is now also laying inside, rather than in one of her hidden nests. Of course, this means that she refuses to come out of the house in the mornings, so that I have to tuck her under my arm and carry her to breakfast, but I'd rather that than the alternative. Must post more often! Link 1 kiss // Who loves you?

A culprit.... ♥Jul. 11th, 2018 // 07:44 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden ] For the last month or so, we've been blaming the rabbits for eating the young leaves off our pea plants, but it turns out we were wrong: I just caught the muscovies at it. I guess we're too used to the runners, because it never crossed our minds. Now we'll have to figure out some way of keeping them out of that part of the veg garden.... Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Encouraging animal news ♥May. 24th, 2018 // 01:25 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, benny, bob the dog, ducks, horses ] This morning, after a couple of weeks off, I had a quick go on Benny and he was barely hopping at all, so fingers crossed that he's recovering much more quickly this time than he did last time. I didn't stay on for long, because my leg is still not right and -- based on last time -- he's always more hoppy when he's tired, so I didn't want to do too much. The vet popped in to give GB a blood test, and said he looks well. We did talk about his problems having a wee, and she agrees it probably is a bladder stone and therefore not something we can really fix. (Given that he takes months to heal a little scratch, cutting him open doesn't really seem viable.) He's happy in himself, though, and as long as he is we'll leave him be. We also had a phone call from Bob's vet, to say that the lab report on his lump is back and it's entirely benign, which is what we expected but is always nice to have confirmed. Bob's going a little loopy from lack of exercise, as he's still not allowed to have zoomies in the field, and indeed is currently wearing the Cone Of Shame as well as his pooch pants, because this morning he was zooming as much as he possibly could on the lunge line while we were getting the ragwort out of the field, and the wound is now oozing slightly again. I think we're going to have to go back to just the lead, as the lunge line lets him get up a bit too much speed. (Yesterday morning, while I was poo picking, I left him tied to the gate on the lunge line and turned around at one point just in time to see him do a mid-air forward roll as he reached the end of the slack....) I've given up on the bird 'flu rules: in the last few months, there's been nothing but a couple of dead buzzards two counties over, so I'm not sure why they're still keeping it going. Anyway, we're not feeding the garden birds any more so now that the adolescent crows have found the food bowl, the swallows have started nesting in the stables, and the wagtails are spending all day on the muck heap it's not like there are more wild birds in the garden than in the stableyard. We're still lucky to be getting one egg a day, usually from Magrat (traditionally the worst of the layers, which is very odd; Esk, our 'oh, I thought I'd lay two today' girl, still hasn't managed any that we've seen). If something *isn't* going in and stealing them before we let the girls out in the morning, hopefully the more varied diet will get the others going! Link Who loves you?

Animal magic ♥May. 13th, 2018 // 03:09 pm♥ [Tags | benny, bob the dog, ducks, riding ] I've not really ridden since Monday, as my leg's still sore (it rained last night, so I couldn't just go around in my trainers this morning. After an attempt to get my boots on I gave up and wore an old pair of Mike's: ankle and foot are still rather swollen), but Mike's had a few goes on Benny. He's started hopping again, which probably means that when I came off him he re-tweaked whatever it was that he tweaked to make him go hoppy in the first place. Sigh. Hopefully it won't take so long to get better this time. We're trying out clicker training with Bob. He's now excellent at dropping his toy to have it re-thrown, with much less trying to play tug-of-war. He's a bit better at coming when called, although he's still crap if he's busy with an interesting smell. We're having a bit of success at stopping him from barking, but not a huge amount. Yesterday, we left him in the garden while we moved lumps of concrete across the stableyard to the skip. Unfortunately, next door's cat came into his view and the next thing we knew he'd jumped the gate, run across the stableyard, and jumped the wall onto the road. Fortunately he lost sight of the cat at that point and stopped, but annoyingly he now knows that he can get out. Even more unfortunately, when we got him back into the stableyard he was still excited and decided to play with the ducks. No harm done, but he spent the rest of the time we were out there with his muzzle on, and being busy rolling around trying to get it off was enough distraction that he left the girls alone. The local dog trainer's been on holiday, but I'll be giving him a call next week. (The rescue assured us that they'd tested him with cats and he was fine. Then again, they also said he'd been chipped and vaccinated, so.) We also have a bit of an egg mystery going on: Zu Zu laid consistently for a fortnight, then stopped and hasn't laid for a couple of weeks now. In the gap, Magrat laid for about four days and then stopped. This morning, Agnes had laid. I had some rubber fake eggs, which I was trying to convince Zu Zu were really hers without much success, so I bought some apparently very realistic sand-filled ones. I popped one in the nest this morning, when I took out Agnes's, and left the other two, along with the two rubber ones, on a pile of bricks in the stable. When I went to feed the girls at lunch time, the two realistic ones and one of the rubber ones were gone (although the realistic one in the nest was still there), which rather makes me think that something is stealing them, and possibly that Erzulie has been laying all along and we've just been missing the eggs. As she tends to lay late morning (unlike the runners, who usually lay before they come out in the morning), I'm not sure how we're going to stop it happening, short of popping out every five minutes to look for an egg (and disturbing her from laying in the process). Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Signs of summer ♥May. 3rd, 2018 // 11:58 am♥ [Tags | angelo, birdies, ducks, pictures ] The swallows have arrived, and are checking out the stables for nest spots: And GB's summer coat is coming through (slowly), and as ever it's much more white than it was last year. (For some reason, only his summer coat is going white while his winter coat is still dark all over.) The bloody runners still aren't laying, though. They'd better get a move on, before we decide it's orange sauce time! Am considering putting Erzulie on a lead, so that she can't keep dashing into the barn looking for nest spots. Link Who loves you?

