Meet Lottie

So this is Lottie.  I hadn't quite twigged that she'd be so tiny (bantam?), but she is about one third the size of our others - they look huge next to her.  Apparently, a couple of weeks ago she started moulting - maybe she knew something was afoot to disrupt her happy life!  So she's looking a little threadbare but her feathers are starting to grow back which means she has a 5 o'clock shadow in places.  She has lovely big brown eyes and I think she'll be a very pretty chuck in a few weeks.  It seems her eyes and feet are the same size as a normal chicken it's just everything else that's smaller.  Although she's small and not at her best, she's quite fiesty and the other three are scared of her - it wouldn't surprise me if she ends up top of the pecking order.  There have been a few feathers flying.  For the last two days the others have been shut out of the run and she's been shut in.  They all get shut in together at night of course.  We did entice her out this morning for a few minutes, but she went back in of her own accord after a few minutes.  Maybe she's a bit shy of her appearance in front of new people!  I don't like this part of getting new chickens - it's easy when they all get on with each other, know the routine and come when they're called.  I guess she'll pick it all up before too long.

We survived the massive storm yesterday without any problems . . . . in fact, without much wind at all. Lots of rain, but that's about all. I did toy with the idea of ringing work yesterday and saying that it said on the news not to travel unless absolutely necessary, but I didn't think they'd be too impressed as it was actually a reasonably nice day. Hope you all got away without any problems.

Do you know, we've now lived here for five years - it seems like a lifetime ago but at the same time no time at all (does that make any sense).  We don't usually bother much with anniversarys of things, but decided to celebrate our five years with steak and a beer . . . . on a Monday!  How lavish!  We were sitting down sipping our beer reminiscing about what we were doing exactly five years ago and decided to check my notes on this blog to see when we actually did things and, much to our dismay, found out that Sunday was the actual anniversary and we'd missed it!  We were both sure it was 28th, but checking back on the calendar confirms that the Monday in 2008 was 27th.  Ooops, were not very good at this . . . . . . we still managed to enjoy our fraudulent steak supper on a Monday though!

Our first night in the caravan.  Funny, in all the chaos and with
no fridge, we still managed to make sure we had cold beer and
a couple of bottles of red wine to hand!  Have to get your
priorities right.

We're getting a posh chicken!

We're getting a new chicken this weekend.  It's a sort of rescue-job, but not from a battery farm.  Someone e-mailed our smallholders group to ask if anyone could give a home to their one and only chicken as they are moving house and the new place isn't suitable.  As egg production from our three is pretty bad with only Horse pulling her weight another egg-layer would be welcome.  We're going up in the world with this one as it is a fairly rare Golden-necked Ardenner.  From Belgium (as you may work out from the name) but not common anywhere else.  They are very hardy and would happily survive in the wild and like roosting in trees.  How cool is that?  I had a friend who had a chicken who roosted in a tree and she used to just say goodnight to it as she walked past with the dog each evening.  This one is called Lottie (so at least we don't have to think of something to call her) and comes when you call her name apparently and she pecks on their window if they're late putting her to bed at night!  She also lays her eggs all over the place, so we'll have to ask Horse to show her the ropes here.  Should be interesting.  Hopefully, we'll pick her up on Sunday eveing - in the past we've found the best way to integrate the new one(s) is to wait til the others have gone to bed and then just put the new one on the perch with them and shut the door.  When it's dark they just go straight to sleep and they won't know anything about it until the next morning.  I expect there'll be a bit of squabbling until she's found her place in the pecking order, but that's what chickens do and they soon seem to sort themselves out.  I'll let you know how they get on and show you a picture of Lottie.

Here's another addition to our avian flock.  Laura made this
needle-felted woodpecker for my birthday card and, rather than
throw it away with the rest of my cards, I cut it out and glued it
onto the bare branch we have in a vase in the hall.  Looks pretty
good I think.

Double yolk

So, that huge egg that Peggy laid - I take back my comment about the yolk to white ratio in Horse's eggs.  This one was a double-yolker, so just the one egg was plenty for Bob's scrambled eggs - what a bargain!  That was the only double-yolker and Peggy's not back up to full production yet.  I think it is usually young hens who do the double yolk thing when they first start laying while they get their systems in order, so Peggy's obviously re-living her youth.

