I Think You’re Bonkers

Dino’s started school and enjoyed his first day.

Mimi spent the day occupying herself while I did diy stuff in the garden. I got to hammer in peace while she did papier mache, painting, cutting up bits of paper, put her clothes away in her wardrobe, and some other stuff. Then she demanded my presence for making jelly because it involves really hot water….

Oh and since I last blogged Copper found a new home that didn’t involve a casserole dish and we got a new hen who is most definitely female. She’s a cuckoo maran and called Cookie.

Our new "hen" Copper, isn’t a hen. He started crowing…..

Anyone want a pet cockerel?

Rosie, our young Abyssinian guinea pig with the sticky up fur was found dead in her hutch this morning. No idea how or why she died, no obvious illness or cause.

She’s been buried in the garden. 

This is Copper, the copper maran. 

Copper posing on some concrete rocks - where Rainbow kept her for a good chunk of the morning before attacking her so I split them up again. 

And Rainbow, just so she doesn’t feel left out, stroppy git. 

Last weekend we rehomed Red - she had developed a problem with making shells and we couldn’t fix it, no matter what we tried, and we’d tried everything for a couple of months. Now, this can be an issue for rescued battery hens - so we contacted the rehomers and our local contact took her for us. So Red was delivered last Sat.

While I was out delivering Red, Groovy got out of the run and died before we could find her and get her back. So we were down to one chicken, Rainbow, our regular layer and scruffiest looking of the lot - happy and healthy in every other way, but now stressed and lonely.

We’ve just been to get her a friend. There will be pictures in the next few days as we let them meet each other and the new one gets a name. She’s a 16 week old Copper Maran - not quite at point of lay, probably a couple of months befroe we see eggs from her.

Yesterday was my 40th birthday and the kids made me a cake. They did all the mixing, and the measuring and they iced and decorated it too. The only part I had to do was get it out of the oven and out of the tins. Very nice cake it was too. They also wanted to get me a pasta maker after the home ed group pasta making day - so we did that and spent most of yesterday making pasta, which we shared with Kris and RJ today, well, some of it anyway. That was lovely to, as was more presents.

Poorly chicken seems to be simply moulting and will be fine in time. 

On a low note though, Dino went to check the piggies this morning and found one of them had died overnight. It looked like it was peaceful and the piggy had just gone to sleep and not woken up. Mousse is now buried under a new rosemary bush in the garden. (He’s the brown one on Mimi’s lap and that’s him as a baby, he was old when he died.)

"Mum, we want to make flapjack…."

OK, here’s a recipe, off you go. 

Really? We can just go and make it? 

Yup. Just give me a shout when you have to use the cooker. 

I let them loose for the first time with minimal supervision. Dino read the recipe and instructions, Mimi found all the ingredients and they decided on the sizes of mixing bowl, baking tray etc for themselves and weighed everything out. Dino melted the butter and syrup while Mimi mixed the dry stuff and crushed the cornflakes. Dino poured the mix into a lined baking tray (actually my roasting tray but good enough) and I did the in and out of the oven part. Dino washed up afterwards too - so that’s the whole process from start to finish.

They worked well together and produced slightly overcooked and a bit too hard but perfectly edible flapjack! They fancy making muffins next, I think that might happen on Thursday or Friday. Dino can make ace scrambled eggs too and we have enough for lunch tomorrow.

Dino’s been working on knots too and there are bits of string knotted on chairs, to each other and around action man legs all over the place. He’s actually rather good at it. He seems to have got the hang of slip, reef and clove hitch knots and what looks (according to the library book) like a cow hitch.

I think that’s plenty of education for one day and I’ve been surprised at how many areas they’ve covered. I’m quite impressed.

Certainly feels like it with warm, sunny, blue skies…..

The hens refused to come out until we’d pulled most of the snow from the floor of their pen, we had to dig them out this morning!

The kids, on the other hand, are spending every minute out in it and only coming in when frozen, and even then only if there’s food or hot chocolate on offer!

…and my poor Rosemary bush….

Just because ….

Dino and I spent a good hour in with them this morning, raking out the crud from the floor of the pen and spreading some ex-bedding from them and from the piggies to try to ease the muddy swamp a little. So we got the camera out….

Here’s a bedraggled Groovy..

And Red… Who is looking drier because she hides in the henhouse when it’s wet.

And Rainbow… Who didn’t want her picture taken.

No eggs today, I think they’re all confused by the weather.