Soggy ♥Apr. 30th, 2018 // 12:53 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, craft, ducks, pictures, visitors ] In the last 24 hours, we've had 8cm of rain, and it's not due to let up until close to midnight. It is rather unpleasant, but the ducks are happy with their newly acquired water-feature: The boys, being stuck in their stables, are less happy, poor things. Bob is perfectly happy, as long as I don't make him go outside: I had enough trouble getting him to the stableyard this morning that I don't think I'll bother with a walk. Instead, I'm going to be mostly curled up on the sofa with my new quilt, which I finished off over the weekend: We had visitors over the weekend, which was nice but tiring. Bob got a bit over-stimulated when so many people kept arriving, and spent an hour or so barking and growling at the last person through the door (but only when he stood up; Bob was perfectly happy to go and have cuddles from him when he sat down!), but a run around the field fixed that. Bob was generally very pleased with the visitors, as he is a complete tart, especially when he worked out that visitors meant that people were sitting on his sofa and cuddling him. We did have an unfortunate Bob incident on Sunday, though: while we were walking him, he went for a perfectly innocuous black lab that was sitting quietly by the path waiting for us to go past. Whenever he's gone for other dogs before I've been able to excuse it (at the kennels, at the vet), but I think we'll have to accept that this means he'll need to have a muzzle when we start letting him off the lead. (There are, I know, ways to train dogs out of this kind of behaviour, but I'm not sure how you do it when it's only occasional random dogs that set it off, unless you can convince the owner of the random dog to help. I may speak to the vet nurse about it next time we're there.) Link 11 kisses // Who loves you?

Emberella ♥Apr. 27th, 2018 // 03:48 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, pictures ] Yesterday, when I checked my regular search for ducks for sale in the area I found an advert from a vicar who had three 10 month old muscovy girls for sale. I drove over this morning, and came home with Emberella, who has more black on her than Erzulie: Erzulie ran over as soon as she jumped out of the box, so I think she's pleased. Ella is a bit bewildered, if only by the sudden absence of an enormous flock of assorted ducks, geese, chickens and guinea fowl, but I'm sure that she'll settle in soon. (Zu Zu laid today's egg in the approved, fake-egg-containing nest. Fingers crossed.) We have visitors this weekend, and Bob is being a complete tart. He's currently curled up on the dog sofa next to one of the guests! Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Animal Magic ♥Apr. 22nd, 2018 // 07:57 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, benny, bob the dog, ducks ] Bob went back to the vet today, for a fairly general check/catch up. "Do just check that you can find his chip, now that he's had one put in," I said. Three chip readers later, she put another chip in. "And, while I'm here, can you check that the vaccinations he was given were right? I was surprised that he didn't need repeat jabs to start with," I continues. We have re-started his jabs, and will be going back in a couple of weeks for the repeat ones. On the plus side, he's put on half a kilo since we've had him, and hopefully he'll manage to do the same again. (The posts posts having finally arrived from Chile, Jobbing Farmer and His Mate are out in the garden doing the fences. "Our cocker spaniel was 21kg," Jobbing Farmer said. "It took us two years, but we've now got him down to where he should be, 12kg." Boggle.) After a few days of laying, Erzulie realised that her eggs were being stolen each morning and went looking for a safer nest spot. She did try the barn again, but seems to have given up on it after Bob followed her inside and tried to investigate her. I heard the scuffles and rescued her before anything worse than a wet back happened. I remembered later that I still had a couple of fake eggs in the house so the next day, when she laid in her new nest (actually in their house, even!), I swapped one of those in. I did the same today, and hopefully she can't count higher than two. I haven't updated about Benny recently, but that's because it's good news: he's pretty much entirely stopped doing his hoppity thing, it just very occasionally comes back if he's going faster than his balance can cope with. He's doing very well, and Mike is now cantering him, which is marvellous news. GB remains his usual charming self, now with added "The flies are bothering me, do something. Eww, why have you put this horrible thing over my face? When I said 'do something', I meant you should stand next to me and wave them away!" I continue to be a little concerned about his bladder, because I do think that Something Is Not Right, but there's nothing I can realistically do to fix either of the two most likely causes of the problem, so there you go. Our non-fancy cherry tree is a mass of blossom this year, it's looking lovely. The fancy crab apple and cherries are just about to open as well. Sadly, the weeds have greatly appreciated the recent weather. Must get out in the garden. Link Who loves you?

