Milestones from 9 - 12 Feb, 2012

Top of the morning to ya,

A few milestones have been achieved since my last post.

One of our hens (Frannie) became egg bound with a suspected broken egg inside her.  She is not the best layer with one egg every other day or so.

Not a happy chicken, fluffing up, dirty bum, protruding vent and very sorry for herself.   So, after much searching on the web we diagnosed her as egg bound/internal broken egg.  This can happen occasionally with older hens or stressed hens.  This is the first week in their new house....

Treatment = bathing her butt in a tub of warm water for 10 - 15 minutes and then rubbing area with olive oil and massaging the stomach area. 

This morning she laid an egg (which we threw out just in case) and was back to her happy clucky self - she also passed what looked like an unformed shell (really weird to see as it brings to reality, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

here's a great site to help you through early chickenhood and beyond 

http://poultrykeeper.com/chickens/housing-chickens/choosing-a-chicken-house.html

Mulching the land: Ralph, our fencer extrordinair, brought his mulcher on site and went about flattening out any lumps and bumps over the entire area.

After 2 hours an uneven landscape became a beautiful blank canvas... we can now see what and where we can do stuff.. but what to do? ideas welcome :-).

        

                                              The begining?                                             

 



 The end!

Back to the job at hand - Painting!

We have now managed to complete 4 rooms since our last post: master bedroom, hallway, red room and living room...phew!!!

I've decided Brooke is a machine, literary as I write this blog, she has begun painting the kitchen.. between you and me, I'm a litle bit over painting today and I'm trying to hide, but she keeps finding me... here are some pics of our painting process.

Brooke tackling living room

Finished job.

Welcome to the Red Room...

  Red room no more.... 

The Sky

I do love the sky, It's so unpredictable and because we are in the country it just seems so much more vast. Brooke captured some amazing images just as the sun was setting.

Red sky at night

Just like a painting.

Here's one throughout the day..

aren't clouds awesome?

I forgot to tell you that our property runs alongside the northern train line, thats why our cottage is right here, it was the stationmasters home. The trains honk their horns as they pass in the day time and the drivers wave... 

Then.... around midnight, here's what can happen if you're quick enough......

Midnight Express

This is so cool, check out the sky

Then, if that isn't exciting enough, we go and get 2 unexpected visitors.

I dunno, some kind of parrot I think?

 

I was speaking with my Mum this morning and she tells me Glasgow is sitting on 6 degrees, I felt bad telling her we have been in the 20's most days. England was on -16, thats the coldest ever. Aren'rt we blessed and priveladges being able to live in Gods own back yard.


Whats on tomorrow? - Well,we will be establishing our vege gardens...that's what! were moving our washing line too. We may go for  a drive to see the country. On Saturday, we managed to go all the way to the village without the dogs. Our containment fence and gates are complete. We came back (a little anxious if I'm honest) to be met with yawning, stretching content doggies... yay, we're happy that they're happy.

One more piccy to leave you with..

Murphy Brown,

relaxing with one eye still on the job.