An Angel Died

Angel died this weekend  :-(  

She was looking sad and forlorn for a few days earlier in the week and then rallied a bit in the glorious sunshine we have been having.  But a chicken knows when her time has come and she gradually wound down again in a calm and peaceful way. She spent a lot of time by the Eglu with her best friend, this is where she lived for her first couple of weeks with us and I found it quite touching that she seemed to want to be back there.

The One and Angel stood together as they did for a couple of days, before Angel decided to go indoors.  Her last two days were spent in the cosiness of a nesting box, with visits from all the layers as they came to lay their eggs each day.  While The One mooched about outside pining for her friend before she had even gone.

Angel was one of our last real character chickens, she was our 'twice rescued' bird and all the more special for it.  She came to us on my birthday two years ago and her initial story was told HERE with a follow on about her progress HERE.

But I think one of my favourite posts about her was HERE when she starred with Rosy and Ginger on a light hearted blog post.

I'm sad to see Chicken World without her, it's somehow not quite the same ....

... but the chicks are now big enough to be allowed to mingle with the others, under the very watchful eye of Mother Goose their Mum, who really has a go at any chicken who dares to come near her very special little babies, so there is a lot of  light heartedness going on as they learn to live in the big wide world.

RIP Angel, thank you for spending the last years of your life with us.

Sue xx

Even more free seeds ......

My monthly subscription to Kitchen Garden arrived the other day and with it .... even more free seeds, another £7.18 worth to be exact.

My little seed tin of all the freebies is now almost full to bursting point and in total I have £85.49 worth of free seeds collected over the last couple of months from this magazine and a few from Grow Your Own magazine, which I pick up when I'm out and about shopping.  With all these packets of seeds it should see us pretty well fed for next year .... and most likely the year after that too.

This could possibly be my best purchase of this year.

Sue xx

I love it when .....

....  my breakfast almost matches the accessories in the kitchen

I felt yuk on Sunday night, it serves me right I ate some ice cream, there was only a bit left in the tub and I thought I would eat it to avoid temptation ..... weird logic, totally bonkers logic ... I know!!

Well within ten minutes my gurgling tummy told me off, and I felt more than suitably chastised.  SO ... I made a plan to spend lots of time this week getting myself into a healthier and more logical frame of mind.  First thing first .... the food.

Well not much food actually as I decided to give my poor old tummy a rest and have lots and lots of nutriblasts.  Based mostly 50% on vegetables and the rest fruits, nuts and seeds.  The above was this mornings breakfast.  There wasn't quite enough spinach really but I couldn't face traversing the mud mountain to get some more, I'll stock up again when the builders finish at the end of today and I can get to the polytunnel.

My nutriblast matched the now empty gift biscuit tin (eating the contents of this also caused me tummy troubles), and the biscuit tin that contains dog food, it's nice when your meal matches the kitchen isn't it .... I guess I wouldn't say that if the kitchen were grey or black ;-)

And yes, in my kitchen don't expect the biscuit tins to contain biscuits or the bread bins to contain bread .... every peek into a tin is an adventure!!

Meanwhile outdoors ...... the now half entombed water tank.

From a different angle .... still not that interesting eh!!

The oofa doofa thingy ma jig ..... that I have been reliably informed is actually a filter to stop debris ending up in the water tank.  This will obviously work so much better when the great big bl**dy hole around it is covered over with the manhole cover   ;-)

Making my way back over the mountain my footprints were already filling up with water.

Did I ever mention I HATE MUD!!

*** *** ***

I'm escaping today (I typed this out last night) and having a girly day in Manchester with Mum and her big sister Chris.  A bit of Trafford Centre browsing, a girly lunch and no doubt we will put the world to rights.  While back at home in Wales the builders will continue to wallow in mud and build some more of the front wall, and the dogs will be languishing in our local kennels for a day and a night, don't panic they love it there, last time they got totally pampered with baths for everyone AND they will get to run on grass for the day instead of mud. 

A happy day all round ..... and we all need some of those  :-)

Enjoy yours. 

Sue xx

Spinning Water Meter

Yesterday the large water tank was lowered carefully into the huge hole by the fence and settled on it's bed of just delivered concrete.  As the concrete started to slowly set the tank had to be weighed down by half filling it with water.  It really is the only way to do it, as it settled down in the hole bedding itself into the concrete it sat on, even more fresh concrete could be poured around it.

After having the outdoor tap with the hosepipe attached running  from 9,30am until 4pm, it was just about full enough.  As it's a storage tank that hold 8,000 litres of water I'm glad our water meter is situated out on the main road so I couldn't go and watch as those precious pennies ticked over.

The most infuriating thing was that for the entire time the water poured from the tap to the tank the rain was torrential, if only we had had a giant funnel to stick in the top hole and catch some of it.

Oh well, it will be usable water once the electric pump is attached and we can actually get at it. 

While the water flowed outside the house, inside I kept myself busy sorting through the food cupboards, making a pile of food to take to the food bank and some that just had to go in the bin as it was out of date. While they were empty I gave them all a good clean with my homemade cleaner.