Our Dog Bob ♥Apr. 18th, 2018 // 07:51 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks ] Yesterday, we went to the rescue to do the paperwork on Bob. And then we went back to the kennel where he used to live, to get his paperwork and have a microchip put in, because rescues are less than organised. (They didn't realise that they'd forgotten to chip him until we told them that our vet couldn't find it....) So, he's now our dog, and we can proceed to start beating him, etc. Er, I mean, talk to the vet about getting that lump removed. That's the one. He's doing well, although he continues to be a bit more interested in Erzulie than we would like. On the one hand, eggs are great. On the other, I wish she'd stop being so sex mad and just give him a good telling off! Speaking of Zu-Zu, Ex-Mrs Up The Hill was here a few days ago and said "Oh, you've got a Muscovy Duck!" and we said "No, she's a Magpie," and she said "No, pretty sure she's a Muscovy...". I checked t'internet after she'd gone, and yes, she's right: Erzulie is actually a Muscovy. This led us down some fascinating online rabbit holes: Muscovy's are the only domesticated ducks that aren't actually mallards (which rather explains why she's never properly been accepted by the others), but they're sufficiently closely related that they can cross-breed (although they prefer not to, and produce sterile offspring), which means that they count as being kosher, even though they're from the New World and so not in the lists of things that are kosher, which is a marvellously pragmatic rule (as ever) but doesn't explain how they managed to argue for turkeys also being kosher. They're also tremendously broody and very good at it, which does raise the prospect of getting a male runner and using Zu-Zu to hatch the runner eggs... I suspect that that way lies madness. So it's probably a good job that I didn't manage to find another magpie to keep her company; guess I'd better start looking for a muscovy. Insert obligatory complaint about the temperature here. Yesterday was just lovely.... Link Who loves you?

Who's a clever Zu-Zu? ♥Apr. 14th, 2018 // 01:30 pm♥ [Tags | bob the dog, ducks, pictures ] (They're even, helpfully, a different colour to the runners' eggs.) I had my first poached duck egg of the year for lunch! Hopefully she'll be a bit happier now that she's got the first one out of the way. Hopefully, that will manifest itself as hissing scarily when Bob comes sniffing at her, rather than adopting the 'would you like to have sex' position. She's a bit mixed up, is Erzulie. Bob is a smart lad, and has realised that he needs to come when called if he's on the lunge line but that we can't really do anything when he's off it. Unfortunately, he's not smart enough to realise that he can't go off the lead until he comes all the time. Sigh. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Reassuring animal news ♥Apr. 10th, 2018 // 01:54 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, bob the dog, ducks, pictures ] GB had a wee overnight! Hurrah! T'internet suggests that Erzulie is hoping we'll mate with her (scrunching down and spreading her wings slightly to give the drake somewhere to stand when they're in the water), which is a bit disturbing (she thinks we're going to...?) but basically fine and (hopefully) leading to eggs soon. Bob was fine when I went out without him this morning, which was a relief. When we walked him, he had a little growl at another dog, but nothing major. We took him to the vet this afternoon, where he did try to go for two other dogs. The first one was swiftly removed to the car, the second was at the other end of the room and, in fact, Bob settled down fairly quickly when he realised we weren't going to let them get near each other. The vet's happy with Bob, says he seems healthy. She says that his lump is almost certainly just a lump, but also wants to have it removed when he's settled down. We also had a chat with the psychology nurse, who says we have to be much more strict with him or we really will have separation problems. He's currently on the Dog Sofa, looking the picture of wounded, neglected poochness after we both ignored him and wouldn't let him on the people sofa. (I'll go and give him a cuddle in a minute!) We've got special food for him, to see if we can get his tummy settled. It turns out that he's a fair bit heavier than we'd guessed - 27kg, and the vet would be happy if he gained a couple of kilos - so we'll be increasing his food as well. Link 2 kisses // Who loves you?

