Achievement

The weather hasn't been terribly inspiring, although why I think that winter equates to crisp, frosty mornings having lived all of my life in the mild south-east I'll never know. Anyway, I decided to move the poultry runs around a bit to save my lawn. [Grass-and-buttercups I mean, it doesn't qualify as lawn.]

So, I put the mallard calls in the broody coop and moved them and the whites up next to the large hen enclosure:

And then the bunnies could go in the duck run:

Serious grazing to be done

I then moved the chicks plus the extension run up near the house behind the hedge:

which means I can't use that pathway but it's better than ruining the half decent patch of grass (bunny excavations aside) behind the apple trees. I am now left with the cleared border where the ducks were:

Hmm. I will probably mulch it and cover it with black plastic to protect it from the weather and encourage some worms. I want to divide up my lupins and plant out a few of my hollyhocks; if I can do the whole thing with my own propagated plants I shall be extremely pleased.

So, I am now left with a garden which can be left alone for the rest of the winter so it doesn't get churned up. Well that was the plan, except the bunnies escaped from their run (ducks are less inquisitive about a loose section of chicken wire but the rabbits soon found it) so Amber, Rose and I were sliding around the garden trying to catch the frolicking Willow and Scarlet as they galloped joyfully through the mud.

That would have been ok except about 20 minutes later I heard the chicks squawk and flap in alarm and I realised one of nextdoor's pigs was strolling across my borders, soon joined by his wife. Getting them back to where they belong didn't help the state of the lawn, it must be said....

I have finished the mitts I started in the Debbie Bliss alpaca silk aran that I had used for my raven hat:

They aren't meant to match!

I have found some wool stuffing (to use instead of polyester) on the Jamieson and Smith website which also has lovely yarns in muted colours so I might get some to make some socks with. I found a really simple sock pattern on a blog I really enjoy - Slow Living Essentials so I'd like to knit some as the children never have any socks, and not just because the dog hides them under the bed.

So what with that and sorting out some marital debt problems, I feel as if I have had a good productive day. However I think I have a cold coming and feel rather tired as the children seem to become highly co-operative after 9 pm and start inviting each other to read books together/play cards/chat - behaviour which is starkly absent at a more helpful time.

Hooray! It's the weekend! :-)

Knockhatch

We went to Knockhatch today with Shinies Home Ed Group which was a lot of fun - there were about 40 of us and the place was pretty deserted (well, until we arrived) so the children had a great time.

That was actually the Under-10's section but nobody got hurt!

There was a Bird of Prey display - this chap was a turkey vulture:

 And Tristan enjoyed the astroturf toboggan:

So we got back home tired and hungry but everyone had enjoyed themselves. We had to take Willow the bunny to the vet as one of her toes had gone all skewiff so I think she must have caught it on something, and Joanna still has a bit of a droopy wing. She wasn't really dressed for a trip out having been trench-excavating:

But she had dried off by the time we reached Lewes. The vet we saw is someone I remember from my farming days 20-something years ago and he also used to treat our family dog who was er, not the most co-operative of patients. I asked him if he remembered Paddie, our spaniel-based mongrel and Bill replied that yes, indeed he did, and gave a worried look towards Scruff, presumably in case he was a descendant with the same temperament. I reassured him that it was just the bunny and the duck in need of attention, although poor Scruff had the torture of having to sit by as the rabbit hopped around the consulting room inches from his nose, and then even worse, the duck waddled around flapping and quacking. I was very impressed that he managed to subdue his gundog instincts!

I managed to have a walk round the garden before it started getting dark:

My morning

I am very lucky that actually I look forward to getting up in the morning, especially in such glorious weather. Usually Amber is up and comes to help me with the animals, and I find it such a calming start to the day to wander round the garden with a cup of tea and check on the plants and watch the natural world gear up for the day. I saw 4 thrushes fly over this morning - I'm not sure if they're winter migrants; if so, they probably wonder if they've overshot Britain. In fact, with it being sunny and warm I am finding it so calming that I rarely get round to doing anything else all day but hey, there's going to be loads of opportunities to stay indoors and hoover once this Indian Summer breaks.

Chicks out...

Ducks out...

Bunnies taken to the larger pen

Ah, cute Willow

Ducks back in...

Bees let themselves out...

Maud out, greenhouse unzipped...

Dog out...

