Snowed in!

Yesterday it snowed quite heavily in a short period of time, enough to cause Youngest son's school to be closed at lunch time enforcing an early finish from work for me. By late afternoon we were surrounded by a Winter Wonderland! Hubby made it home safely from work, driving all the way back from Head Office in Surrey, but had to leave his car at the neighbouring farmhouse as he couldn't get down our driveway. Last night more snow fell & when we measured this morning we had 8 inches of beautiful, clean, crisp white snow lying all around us! The dogs all bounded out into the garden & came to a rapid halt! It was way deeper than it looked. Maggie just about managed with some extra bounce in her step but poor Mabel being of diminutive proportions (OK, she's a real short-arse!) had to bounce like a Tiggery thing to get about. Poor Polo soon grew heavy snow boots - great clods of snow sticking to the fine fur on her legs. Not good when you're 10 & have arthritis in your back legs! So it was decided that just big Meggie dog should go out for a walk in the snow drifts. She did enjoy it so & played like a puppy!

There was certainly no way that any of us were going anywhere fast, so whilst poor hubby had to work at the kitchen table the lads & I ventured out into this Winter Wonderland to dig the critters out & make sure they were all fed & watered & kept safe and snug.

Once they had been dug out of their houses the ducks & geese all ventured out. The ducks greeted the snow like excited children, the geese a little grumpier as they couldn't get to the grass to graze. A good sprinkling of grated parsnip on the snow soon cheered them up. Big Cheese certainly didn't lose his smile over the chilly stuff!

However, we did discover that white ducks don't look so white in the snow!

Most of the hens were very sensible & stayed in their house which, although decorated with icicles on the outside, was cosy on the inside.

Snapdragon & Spicy the two young Welsummer cockerels, now feeling macho as they begin to mature, did bravely venture out - but not very far! Hattie was brave, or foolish enough to go further, but she hopped about very gingerly in the cold stuff.

The chicklets were all snuggled up in the shed & tucked into some corn in the afternoon to help them generate extra body heat to keep them warm overnight. Poor Cassie had another near death experience after Xmas that again I was thankfully able to bring her back from, so it has meant that the chicklets have had their heat lamp back on overnight. It just takes the edge off during the freezing nights. The cold doesn't seem to bother them one bit during the day time when they are their active & inquisitive selves!

Once the birds were all taken care of it was time for some fun, but I did get worried when it looked like this great big snowball was headed my way!

My sons made lovely snow people. I thought the one on the right looked a little magical, then later when I was snuggled up inside reading another enlightening chapter of 'Hedgewitch' it struck me that it was a little like a crude representation of the Horned God - was this a sign that witchcraft is the Pagan path intended for me? I have learned that witchcraft is a beautiful, healing path of Nature 'magic' based around worship of two main symbolisms of Nature - the Goddess, representing Mother Earth & the Horned God representing her consort, the Father of all Life. The Horned God I have learned, just like withcraft, is nothing to be feared or suspicious about & has nothing whatsoever to do with evil or the devil. The God's horns are a powerful image of vitality, wildness & life force - the same emotions the vision of a magnificent stag might bring to your heart.

I feel uplifted & invigorated by what I am reading & learning. I am also expecting some introductory literature on Druidry in the post to see how it sits with me. It's like a candle flame within my soul is suddenly burning more brightly with a beautiful white golden flame. A flame of cleansing maybe, to prepare me for my path. A flame that will light my way. I hope so.

The snow has brought other thoughts to me. Snow is so beautiful when it first lies on the ground, virgin & white. It doesn't take long for us to turn it to dirty slush. Mother Nature is at her most beautiful when untouched by our hand. It has made me feel more resolved to take a more active role in caring for this planet & being gentle to Mother Earth. I am resolved to grow more of my own produce this year, regardless of whether the garden is also home to chickens or ducks. I can use mesh to protect my plantings. I will try & be more eco-friendly in my daily life. I will write to my MP's urging them to make the right decisions when it comes to 'Green issues' & take part in campaigns. It may all seem like feeble efforts against the hugely daunting & frightening disaster that Global Warming is, but each & everyone must surely do something so that we can say to our children that we acted.

Whatever path you may be on or what plans you may have for 2010 I do hope that you feel inspired & ready to make a good start.