I got the recipe from Elaine at Mortgage Free in Three.

 I decided to write the ingredients on the bottle so it's handy for when I need to make up the next batch.  It works a treat and the vinegary smell soon vanishes, leaving everything squeaky clean and lovely and fresh.

It's simply:

2 fl oz Washing Up Liquid

4 fl oz bottled Lemon Juice

8 fl oz White Vinegar

and

10fl oz Water

 Just mix together in a jug and then pour into a spray bottle.

So much healthier to use around the house than buying a bottle of commercial stuff that's full of nasty chemicals and artificial whiffs. 

Sue xx 

Today I'm Hoiking Out the Cupboards

The biscuit tin ......

... is actually empty and I'm thinking of using it for the dried dog food.  

The dogs are on three different types of dried food at the moment.  Suky is on her special diet food, which is tasty and not a lot of volume but it fills her up and she seems to be doing really well on it.  The other two are on Iams for volume and a few Bakers meaty chunks to keep Rosy's interest, it seems to be working and for the first time in ages she is really enjoying her meals.

Having three open bags on the go is not ideal, so containers on the worktop with a scoop in each speeds things up no end and it means the bags can be sealed up and kept in the cupboard, thus keeping the food fresher and the worktop neater.

The 'hoiking out the cupboards' title of this post relates to me emptying out all our food cupboards and getting rid of anything that does not fit in with our healthier eating habits.  I found a gift tin of shortbread biscuits yesterday and between us we ate them all,  I'm suffering the consequences today.  Knowing how easily I am swayed by things I love but shouldn't have I have decided to check things with a finer tooth comb and jettison what I know deep down I just cannot eat.

Wheat and milk seem to be the culprits that really give me a gippy tummy, nothing life threatening but why make myself feel yuk, when with a bit of forward planning and a lot of common sense I can feel soooooo much better.

Before I indulged and made myself feel bleugh, we had taken ourselves off to the car boot sale in Rhuddlan.  There was so much tat and junk there but we managed a few bargains.  I just couldn't resist this book it was only a pound and after standing there for five minutes amazed at the drawings in it thought I might as well just cough up the money and finish reading it at home.

The firelighters we use to start the outdoors bonfires and as we had just used the last one on Saturday these popped up at just the right time.  With a new dish for Ginger and a couple of packets of seeds also tucked in our bag we headed off home just £3 lighter and with full tummies, as before we left we crossed the road and had a cooked breakfast in Sainsbugs cafe.  It made a pleasant change on a Sunday morning.

Have you managed to get any boot sale bargains recently?

Sue xx

A New Mountain In North Wales

A new mountain has appeared here on the old homestead.

I guess it's not that tall but it sure takes some climbing.

There's no rope to hold onto but you can follow the yellow hosepipe that snakes it's way to the top ...

... where at last the polytunnel comes into view.

Then it's downhill all the way.

The reason for the 'mountain' is this enormous hole, dug ready for our huge water tank to be put into.

I could put a lot of Pug feeding builders into this hole before it is filled one third of the way up with concrete at the crack of dawn on Monday morning ... hehehe!! 

  The the tank will be lowered onto the setting concrete and will be half filled with tap water, so the weight of the water will settle it firmly into place.  I would love to watch our water meter whizzing around while that happens ...... no I've changed my mind I don't think I want to see that!!

From the polytunnel side of the 'mountain' the house is neatly visible, and after taking the pictures, planting in the polytunnel and getting various jobs done I crossed the mountain range to get back to the patio.

Where I planted some excess cuttings in pots ..... no wonder I had backache look at that dreadful posture!!

Lovely Hubby had the stand up straight job of attaching the fittings to the new driveway gates.

The patio was filled with  the new posts, which were Hammerite-d yesterday to keep them rust free,  all three gates (two for vehicles and one for pedestrians) and the various fittings, which one by one were attached to the gates.  Thanks to Lovely Hubby's good workings out the specially manufactured posts had been drilled in just the right places for the gates to be hung and everthing fitted.

These posts will be sunk into the ready dug holes at the top of the drive and concreted in place, then the metal work will be surrounded by stone to match the walls leading up the new driveway off the road.  It should look good, we just have to wait for the steels to be delivered for the garage and workshop which will be coming on a very large truck and then we can put them up.

It's been a busy weekend as usual, oh and I'm sorry for the 'blobs' on the first few photos, it was raining when I took them, although just an hour later things had cleared up and the sun came back out at full temperature :-)

Sue xx

Spiralizing

I hoiked my new gadget out of the cupboard and had a go at spiralizing this week.  It worked a treat and on a hot day .....

... a plate full of cool spiralized courgette or 'courgetti' is just what you need.

I don't think I really need one of these .... lol,  but the chickens loved it.

With some homemade Ratatouille it made for a lovely tasty tea.

This post is to take my mind of what lurks near the polytunnel, I'll let you in on that one tomorrow when I've taken a couple of photos of it!!

Sue xx