Our little holidy in a cottage in the country . . . . . mmmmm, sounds a bit like home-from-home . . . . was lovely.  The cottage was very nice, my only gripe was being charged extra for the electric and extra for heating and extra for towels.  It doesn't set you up well for your holiday I don't think and I'd rather they just sorted their price out so you don't have to think about those things.  The weather was better than I was expecting and everyone had said it was going to turn really cold and wintry.  We had lots of sun and were actually quite warm on our clifftop walks.  It was quite windy though which was brilliant because it made for good crashing waves.  I was really glad the wind was blowing in from the sea on some parts of our walks because they'd have been quite hairy if it was blowing the other way!  We had a real taste of the past one evening with a visit to Bessie's pub.  As many pubs used to be, it was just like a living room (still with its original 50s decor) and you knocked on the serving hatch to summon the landlady who poured your beer from a jug with a choice of one type.  The crisps were Golden Wonder - didn't know you could still get them (wish I'd checked the sell-by on them!) - and there was none of this fancy stuff like food.  The people all spoke Welsh, but not in any sort of 'keep the English out' sort of way and we enjoyed listening to them.  We actually understood a fair bit of it which I expect you are quite impressed by aren't you?  OK, I'll confess, the bits we understood were all the swear words - they seem to do that in English which is funny to listen to.  Another evening we went to a pub that could have been staight from the wild west with horses tethered outside.  It used to be a hotel which was thrown up quickly when the railway came to town and is made from red wriggly tin with sawdust on the floor and hams hanging from the ceiling.  It was really nice with a lovely atmoshpere and Bob had their specialty - faggots!

Yesterday, Ben came with one of his old school friends and we all went up to Liverpool to see another of their school friends play in a band.  It was really good (apart from the horrors of driving round a city which I'm just not used to anymore).  They played in a small club so no-one was far from the stage and, as they are just starting out, they had to sell their own merchandise at the end so we were able to ambush Adam and have a chat.  They get played on the radio a fair bit and seem to be doing quite well - Temples if anyone wants to check them out.  Funny to think he used to play in our paddling pool!

Look, I finished my chunky, snuggle jumper in
time for all the cold weather on holiday.  Didn't really
need it, but I'm quite pleased with it and it is
lovely and cosy.

This is our lastest 'crafting'.  We need some clocks but haven't
seen any we like without spending an absolute fortune.  So we
thought we'd do some 'upcycling'.  This is a piece of the old range
that was in the inglenook in our kitchen.  We have another part-made
which has a wooden stand and a hefty chunk of cast iron as the 'face'.
Trouble is we can't drill a hole in the iron to attach the hands to the mechanism
at the back so we'll have to ask a favour of our blacksmith friend next time
we see him.  I think, given the right outlet, these could sell quite well.
Mmmm, have to work on that one.

This'd make your eyes water!

Do you know, I sat down about a week ago to update this blog but ended up not doing because I really couldn't think of anything we'd done that was worth writing down and I thought it'd end up like I imagine (because I've never actually looked at either) tweets or Facebook entries would be.  Who wants to know what we're having for tea or what colour pants I've got on today?  No-one I'm sure . . . . . having said that though . . . . we're having our first meat and potato pie of the season which I'm really looking forward to because it is such a wet and miserable day . . . . . and my pants are red!  There, you wanted to know really!

Anyway, enough of all that!  I just wanted to show you this: -

Having only had one egg a day for quite a while, Peggy has suddenly started laying again.  Horse has reliably laid her little brown eggs day in, day out while Peggy had a rest while she moults.  Peggy is now fairly bald and looks very untidy, but rather than concentrating on feather production she has outdone herself with oversized eggs.  The one on the left is a Horse egg and would be classed as large by supermarkets . . . . that one on the right weighs 99g!!!  Try weighing one of your supermarket eggs and you'll see how much bigger that is.  Fair makes your eyes water doesn't it?  Having said all that, size isn't everything and I actually prefer Horse's eggs as the yolk to white ratio is better in my opinion.

So, that's all our news really - exciting isn't it?  I have next week off work and Bob has booked time off from his scaffold board furniture production so we can have a lazy week - luvverly.  We have a few days away booked in a cottage on the Welsh coast - hope the weather bucks up!