Blessed be x

Some pictures to end the year with

I spent such a chilly but happy half an hour with my lovely critters today. Friends old & new. What a wonderful year I've had with them, full of treasured memories to keep forever.

As this year closes I'd just like to send HAPPY NEW YEAR wishes to you all. I hope 2010 will be full of love, harmony & happiness & I look forward to sharing new adventures with you.

........... Oooo, and don’t forgot to make a wish on the full BLUE MOON on New Year’s Eve. It's magical you know.

It's wet & muddy outside....but it's dry inside at last!

Tonight our barn is resounding with the sound of ....... SILENCE. Blissful silence! No more fans blowing noisily away, no more dehumidifiers with their incessant, annoying humming! We're officially dry enough for the machines to be taken away. Which means that the insurance company should be in touch tomorrow to explain what happens with the repairs now.

There should be a shower here.

The bathroom needs putting back together.

New carpets & skirtings need to be fitted.

Walls need to be reconstructed & decorated.

It's amazing how much damage a water leak can do! But I'm very hopeful now that the place will be in a fit enough state for Mum & Dad to come & share the festive season with us, even if things are going to still be higgledy piggledy when Eldest Son comes home from Uni for his Xmas hols this Sunday.

It was also fairly dry last weekend, which meant that I got to spend some time with the new cockerels in our little field. They are coming on really well. Their plumage is getting more & more impressive as they grow bigger by the day. They are still young enough to be fairly meek, but grown up enough to hold their own with the hens now & strut their stuff about the field! What I'm most pleased about is how friendly & gentle they are. This, of course, I can't take the credit for. It's down to the way my friend Andy reared them - with love & kindness. They are hand tame & it's lovely to feed them corn from my hands (youngest son loves it too!). They are certainly more gentle than some of the hens, who shall remain nameless, who fair take your skin off when they come to enjoy a treat (ok it's the ex-battery girls, but it's not their fault. They're not so used to being fed from a caring human hand!).

Here's the gorgeous Merlin, the Copper Blue Maran cockerel, strutting his stuff! His colouring is stunning, shades of grey perfectly offsetting dramatic flashes of copper & gold. Of the four he seems to enjoy my company the most for some reason & is usually to be found close by me.

And here is mild mannered Mr Dorking, a Silver Dorking cockerel. He's a delightful, charming soul. He fixes me with calm eyes that seem filled with wisdom & knowledge - of what I'm not quite sure. I'm sure he will sit down & tell me one day!

This is handsome Snapdragon, showing off the beautiful green sheen in his feathers. He is a Welsummer cockerel. He's a very busy chap, always on the move, running about the place like some kind of action hero. Super Cockerel maybe? He's going to be quite the dandy.

And last, but by no means least, is Spicy, also a Welsummer. His nickname is Baby Spice at the moment, because he seems to be the 'baby' of the boys and therefore, it follows, the one I feel most clucky over. I'm sure he doesn't thank me for it, but I keep telling him that one day he is going to be so magnificent that it his nickname will seem ridiculous & we will laugh about it!

It is so lovely to have them as part of our flock and to be able to endlessly chat & share pictures of them with Andy, knowing he won't get fed up with me! Hubby & sons often look at me with that 'yeah, so it's yet another picture of one of the chickens' look.

Of course, certain of our feathered friends have enjoyed all this wet weather and are having trouble understanding why I am not quite so pleased with all the mud they have created!

Daisy & Seymour the Aylesbury ducks have made what they think is a stonkingly good mud slide into their pond! Hmmmm!

Its no good looking so innocent - I know which one of you has been dabbling again!

Something exciting happened at the weekend. Dear Izzy Whizzy, my Cream Legbar hen finally, at nine months old, stayed still long enough to lay me a beautiful blue egg! Hurray! I can now fill an egg box with pretty coloured eggs for my friends.

Every time I write about my critters it makes me beam from ear to ear & reminds me of just how much happiness they bring to my heart. True blessings from Mother Nature, each & every one of them & treasured beyond measure.

Hurray - I have my garden back!

