I got paid today!
I wish I knew how much. They’re using new payroll software and my payslip is encrypted. Nobody told me the password.
It should probably hit the bank tomorrow and I can see it on my statement.
Free money! I have a feeling we’ll be paying for this free money a long, long time.
April 29, 2020 — 7:13 pm
Comments: 17
What happens when you get them wet…
We have had glorious weather for the past six weeks, which has made my lockdown positively splendid.
Today, we returned to wet and cold and I can’t believe how miserable it is. I can’t believe we endured seven months of this, but darker and colder, this winter. I can’t believe I survived it.
It should be a little better for the next few days, and better still for a few after that, but I don’t mind admitting I got spoiled.
Ironically, the polands can see a lot better when their crests are soaked and spikey.
April 28, 2020 — 7:07 pm
Comments: 3
Stop laughing at me!
This time of year, our garden is full of laughter. Well, laughing frogs. Also known as the Hungarian marsh frog.
As the name implies, they are not native. They were deliberately imported into a garden in Ashford in the Thirties, from whence they spread to Romney Marsh and thence west from ditch to pond unto our very garden. They never stray far from water.
The story is here.
If you would like to listen to four minutes and thirty three seconds of what this shit sounds like (and who wouldn’t?), be my guest.
Hello! Happy Monday. Everyone still here?
April 27, 2020 — 8:28 pm
Comments: 6
Bunny season
Welly’s first bunny! Not this, this is a ten year old picture. I didn’t get a pic of today’s bunny, I was too busy bunny wrangling.
The boys didn’t seem to mind. They thought I was hunting with them.
Big boy killed one first. Not too much screaming or torture, so I didn’t interfere, but I’m sorry to say he didn’t eat it and it just lay in the grass giving the occasional post-mortem twitch.
Then Welly caught one. I think it got away from him – they were playing ball with it for a while. I grabbed someone’s bunny to rescue it and the little bastard fought like the devil to get away from me. Stupid bunny.
I don’t always interfere. I am at peace with the idea that cats are sadistic thugs. But I can’t have my peaceful garden experience tainted with the screaming and the running and the blood and the whole bunny murder thing.
I could see roughly where the nest was. Whenever I took a bunny away from Big Cat he’d shrug, go over to the bunny pile and grab another one.
Mrs Bunny made a very bad choice this spring.
Have a good weekend, everyone, and don’t bear your bunnies just any old where!
p.s. my Zoom call went better than expected. We had seven of us on at one time, and I was taken aback at how moved I was to see the old dears again.
April 24, 2020 — 7:17 pm
Comments: 11
Firsts…
Last night, Wellington didn’t come in when we called. Baby’s first all nighter. He was fine, and I’ll be astonished if he doesn’t do it again tonight.
I’m sure you’d like to see a pic of this handsome brute in color.
Today, I heard the old familiar shrieking and, sure enough, Big Kitty caught the first baby bunny of the season. I don’t know if he ate it or if it got away. I only interfere when I can’t stand the screaming any more.
And tomorrow, the old dears I used to have coffee with of a Friday morning are going to try and have our first virtual coffee morning by Zoom. We have our familiar Whatsapp to fall back on if everybody’s technology gets discombobulated.
Any of you using Zoom?
April 23, 2020 — 8:05 pm
Comments: 15
With a cat, always dignity
The two cats are getting along as well as I’d hoped. In the evenings, they chase each other up and down the length of the garden. It’s quite a sight.
Sadly, the new kitty is shaping up to be a chicken chaser 🙁
Must go. I have actual *work* to do. I have to do it as a volunteer, though.
April 22, 2020 — 8:54 pm
Comments: 1
Pardon me, lady, your chicken is leaning
Chel is still following me around the garden making a nuisance of herself. I stepped on her toe at one point today, which I felt awful about, but I don’t think she’s damaged. She certainly didn’t learn a lesson.
To answer your question, DurnedYankee, the landmark birthday coming up in May is six-oh. The funny thing about that is, I’m the youngest person in our social circle, so I get to be old and still be the stupid kid.
Age is just a number. A stupid, evil, painful number.
April 21, 2020 — 6:44 pm
Comments: 16
Not turning into Greta, I promise
Have you noticed the air is noticeably sweeter and the skies clearer? Do you like the silence? When you do go out and you’re about the only thing on the road, do you remember when it used to be like that all the time?
The Extinction Rebellion types are already saying, “see? We can do it if we try.” But I think the public reaction will be two-fold: now we have lived the way you want us to for a couple of months and it is not for us. And, gosh, have we let this island get severely overcrowded.
Yesterday they announced three more weeks of lockdown, taking us squarely into Weasel’s Birthday Month. It’s a landmark birthday this year, too. Oh, well…I guess I can stop worrying about how I’ll observe it.
Have a good weekend, everyone — where weekends are just days like any other.
p.s. no chicken pictures today. They hopped the fence and got into Uncle B’s vegetable patch and he is full sore.
April 17, 2020 — 6:59 pm
Comments: 13
More chook talk
BJM asked for more pics of Spoon and Chel, on account of they are funny. Here’s Spoon and Po, back when Po still had a big, round, poofy girly crest. All my boys looked like girls until they were almost three months old.
And Deborah HH asked how I feel about the boys, since I had resisted have a rooster for so long.
I like my boys. Males have lots of strut and personality. Unfortunately, they can be crazy aggressive with each other (and with people, too, though none of mine are). I spend a lot of my day shuffling cockerels around to make sure everyone gets some garden time.
I’m sure it’s pretty miserable for the boys in captivity. They particularly hate seeing other cockerels having sex, and I make sure certain hens only go with certain boys (they have definite preferences).
The alternative was death. Experienced chicken keepers, even of hobby flocks, toughen up and kill their excess boys. I couldn’t. It would ruin the whole chicken experience for me.
I’m told if you have enough room and enough girls, you can keep multiple boys without incident. In fact, I’ve seen it. One of my chook suppliers has a mixed flock that seems to get along pretty well.
All-girl flocks are just fine, and I’m not sure I’d seek out another cockerel in future. To build such a flock, though, means getting chickens from someone else and choosing a breed you can sex at an early age. You want them young enough that they will get used to handling, but old enough that you can reliably spot the girls. For Pekins, that’s about six weeks.
This will rule out Polands for me in the future, sadly, as it’s months before you can tell for sure. It also rules out incubating my own eggs, which is even sadder. I loved hatching eggs!
p.s. did I mention roosters are noisy as hell?
April 15, 2020 — 7:20 pm
Comments: 8
That makes sense…
Thanks to social distancing, drive in theaters are making a comeback. There. Not here. They never had a first time here, on account of the weather.
We’ve had a return to cold the past two days, and I now understand why some people aren’t loving the lockdown. *shakes fist at sky*
Pictured: Sam. Once head cockerel, now just one of many.
April 14, 2020 — 7:24 pm
Comments: 9