Animal news ♥Apr. 9th, 2018 // 07:48 pm♥ [Tags | angelo, bob the dog, ducks ] Bob continues to be quite clingy, but he coped ok with Mike going to London today. We'll see how he copes when I go out without him tomorrow morning.... He's having great fun zooming around the field, and just chased (but didn't catch: mean old fences) his first bunny. I think I'm going to try getting his attention with a squeaky toy when he's zooming tomorrow, see if that makes him notice that I'm offering treats if he comes back! Erzulie's being a little odd. Yesterday morning when Mike was letting them out, she sort of flopped down on the doorstep and stayed there for a minute, even when he came and touched her. She did it again on the way in this evening, so I picked her up and had a feel, in case she's egg-bound (she's starting to look like she's going to lay soon), but she seemed ok. Not sure what's going on there. Also not sure what's going on with GB, who only had one tiny wee overnight the night before last and none at all last night. Unfortunately, due to Bob-wrangling, I didn't think to check this morning until he'd been out in the field for a bit. If he's dry again overnight tonight, I'm going to keep him in and see if he has a wee in the morning; if not, I'll get the vet out in the afternoon. I spoke to the vet this afternoon, vaguely expecting him to say "It's probably a UTI," but actually he led off with bladder stones and then went on to kidney failure and cancer, which wasn't very reassuring, but he also said that if GB wasn't weeing at all then you'd would expect him to be colicky, which he's not. The vet did say that my plan to keep him in tomorrow was the right thing to do, so we'll just have to see what happens. There's always an outside chance that Benny's taught him not to wee indoors, but it seems unlikely. Link 3 kisses // Who loves you?

Picture post! ♥Mar. 22nd, 2018 // 05:19 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, garden, pictures ] Since not long after we moved in, we've been a little concerned about the wall along the path behind our garage, which holds up an earth bank and is not exactly vertical. It's been on the 'to sort out' list for a while. One of the fence panels between the garden and the stableyard fell over this winter, and has been held up since with baling twine. It's part of a fence that really needs to be entirely replaced: it's six feet high and wooden, and really cuts down on the light to that part of the garden, and the gates in it are increasingly rickety and hard to use. (That's also where we had the polytunnel last year, in an otherwise-useless patch of garden, but it didn't really get enough light. It'd be nice as a little cutting garden, if it didn't have the six foot high solid fence along the south side of it.) The fence along the edge of the back garden has been fairly dodgy since we took out the leylandii that were growing through it, but then I planted the willow in front of it so it didn't matter too much. Still, a bit messy.... This winter, the fence along the front garden has started to lean over rather, in a 'not long for this world' way. It didn't really make sense to do any one of those jobs without doing the others, so we never really got around to any of them. A few weeks ago, I said to Mike "Let's just ask Jobbing Farmer to quote for it." And I did. And today he came long with a mate and a digger man, and they started work: Before and after: And the new view from the stableyard: I think I'm going to have dahlias in there. I bought a bag at Costco the other week. We put the ducks in the garden for the day (shh, don't tell DEFRA). Poor Erzuli was never very good with going down steps, and didn't have much time to practice between coming here and being exiled to the stableyard. She spent a good chunk of the afternoon on the patio, looking desolately down at the lawn and then wandering around looking for the way down. I, on the other hand, have taken advantage of the fact that my pre-Follycon stuff is pretty much finished to do a bit of sewing: The next job is replacing the fence between the front and back gardens, which is going to be a wooden lattice affair, and then there will be a pause: when Jobbing Farmer went to order the fenceposts for the main fence, he was told there was a three week wait. Oh well, we're getting there! Link 5 kisses // Who loves you?