This weekend wonderful, long suffering hubby fenced off a section of our little field so that I could do a strategic move around of the birds & reclaim the back garden before it got totally trashed by scavenging hens & ducks! Twice injured ex-battery hen Jess had healed up again & re grown some neck feathers, but I wasn't feeling confident enough to put her in with the rest of the hens. Puddles the Khaki Campbell duck was much recovered from the unwanted & rather rough attentions of Seymour the Aylesbury, but it was pointless putting her back in the field with him still on the prowl. The rescued Mallard ducklings had adopted Puddles as surrogate mum, so where ever she went the ducklings would want to go. What was best to do so that every bird's welfare was catered for? Well, after a bit of head scratching a plan was hatched, birds were caught & after a few ruffled feathers & surprised squawks a slightly puffed out eldest son & I had got it all sorted. Seymour was moved into the sectioned off area with his own mate Daisy so that poor Puddles could safely go up into the field with her duckling charges. Injured hen Jess, being quite used to ducks, was moved in with them making her visible to the other hens but safe from any aggression. This tactic will hopefully mean that a further attempt at introducing her to the flock might be successful, fingers crossed.

When freed back into the field Puddles immediately waddled over to rejoin Donald the Khaki Campbell drake & seemed to completely forget about her babies, so they looked bewildered & vulnerable to start with. However, lovely Chalk, my special Muscovy duck, soon arrived to investigate the new arrivals & seemingly sensing that they were only youngsters immediately took up position as their protector, seeing off some hens who flew at them rather aggressively. So with their unusual bodyguard the ducklings explored their new surroundings & companions. Pop, the gander, headed their way, head down, & for a moment I thought they were in trouble, but he was only making his presence known as top bird & king of the field. After just a few minutes the ducklings looked quite at home & were busily foraging for goodies in the grass. I knew that one discovery would make them extremely happy - the ponds! Sure enough, once they discovered the water they were happy little fellows happily swimming & splashing about. All four can fit into one pond, which is quite sweet to see. One of the Mallards (the one we call Ibbity) has a complete set of feathers now, but so far has shown no interest in flying away. I have stuck to the RSPB's advice & not clipped their wings so it is a case of 'will they' / 'won't they' fly off. They seem pretty contented at the moment anyway.

Seymour & Daisy didn't seem too perturbed at being separated from the rest of the ducks, but Tom & Cherry, the Cherry Valley ducks, were quite confused by the fact that they could no longer follow Seymour about in the hero worshipping manner they have humorously adopted. Silly billy Jess managed to get herself over the fence into the main field & was immediately surrounded by unwelcoming hens & had to be lifted back to safety! No injury this time though, so some slight progress I feel. She hasn't tried again since!

This afternoon all looks peaceful, with Tom & Cherry sat at the fence gazing at Seymour, the Mallard ducklings sat with Puddles, who seems to have taken up position of mother duck again, & everyone else just going about their business as usual. So I think I might dare begin tidying up my garden & plan some planting. However, Hubby says he has a sneaking suspicion that it won't be too long before some other rescued or orphaned creature will take up residence again. I can't imagine what makes him think that!

To finish here's picture of my gorgeous Muscovy drake Cheese, just because he was posing so nicely!

No love....Rough love....Mother love

No love....

Remarkably Jess fully recovered from the very nasty neck wound inflicted on her by some of her fellow ex battery hens. She just willed herself to get better I think because she so loved her new free life! So it was time to introduce her & mild mannered Lottie to the rest of the flock. As usual we used the trusted stealth technique of popping them into the hen house under cover of dark. This has never failed for me so I was expecting all to go well. However, when I let the hens out the following morning after just a couple of minutes ex-batt Norah flew at Jess. I left them to it for a moment, thinking it may be just a bit of harmless bickering, but the attack grew in ferocity & it was clear that Jess was in serious trouble. I had to quickly wade in & rescue her. Not a moment too soon either as Norah had partially reopened her neck wound! Poor Jess! I don't understand it! She is a very sweet hen & not the least bit aggressive herself. She's not the obvious bottom of the pecking order of the 6 ex-battery hens either, being larger & more feathered than some of the others. I hugged Jess to me & she quickly calmed & looked up at me with that oh so trusting look. I must admit to shedding a tear for my little girl.