Blue sky and autumn leaves

Nice way to start the day :-)

Knitting and Gardening :-)

I am pleased to say that after my rather dismal day on Friday, today was lovely. Saturday evening had been spent with Nicky which was lovely too, as I was able to get on with my Super-Glam Chunky Headband with 10mm needles and Big Wool as Nicky took pity on me and loaned me a ball in orange (my favourite colour). It's quite strange knitting with such big needles - Teletubbies knitting I called it - but it knitted up really fast:

I finished it while watching Birds Britannica and Horizon on iPlayer, and I also finished the grey headband without too many more mistakes and utilised the crochet flower decoration to hide the worst of the botched stitches.

Today Charles and I decided to head over to Hartfield to see the house where he grew up and also visit a nursery there. We had lunch at a nice pub, The Anchor:

And headed on to Perryhill Nursery. It was fab - I've never seen so many different varieties of the old favourites, even a black pansy, which I didn't really want but it was rather incredible:

Needless to say we ended up with a trolley, but not a trolley-load...

I got a lovely sedum called 'Strawberries and Cream':

The bees love it, and I already have one called 'Rhubarb and Custard' so I am sticking with a pudding theme; nothing wrong with that. There was also a lovely Verbascum in pale pink:

And this one which I can't remember what it's called but I love the flowers:

And as they were quite expensive I managed to split them up a bit so they will go further. I also got a yellow Echinacea and an Achillea 'Apple Blossom' too, which is pink through to white, a bit like the sedum. Yum :-)

Few pics of my grown-up chickles:

And an action shot of the bunnies:

Plus I had a cuddle with both John and Jean the ducks, and I put them down again and they went into their house quacking indignantly - "Did you see what she did to me??" "I know!! - that's the second time this week!" "What is the matter with her???"

I don't think they enjoyed it quite as much as I did, but then they are technically teenagers now...

Broody coops and crochet

I spent most of yesterday at Simon and Joss' building a broody coop for Mary which took rather longer than expected! I was going to post a picture but I still need to staple on the wire so I'll post a pic when it's done. Nicky came over in the evening for a meeting of the CCG which went very well - I made a waxcap mushroom, Nicky a Common Blue butterfly:

Rosie has been pestering asking me to make her a rose so I did:

And we discussed children, crafts and homeschooling over tea, cake and hooks/needles.

This morning Joss was coming over to deliver the broody coop (it wouldn't fit in my boot even with all the seats down which in any case would have been slightly dubious from a passenger safety point of view since I had the kids with me) so I was about to walk the dog quickly before she arrived when I was met by the hedge trimmer guys. Whilst discussing which bits of hedge to do and telling them to part the detritus and adopt a policy of 'if it doesn't get out of the way, you can step on it', I noticed Henry, head lowered, wings out, doing his testosterone-fuelled dominance pose as Scarlet who was grazing quietly under the apple trees, completely disregarding the cockerel's threats.

"Ah!" I said to the hedge trimmer guys, "She shouldn't be there - could you keep an eye on her while I get my daughter? Oh, and look out for another one please....the grey and white one" so having yelled for Amber we finally managed to steer Scarlet back into the run and I extracted Willow from the lupins where she had evidently been burrowing, looking at the mud all over my shirt. The bunnies loved the beech branches and the guys kindly left a bundle of clippings for them when they left. I had pointed out they could have a carbon-neutral shredding service if they had thousands of rabbits in their trailer. Yes I do say these things out loud sometimes :-/

Joss arrived with the coop and we discussed homeschool and drank tea (do you see a theme?) and as she left, Kate arrived. Kate and I drank tea and discussed crochet and had a go at a granny square whilst trying to decipher what a bobble stitch entailed. Then Kate left and Charles arrived, and we had shepherd's pie and watched 2 episodes of Bang Goes The Theory on iPlayer.

What a lovely day! With the bonus that I can now see the field out of my kitchen window:

Last day

I'm still feeling a bit in limbo due to all this time to do what I want but the children are back at 5pm JMT so I've got my usual Sunday morning need-to-make-the-most-of-it feeling so that's good! Yesterday I carded some more fleece and washed the wool I'd done and I now have some thick dreadlock-weight wool with which to knit a, um, er, well perhaps a dog rug or something. It is from a Jacob sheep though so I have to remind myself that's it's not going to be very refined even if it didn't have me at the helm...they make carpet out of it for a reason.