It's positively tropical.... ♥Mar. 3rd, 2018 // 02:49 pm♥ [Tags | ducks, horses, house, pictures, weather ] Well, temperate anyway. We've not got the fire lit! It's been above freezing all day here, and we even had a bit of sun this morning (after the mist had cleared), although it's clouded over again now. The snow is mostly gone from around the house, although fortunately it's not due to freeze again tonight as there are a few slush patches. The boys even got to go in the field, albeit with plenty of hay to keep them going, after Mike went out there with a lump hammer to break the ice on the troughs: (GB does like rolling in snow, the daft old bugger. The field's almost entirely snow-free, now.) The ducks are *much* happier, and are having a nice rootle around in the stableyard rather than sitting, shivering, in their pond and trying to avoid the icebergs. The outside pipes have defrosted, which is good, but not-entirely-surprisingly the last bit of copper piping has burst. On the plus side, the outside piping will be entirely plastic after we get it repaired, but I suspect that that will take a few days as there are people with rather more urgent plumbing problems even if it weren't the weekend. We got by this morning with duct tape, and I plan to have a go at sticking a g-clamp on it as well to try and get the hole better covered. Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

More animal news, mostly not good ♥Jan. 26th, 2018 // 10:52 am♥ [Tags | benny, ducks, jodie the dog ] A few days after we re-started her medication, Jodie threw up again, and was very limpy as well. We went back to the vet, and now she's got opiates, antacids, and no walks for a fortnight to see if we can settle both her sore leg and her tummy. It seems likely that she'll have to some off the metacam and onto something else (which will be less convenient and probably more expensive), but it's possible that having a longer break will sort her out. (This, inevitably, happens just after I've refilled her prescription. I'm likely to have a 180ml bottle of dog metacam going spare, if anyone can use it.) (Given that, what with one thing and another, I've been on my own doing the horses for five days in the last seven, not having to find time to walk the dog is a bit of a win. As is not having to hose a layer of mud off her at the end of each walk.) The horses have been in for the last couple of days, much to the ducks' annoyance, but I did manage to get them into the top of the field today. After several days of playing chase each morning, the ducks went into the polytunnel quite happily today, and stayed there for ten minutes poking at their breakfast. Then Magrat started her usual ritual of chasing Erzulie around in circles, but as the 'door' was open 'Zuli just legged it. When I came in after doing my jobs, Magrat was outside the polytunnel but the other three were in it, so at least they seem to be getting used to the concept. I am seriously wondering if I need to put some kind of partition in there so that 'Zuli can get away from Maggers, though. This morning was the end of Benny's fortnight off, so I checked to see how he was doing in preparation for a lesson tomorrow morning. I lunged him first, and he was a bit frisky (understandable, having been standing in for two days) but trotting fine. Then I got on him, and we had a lovely, if brisk, walk around, and then I asked for a trot and got about half way around the school before he started hopping again. Tried the other rein just in case and then got off and cancelled the riding lesson. When we bought Benny, it just happened that the most senior vet had a gap in his diary and was the one who went out to check he was fit and well. I was sure to point this out when I phoned to make an appointment and now I have him coming to visit us next week so see if he has any ideas. This is great news, because it saves having one of the junior vets come out and faff ineffectually for a month or so before they get the boss to come and have a look. (I'm pretty sure that it's not something the vet missed, but it was a useful nudge to the receptionist and it will mean that he's seen by a vet who recently saw him when he was moving properly.) Link 10 kisses // Who loves you?

Duck un-house.... ♥Jan. 20th, 2018 // 10:17 am♥ [Tags | ducks ] This morning's experiment wasn't hugely successful: the ducks came outside and shouted at us for fifteen minutes, then hopped through the fence and went looking for their pond (which was in the polytunnel, sigh). Some herding later, we managed to get them shut in the polytunnel, which mostly held them with much complaining. While we were poo picking, Agnes managed to get out but then stood next to it wondering how to get back to the others. It probably needs tying down better at the bottom, but that's not happening in this nasty cold rain. Poor Erzulie couldn't get away from Magrat, either, and Magrat seemed to have decided that it was All Erzulie's Fault. I don't much like my chances of getting them in there on my own this afternoon / tomorrow morning (Mike's away overnight for his mother's birthday), but we'll see what can be contrived. Link 4 kisses // Who loves you?

Navigation ♥ Viewing // Most recent entries ♥ ♥ Go / / earlier ♥