December 2003
Winter chores
Saturday 27 December, 2003
Today was the first opportunity for a good month that I've had to get outside and catch up on a few small jobs which have been lingering on the 'To Do' list. A great chance to blow away a few Xmas cobwebs too, and work off some of the excess calories from the past few days.
I'm growing autumn-planted onion sets for the first time (just 100 or so as an experiment) and they seem to be doing well. Weeded them, and the netting covering them was getting ragged, so some reshaping of the wire hoops and renetting was needed.
Homer's purr
Saturday 27 December, 2003
A big breakthrough this afternoon with our new rescue cat, Homer. We got him just a week ago from the Clackmannanshire Cats Protection League who took him in as a stray. They think he's about 10.
He was depressed having been in their shelter for 3 months, very subdued, and a little underweight. He's staying in our spare room, where he will probably be for some weeks and maybe months while he builds up his strength and gets on his feet again. Then the fun of introducing him to the rest of the menagerie will begin...
Website developments
Monday 29 December, 2003
The website is coming on now, and with another week's holiday to look forward to I hope to have all features completed before mid-January. Then all we have to do is write the content and publicise this obscure corner of the web :O)
The search is installed and tested, just needs styling, tweaking and the indexer added as a cron job. We're using mnoGoSearch, so far a very impressive product and well worth a look if you're not using Google. like the rest of the world seem to be.
When moving house
Monday 29 December, 2003
Yesterday R mentioned to me how exposed the hen's ark was, positioned as it was down by the river. So in the morning I dutifully wheeled it across to the orchard, thinking that the chooks would be able to find it without problem, since they do cover a fair bit of ground most days.
I was wrong. They spent the coldest night we've had for a long time (-6 degrees) out in the garden somewhere away from their snug roost. They seemed none the worse for wear for it this morning, and we even had our first egg for a couple of weeks. To prevent a repeat I made sure that they knew where their hoose was today by cajoling them over with some corn and demonstrably pointing it out to them (a couple of passers-by were most amused, and I've learned my lesson).
Planned expansion
Wednesday 31 December, 2003
At the moment we only have 4 hens - one of our original 6 died of natural causes in the summer, and another was taken (we think) by a fox in the autumn. This spring we plan to get another 8 to give us an even dozen - there is plenty of demand for the extra eggs, besides which we like having them around.
So we need a bigger house for them. We've got a Forsham Boughton 902A at the moment, and have been extremely pleased with it. Most importantly it's practical and easy to manage - with wheels on one end we move it every day or so to fresh grass. It's also very well built of good quality materials and will last a good number of years. Given all this it's no surprise we're going to get a 904 - basically a bigger version of the 902A. It's more expensive than some of the offerings out there, but at 399 UKP inclusive (we'll get the VAT back too) it's not bad value, and will pay for itself in a year or so with egg money.
- Next January 2004 »