So it was a case of more antiseptic spray & a return to the back garden for Jess. There were no such problems for Lottie so I have left her with the rest of the hens. I've been given a couple of ideas by fellow seasoned poultry keepers - one is to coat Jess in a special tar & the other to spray her with a foul smelling liquid called Ukadex to deter further pecking. So I'll let her heal again & persevere. If not it looks as though she is destined to be the garden hen that none of the others loved. Good job she's got big soft me!

Rough love....

My ducks are all confused! Apologies for this rather indelicate subject, but although each of the drakes has a mate of his own kind it would appear that none of them aside for Harold the Crested duck fancies his own mate. Donald the Khaki Campbell is besotted with Daisy the Aylesbury & regularly 'services' her without a single protest from her mate Seymour. Donald also has a thing for Little Wing the Indian Runner, however she is far too fast for him to catch!. Big Chief the Indian Runner drake keeps going after Jemima the Khaki Campbell. Donald rigorously defends Jemima though, so her honour is intact. The biggest problem in every sense is Seymour the Aylesbury drake. He is a handsome but cumbersome duck & he only has eyes for Puddles, our other Khaki Campbell. When I was in our little field at the weekend I noticed that Puddles was looking a bit sorry for herself & closer inspection revealed the damage that Seymour's advances had done to her.

The feathers on her back were raggedy & slightly blood stained. She also seemed to be limping. So I gently caught her & checked her over more thoroughly. Under her wings her back was red raw. Her legs both seemed OK though, definitely no serious damage. So it was down to the garden for Puddles! Our back garden seems to be becoming the sick ward for our rescued & injured birds. I sprayed Puddle's raw skin with antiseptic spray & put her in the penned off area with the little rescued Mallard ducklings. They are funny when faced with anything they are not sure about. The all run for cover under the old hutch. Then because they are ducks & ducks are naturally inquisitive, their curiosity gets the better of them so they choose a 'volunteer' among them & unceremoniously push this fellow out into the danger zone! If no horrors become this duckling the others will cautiously venture out.

After going through this funny routine they decided that Puddles was friend rather than foe & carried on with their dabbling & preening.

I'm very happy to report that Puddles is looking much better & that because she & the growing ducklings needed rather more space than the enclosure would allow, today they were given the freedom of the garden.

Injured Jess seemed happy to be joined by her ducky friends & they all enjoyed foraging in the wet grass together. It was such a heart warming sight.

Unless any readers of my blog can suggest a solution to this muddle, Hubby is going to pen a section of the field off for Daisy & Seymour with their own house & pond to prevent any further rough love!

Mother love....

I received my own dose of Mother love when we dropped Mum & Dad's dog back to them on Sunday. It's something I need on a regular basis! Today & tomorrow I have days off work so I can shower my lovely lads with big doses of my Motherly love. Even though they are teenagers now I can still get away with hugging them & loving them & squeezing them, so long as I don't do it in public & definitely not in front of their friends!! Unfortunately the rain was back so our plans for a picnic went out of the window. Instead we had a bake in. Youngest made Chocolate Mousse with Honeycomb Topping, middle son made Victoria Sponge, eldest son made Chocolate Chip Cookies & I made Fruit & Nut Flapjacks. The kitchen was filled with the most delicious smells!

If we get to go on our picnic tomorrow at least we'll have plenty of goodies to take with us. I was reading one of my favourite blogs A Life Full of Blessings & how amazed the author is at the way her love for her young daughters just keeps growing & thought how true that is. I can remember at each birthday & milestone wishing I could freeze that perfect moment in time because I could not possibly love them more. But there have been many precious moments since. More reasons to feel proud. More times when they have amazed me. More times when my heart has been so full it could burst.

Sometimes Mother loves pops up in unexpected places. This evening I was kind of dreading trying to round up the rescued Mallard ducklings for bed time now that they have the whole garden to hide in, but my sons & I found them with Puddles & as we quietly guided her into the garden shed to join Jess the injured hen they followed along behind her & popped into the shed with no problems at all. I recognised the look in Puddles bright eyes - it was Mother love towards those little ducklings! What a sweet duck she is.

We really are completely quackers!

We really have been bitten by the duck bug! Since raising the Muscovy ducklings we have fallen more & more in love with these enchanting creatures. They always seem to be happy & it's impossible to spend time with them without that cheeriness rubbing off on you & a big, soppy smile appearing on your face.