I also finished uncovering my overgrown steps and making a virtue out of a necessity with a missing slab by refilling the space with thyme and gravel:

Of course it now has chicken wire over it but it looks pretty good.  Talking of hens, I think Mary might be going broody. She was standing by the duck pen glowering at John and Jean with her head down, shoulders forward and all her feathers on end looking like an angry porcupine. She's been making strange distracted clucky noises too a bit like Maud (although hers is because she's in constant fear and dread of Henry appearing from behind a hedge) so hmm...perhaps. It's been a while since I've had a broody hen so I might sit her on a couple of eggs if she does.

Mary

I now have a spare rabbit hutch which I'm sure my parents would never have brought over if they'd known I was going to use it for evil purposes like raising chicks :-) I did put the bunnies in it today though as I need to give the house bit of their ark a good scrub with Poultry Cleanse as it really pongs.

I've managed to affix the run and with some judiciously placed bits of wood and bricks I'm hoping they won't get out. Unfortunately though it does mean you can't see the beautiful hutch with its painted doors but it is a work of art thanks to Mum, and Dad redid the roof. I'm hoping to get round to painting the duck run in the same forget-me-not blue.

Maud with an appropriately-named bottle.

I suppose I ought to go and empty the dishwasher and do some studying or a bit of crochet while I can as not sure how this evening's going to go. It's always a bit tricky when the children come home as they all want all of me NOW and I think that might go double as they've been gone for a week. Any ideas for how to split myself into 6 would be gratefully received.

:-)

Strimming with rabbits

Now, one of my many bright ideas was to literally harness the grazing power of the bunnies in order to get into those awkward corners that their run doesn't fit in to, as currently there are lots of neat rectangles of cropped grass [admittedly with burrows and poo] but plenty of areas of long grass and dandelions around the vegetable patches etc. So, leads and harnesses were purchased and Amber has done a fantastic job of getting Willow up to scratch (again, literally - poor girl looks like she's been through razor wire) but Scarlet is very bouncy.

So, with a free morning today, we had a go:

First, persuade your strimmer to come out of the shed

Next, strim round the places where the mower cannot reach, like under a bike

Continue until, as with their mechanical counterparts...

....one runs amok through the herb bed...

...and the other conks out completely

So after a relatively successful morning's strimming, the bunnies were put back into their run to carry on with the regular mowing.

T has gone to Joel's for a sleepover which means I don't have to think up 3 square meals for the next 24 hours as the girls don't seem to notice if it's wall to wall toast with the odd omlette thrown in for protein. I have been carrying on with my crocheted cockerel and filling in my field notebook for Summer School - any course where it is a requirement to purchase stationery gets off to a good start as far as I'm concerned. I've also been reading about the Great Ice Age and attempting to tidy the kitchen but I felt my allergy coming on again so gave up and picked some flowers instead.

All from my garden!

My family and other animals

Amber woke up and went to collect her bunny for a cuddle:

Then Maud came in to the kitchen for her breakfast:

and then everyone else emerged so the day had begun. The lead training with Willow the bunny continues - she is almost walking to heel:

I was having Laura's children today as L desperately needed to get on with revising for an exam so when she arrived we sat and had coffee and watched the ducks for really quite a long time.

My book from Amazon arrived, all about geological field techniques which is very good if slightly frightening. I now have my timetable for my Summer School in Durham so that's exciting although we are having breakfast at 7am apparently which will be a shock to my system. I am wondering whether I really need to invest in proper Craghopper-type trews as we are advised not to wear jeans. You never know, I may even need shorts!! I am hoping, at least, that it won't snow as it did on my last field trip. I am flitting between really looking forward to it as it's about the one time I really feel I can switch off and not be responsible for anyone or anything apart from myself but there is also the panic that goes with leaving the responsibility for everyone and everything to other people. Not that I'm a control freak or anything :-)

I'm going to do a science session in a bit with my set of magnetic chromosomes (from the OU; my DNA doesn't stick to the fridge) and then this evening Nicky is coming round to hopefully furnish me with some new knitting and crocheting supplies so that I can tackle all the projects I've got my eye on. Henry is moulting I think as I keep finding the most amazing black and orange feathers around the garden. Surely there's some Navaho crochet thing I could incorporate them into...

I've just noticed all the juicy blackberries on the brambles outside/across my lounge window!