Have a very Merry Christmas!

Love from me Sarah, my partner Robert, the cats - Alfie, Harvey, Ellie, Monty, Poppy and Sadie, the hens - Dotty, Dolly, Sybil, Gracie and Lettuce and last but not least, Guinea pigs, Lola and Hattie.

xxx

This and That

Christmas day will soon be upon us! Wheeeeee! Now I just have a few more presents to wrap I'm looking forward to it. Christmas always gives me a feeling of hope and new beginnings. Plus everything is twinkly and pretty!

We had a bit of stress with the chicknes the last few days. I was watching them tuck into their afternoon treats when I noticed a fairly big bloody patch on Sybil (our white hen). I actually took a sharp audible intake of breath when I saw it. I thought people only did that in films! To cut a long story short, Lettuce had plucked out several of Sybils feathers. Ouchie. I just wanted to scoop her up and bring her into the house. Obviously that wasn't practical, so I set her up her own space inside the shed right next to their coop, to let her heal (chickens can get to like the taste of blood!). The next day I checked on her to find a scene that looked like a massacre. It looked like her area had been burgled and there were spots of blood here and there! She had gone crazy in the night not being able to be with the other girls, trashed the place and injured her comb, which was bleeding. So I cleaned her up and put her back in with the others. I'd hung a cabbage in the run to distract Lettuce and they all loved it! What was the first thing Sybil did, when her legs hit the run floor? She shot off into the nest box and laid an egg. She'd hated her 'sick room' so much she'd refused to lay her egg there.

Beary news! I have actually finished a bear! Just have some beading to add to his collar and he's all done. Will post pictures when I get time and the right lighting.

Festive hugs, Sarah x

First Eggs!

Two of our chooks laid their first egg today!

Above is Dotty's, which strangely has come out dotty! Sybil sadly squished hers. Considering Sybil is a rather scatty hen, I shouldn't have expected any other.

I was rather in awe of Dotty's egg. Also rather proud (?). Hopefully there will be another two tomorrow and Sybil will be a bit more careful!

Hugs, Sarah x

Chilly Chooks

This is a rather belated 'Snow Post'! Those of you in the UK will know that the snow has been and gone! It has been rather icy this week though. Eeek! I think I practically broke all the bones in Robert's hand on our walk into work. Although I wear flat boots, I might as well have had a sheet of glass for soles. If I'd tried running, I'd have gone nowhere and would have just been spinning legs on the spot.

I' d have liked to have seen what the chickens thought to the snow, when their eyes first alighted on it. As I am nowhere near being a morning person, it's usually (ok, it's always) Robert who lets them out into their run.

Do you see the feet marks going around the run? Thats our resident racing pigeon. I think he thinks he's a chicken now. They'll be clucking and he'll be cooing. Bless him. Really must ring the man who lives nearby, as it's most likely one of his.

Anyway, must go. Housework to do (yawn). Plus.........there's a bear in creation!!!

Yes, I heard the thud as you hit the floor........

Hugs, Sarah x

Cluck, cluck

We are now the proud owner of chickens! Five to be exact. All various hybrids. Love them very much. They all have different personalities.

Dolly and Dotty (the brown hens) are Light Sussex and Rhode Island Red crosses. Dotty is very curious about everything and likes to climb on my lap. Dolly likes to come and see what I'm doing when I'm cleaning out their coop.

Sybil (white hen) is a Leghorn cross and will lay white eggs (eventually!). She's very scatty, but incredibly comical! She loves pecking at my clothes and tugging at my jeans and takes the liberty of wiping her beak on me when she feels it needs it.

Gracie (grey hen) is a Maran cross and will lay eggs with a plum blush. She's a big hen with lovely hazel eyes. If a bird flies over she practically spins on the spot with panic! She's usually the first to go to bed.

Lettuce is the last, but not least of the hens. She loves a cuddle! She's the youngest of them all but is the boss! She loves to study my face and nibble my hair. I'm wary of too much curiosity, as last week she pecked out one of my contact lenses!! For a moment I thought she'd damaged my eye and turned my head to look at her and there she sat on my lap with my contact lense sticking out of her beak! Suffice to say, I grabbed it back as quickly as possible. Keeping hens is certainly not uneventful.

Well, fingers crossed for eggs. I sometimes forget they will at some point be laying them. The camera will be out when the first one appears!

Moving on

Firstly, thank you so very much, to all of you that left a comment on my previous post. It's so very much appreciated. My tears are all dried. I have a photo of her on the mantlepiece so I feel she's still with us.

Anyway, he's a photo I took a few weeks ago of a rather lovely mushroom (actually one of many!) that sprung up in the garden. We were able to absolutely identify it and found it was edible. Well.....you know how button mushrooms shrink? Well this deflated. Smelt very mushroomy but had a slippery texture. I think I will pass, if anymore spring up.

My life lately is out to work in the morning, back home, cup of tea and out into the garden preparing for some new arrivals. Watch this space! When this preparation is over I'll be concentrating on making the back bedroom/study more a workspace than dumping ground. I really need to get back to making some bears.

Before I head out to the garden wrapped up warm, I'm going to re-design my blog head banner. I see so much lovely eye candy in blogland, I feel mine needs to 'pop' a bit more.

Toodle pip for now.

Hugs, Sarah x

Farewell my lovely

We woke to an incredibly sad day Sunday. Lily, one of our most precious of cats had died in the night at the age of seventeen.

She was boney and deaf due to old age, but still had the most willing of purrs. You only had to smile at her to set her off.

Outwardly I may seem fine, but I still have that lump of sadness within me. I'm still teary, but keep looking back at what a wonderful cat she was.

Lily had come to us a sickly and feral kitten. A week after we had got her my Dad died suddenly. She helped me through it. My focus went on her. The vet was doubtful she would make it. She was riddled with cat flu and ear mites. I remember studying her nose one day and discovering it was actually pink not black. It was covered in solid dirt.

When she was younger she would cuddle up in bed with you, head on the pillow beside you purring. She would sleep in the bed just like us humans, head and front paws on the pillow with the rest of her down under the covers. She even got to know the word 'bedtime' and would dash upstairs ahead of anyone who was retiring for the night. She also knew the word 'birdies' and would fly to the window to watch the birds devouring what had been put out for them.

I'm biased I know, but she was so very special.

There's a light on her grave the comes on when it gets dark. I like to look out and know she's there sleeping.

Farewell Lily my lovely, I'll always miss you.

Sarah x