Frozen days

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 17 January 2012 in chickens, growing | 1 comment

I took these photos yesterday but between one thing (Strowger ;)) and another (getting obsessed about doing something pointless & time-consuming that wasn’t on my to-do list), I didn’t get around to posting them. However, thankfully it looks just the same out there today – just less sunny and more icy – so I can post them today without it being incongruous ;)

Along with most of the UK, we had our first properly frozen days of winter over the weekend. It’s been so mild for the last month that they came as a bit of a shock to the system really. Because it’s been so mild, the garden is still quite green in parts, albeit mostly weedy green ;) If I was taking part in the Salad 52 Challenge, it would be mostly bittercress at the moment – icy bittercress:

Further down the garden, all the moss tendrils on the stone raised bed walls have their own white highlights and the blackberry bush reminds me it needs cutting back:

Last year, with all the snow, we didn’t have a just-icy period so this is the first time I’ve seen the greenhouse iced up. It’s also the first time I’ve seen frost looking really like patterned window glass.

Of course, the only reason I’m really venturing out into the garden at all is to do chicken things – chilly jobs in this weather. The gate into the run has swollen and is frosty so I have to give it a good wack with my bum to open it, especially when I’m carrying things. I’m glad that I have put so much time, effort and food into developing a bum with sufficient girth to achieve such a task over the last few years ;)

All the structure of the run – including my new roof – is coated in glassy white crystals. It looks so cold:

But the chickens themselves are fine. After four frozen days, I’ve got into a good routine for defrosting their big new drinker so I can do it nice and efficiently before my hands drop off from frostbite. I’m very glad they got a new batch of woodchips at the start of the year though – they don’t freeze as solidly as mud/the ground did last year and so they can still have dirt baths in their favourite spot under the coop and scratch around plenty too:

Looking up from the chickens, the sky was a lovely soft blue yesterday but the sun surprisingly strong (for winter):

It was certainly enough to i) lure Boron-cat from the house and ii) reveal he’s secretly ginger ;)

Is it icy where you are? How are you/your animals & garden dealing with it? And those in the Southern hemisphere: come on, make us jealous by telling us how lovely & warm it is where you are :)

Ten things

Posted by louisa on Monday 6 June 2011 in chickens, cooking, DIY, frugal, growing, soap | 2 comments

1. Buff the chicken has been in isolation since last Wednesday since the others started really *viciously* bullying her (as I said on Twitter, it’s disturbing how vicious chickens can be). I think there have been pecking order issues over the last few weeks and it’s stopped her being able to eat properly. She feels very bony (even for a pure breed) and is weak as a result – looking back at old photos of her, the difference is stark. I’m hoping some time by herself and some special food will turn her around but I wouldn’t be surprised to go down one morning to find she’d died overnight. Sigh.
2. We painted the bathroom on Sunday – not the woodwork yet but the second coat of the walls, ahead of the cupboards being fitted tomorrow. One June mini goal down (nearly)!
3. In other housey news, last year we found a hidden coal hole at the front of our house and over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been having it damp-proofed and turned into a utility room. It’s not been cheap but now has a proper full height doorway and is a proper extra room for the house – it’ll free up room in the kitchen too. It should be finished this week, hurrah!
4. While that’s going on at great expense inside, John’s DIY-mad dad is fitting a fence for us outside — to help contain the dog and the chickens a bit more. The fence is going to be rather frugal for a new fence as the lumberyard John’s dad goes to was throwing away about 20 horizontal fencing beams and some posts, because they’d got slightly bleached in the sun so couldn’t be sold “as new” any more. Madness! But useful timing for us!
5. And speaking of freebies, someone was taking a seemingly brand new electric staple gun in its case at the tip last time John’s dad was visiting – they told him it was “broken” but he took it home and found they’d just inserted the staplers in the wrong place. We now have a brand new working electric staple gun for free ;)
6. I never used to use bar soap to wash anywhere other than my hands – it left a film and dried my skin, causing my face in particular to get greasier in compensation. But my olive oil soap leaves my skin clean and soft – and it stays feeling that way for 12+ hours unlike just about every other cleaning method I’ve tried. I very much like it.
7. I made the ugliest soda bread I’ve ever made today – I don’t know what went wrong but it grew really unevenly. Still tasted lovely with soup for lunch though :)
8. Some of my rapini has gone to seed – the heads weren’t big enough to warrant harvesting. Damn the hot spring!
9. Do you make your own quiches? I’m looking for (frugal) store-cupboard recipe quiche ingredient ideas for when we’ve not got much else in — Viksterbean on Twitter suggested antipasti such as olives and artichokes, and that made me think about adding a swirl of pesto too. Any other ideas?
10. Boron would like it to be known that I did not write this post alone. Apologies for the poor quality of my webcam – I only ever use it for these type of pics ;)



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Chickens and dogs & cats

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 27 April 2011 in chickens | 9 comments

A few people have asked me – offline and on – about what our dog and cats think of the chickens – and what the chickens think of them.

The dog

I won’t deny it – their relationship was a little fraught at first. Lily-dog was very excited by the hens – and if let into the airlock (the space between the enclosed run and the rest of the garden), she would grunt & nose the chicken wire looking for a weakness. The chickens would squawk and flutter away, which made her even more excited – she doesn’t tend to chase things unless they run from her, then game on. I took her in to meet them a couple of times: I’d have her on a very short leash and she would be fine with them – sniffing the birds and their poo piles on the floor – for a while, then would bolt at them and I would very quickly eject her from the run. I had to make sure she was firmly behind a locked gate before I let the chickens loose in the garden, even in their portable run because she’d nudge at it with her nose. I suspect she’d wouldn’t have known how to undo the feathery wrapping if she had ever got hold of one but I don’t doubt she’d have given it a good chewing to find out.