Chalk & Cheese continue to do very well up in the field with Donald, Jemima & Puddles our Khaki Campbells & Daisy & Seymour our Aylesbury ducks. They have remained very tame & will still come running if you rattle a tub of meal worms & greedily gobble them out of your hands!

Chalk & Cheese taking shelter from the scorching weather under a bench

But I think we were all missing that close contact of having baby ducklings out in the garden. We were tidying the garage when hubby, spying the half used bag of duck & goose grower pellets, completely out of the blue said that I should get some more ducklings so that the feed wouldn't go to waste. I tried not to think too much of it, but later in the day, having spent a lot of time working up in the field repairing fence posts surrounded by our lovely ducks & hens he suggested that we go to the Domestic Fowl Trust the next day to see what ducklings they had available! I was over the moon at the prospect of having little fluffy ducklings to hand rear again & Sunday just couldn't have arrived fast enough for me.

Now as we arrived at the Trust we did have a vague game plan that what we were ideally looking for were 2 Aylesbury female ducklings. The reasoning behind this was that our Khaki Campbell drake Donald had taken a real shine to Daisy the Aylesbury since her arrival & as her mate Seymour didn't seem at all perturbed we were not sure if the affection of 2 drakes would have an adverse affect on her well being! So we could take some of the heat off her as it were by upping the female:male ratio. Did we stick to this game plan? Well, not exactly! Well, not at all if truth be told! Hubby made the fatal mistake of asking if I wanted to have a look in the main sales room before asking to see if they had any ducklings available for hand rearing. As soon as we walked into the room we were greeted by the loud quacks of 2 truly beautiful crested ducks in a pen. I looked at hubby & he looked at me, & I knew we had both fallen in love with them, but I kept myself in check (only just) & after a quick look at the hens on sale for the day we carried on out to find someone we could ask about ducklings. Crested ducks are a bit special to us because we had a very eccentric crested drake Elvis not so long ago, but very sadly lost him to a fox attack. Anyway, we tracked down an assistant, a really lovely girl who I recognised had actually sold us our Muscovies & Donald, & before I could even get a word out hubby declared that to start off we would like to buy the pair of crested ducks!! Was it my birthday I wondered, or other such special occasion that had slipped my mind? No, I was pretty sure today wasn't a special day. Perhaps we were due a lunar eclipse, or maybe the heat was getting to hubby? I looked at him with my mouth open, as it is his more level headedness that we rely on really to prevent our place from being totally over populated with creatures! He just smiled & proceeded to ask the girl about ducklings & off to the duckling room we went. There was a brooder full of little ducklings even smaller than Chalk & Cheese had been that were so sweet, but hubby did manage to be stricter at this point & explain that what we really wanted was slightly older ducklings that could go straight to an outside pen to finish being reared. It was at this point that we were introduced to our new babies 'Tom' & 'Cherry', a pair of Cherry Valley ducklings.

Introducing Tom & Cherry the Cherry Valley ducklings!

I had never heard of the breed & they were quite a bit bigger than Chalk & Cheese had been when we first had them, but it was love at first sight! So they were coming home with us too! Now I'm not quite sure just how this last bit happened, it had all become a bit of a blur & I was already in duck heaven, but someone mentioned that there were also Indian Runner youngsters going up for sale that day. Hubby instantly remembered me saying something about Runners & asked me if that was the breed that I had mentioned fancying keeping at some point. I nodded furiously & he said that we may as well go the whole hog & take a couple of them too! At this stage I was starting to feel the need for someone to pinch me very hard! But before I knew it the 6 ducks were boxed up & we were heading home. They really were all ours & they really were coming home with us! On the journey home I started to just slightly worry a bit if we were doing the right thing in taking on so many in one go, but as I went through a mental check list of everything they could need (housing - tick;water - tick; feed - tick; room to free range - tick) I realised we did have the means & the capability of taking care of them & giving them a high standard of welfare. So I relaxed & just went with feeling of overwhelming excitement & thanked hubby over & over again! So here are the first pics of the new arrivals:

Tom & Cherry find their feet

Louise our West of England goose inspects the new arrivals

Introducing Harold & Rosie the Crested ducks & Indian Runners Big Chief & Little Wing!

I'll leave their stories here for now, except to say they have all settled in really nicely, have been excepted by all the other birds & we don't regret our purchases one little bit.