Lily is generally a very gentle dog though so I hoped that in time, she’d settle down – and she has. There has been a definite “friends not food” shift over the last few weeks – I’m not sure what caused it (familiarity? boredom? being called a bad girl for bolting?) but she doesn’t seem to have any interest in chasing them any more.

A few months ago, this scene would have scared the heck out of me:

But you know why she’s looking at them like that? it’s because they’re in the way:

She wanted to run down the path to the beck and they were hogging the steps – she ran by as soon as the path was clear.

She’ll sit in the run while I’m cleaning the coop out and hardly even deign to look at the feathered ones – just happy to be next to me (there is nothing like a dog with separation anxiety to make you feel like the most special person in the world). When they’re loose in the garden, she’ll watch them more closely – but as if she’s doing me a favour, being a watchful hen-nanny, rather than a predator (this is typical of her – she tattle-tails on the cats if they’re scratching somewhere they shouldn’t).

And what of the chickens – what do they think of the round hound? They divide into two camps – the brave ISA Browns (Lime, Green & Blue) on one side and the more flighty girls on the other. The brave bunch don’t bat an eyelid around her – as the picture above kinda shows. The other four keep out of her way – stay on the other side of the run while she’s in there, or jump up onto a perch – but they’re not freaked out and squawking, which I think helps Lily stay calm too.

The cats

Almost from day one, the cats have been indifferent towards the chickens when they’re in their run or thereabouts. They can’t easily be food and they aren’t a threat, so who cares? When they’ve seen them loose in the garden, they’re a bit more interested but about three seconds after I took that picture, Boron had a bit of a wash and wandered away – not exactly fixated.

(Boron was once feral but once he no longer had to hunt to survive, he quickly gave up that pursuit. He is about ninety-hundred years old now and had to have his teeth removed because of gum problems so I don’t really worry for the chickens’ safety when he’s around.)

Our neighbours have cats too – and one of the them, a giant fluffy tom cat called Daisy, often sits about 6ft from the run, watching the chickens through the fence. He’s got the youthful vigour and muscle to do more damage than Boron but I think he just likes Chicken TV — a few weeks ago, he and his brother suddenly appeared when two of our chickens were loose in the garden. I saw their eyes widen but, like with ours, they realised it wasn’t worth the effort when there was some already bitesized, feather-free meat pieces in a dish in their house. Meat that can’t do this if cornered:

So in summary, the cats & dog couldn’t really care less about the chickens – I’m not sure I’d leave any of them locked in the run with the chickens for an extended period of time but they’re happy enough pottering around the garden together, and I’m happy enough with that.

Do you have other animals as well as chickens? How do they get along?

Toothless Thursday

Posted by louisa on Thursday 10 February 2011 in meta | 1 comment

Everyone else does “Wordless Wednesday” photos. Thanks to my old man, Mr Boron, I’m doing a “Toothless Thursday”.

It’s lovely in the garden today – sunny and still. I stood amongst the bare beds thinking about where everything will go this year. My to-make list grew longer with plans.

An expensive week at the vets

Posted by louisa on Friday 12 November 2010 in frugal | 1 comment

We’ve had an expensive week at the vets this week.

Our old cat Boron has always been more prone to dental problems than the others: he had to have his top fangs (amongst others) out a few years ago, giving him a wonderful gurning grin, then on Monday, he had to have pretty much the rest of his teeth out. He’s now just got one left, a molar or premolar I forget which.

At £240, it was an expensive day out for the little chap but he should be happier now – I suspect his gums were hurting a lot before.

But there’s more. As part of the pre-op blood tests, they found he had slightly higher than normal T4, which means he’s got hyperthyroidism. Hyperthyroidism is apparently an increasingly common condition in older cats – although according to some sources, it’s probably not actually increasing in frequency, it probably just increasing in diagnosis. Just about every very old (14+) cat I’ve ever known has been a bit too skinny and not as rigorous about keeping their fur as immaculate as they used to be – I always assumed that was an old cat thing but it seems like it’s probably hyperthyroidism.

There are apparently three ways to treat hyperthyroidism – an operation, radiotherapy (which gives them radioactive poo for 3-5 weeks!) or ongoing medication every day for the rest of their lives. The radiotherapy thing isn’t an option – it costs over £1500 and the cat has to live in a special cattery for it’s glowing poop period – and our vet kinda glossed over the operation option (telling me about how they’re reluctant to operate on hyperthyroid cats because the common hyperthyroidism symptoms – such as increased heart rate, high blood pressure or damage to other organs – make it a danger to operate — but Boron had an operation on Monday…). So it’s pills every day for the rest of his life.

If we buy them monthly from the vet, it’ll cost £28 a month (93p a day). If we buy a full tub from the vet – 100 tablets – it’ll be £71 (71p a day). I can get them cheaper online – £41 for the 100 tablets, although I’ll need a prescription from the vets for £10 – but still 51p a day in total. There will also be ongoing monitoring blood tests (one after a month, then hopefully just every six months) which are about £40 a pop.

Boron’s a marvellous, loving cat and in the ten years we’ve been together, he’s never been an expensive high maintenance cat so he’s worth it. Knowing about it now, there is no way we can not treat it but it’s another thing to add into the budget…