Chicken Commotion

Tuesday 26^th June is an easier day for us with none of the dramas of the weekend. It's a "soft" morning (i.e. drizzling) so much of it is indoors. The half doors for the utility room get more coats of paint, with Mum applying bright post office red. Dad makes some wholemeal bread using recipe from some friends on the internet (50/50 wholemeal and strong white flour, shorter first rise time, longer proving time and he is delighted when it turns out to be light, elastic and softer than the dense brick he has been creating up to now. Dad digs some more soil out of the piles surrounding the hay-rake-in-a-hedge and discovers (inevitably) more buried plastic bale-wrap sheeting but also (pleasingly) another stash of "sausage" turf. These are olde style, hand-dug peat 'sods' but cut (or reconstituted/extruded?) like thick sausages, 3-4 inches in diameter. These have probably been buried in this shallow grave for 30+ years but hey, peat is peat; it's not going to spoil for a few more years underground, so we bring some in tonight and chuck it on the fire and of course, it dries out and burns. Proper peat-smoke! Very Irish!

An early bit of drama is provided by Ginny the rabbit on Weds 27^th. Dad and I have come downstairs at the usual 06:30 and done the rounds of the livestock, releasing chooks from their shed and rabbits from their hutch. We are back indoors sitting down when we hear a commotion from the chooks. Dad nips round to check and finds Ginny up on her hind legs just outside the chicken run introducing herself to the Lovely Girls and they, having never seen a rabbit before are quite alarmed! Dad is in dressing gown and slippers. There is no way he’s going to catch Ginny (even if he was in running spikes) but Ginny is reasonably steerable by gentle persuasion. If you get behind her you can mush her in the rough direction you need but she’s picked up her skirts and is loving the freedom to run around the acre-age! At one stage she’s up through the allotment pausing to sample cabbage and sprout leaves. She is eventually rounded up. Dad discovers that where I’ve been pulling and and biting on the 2 inch mesh chicken wire, I have made bunny sized holes. He resolves to add a 2^nd layer of one inch mesh as belt and braces. He is kind of glad we do live in a quiet area, not overlooked.

 

We have no TV but Mum and Dad are enjoying evening's entertainments through t'internet with combinations of silly R4 stuff like "The Now Show" and "Sorry I Haven't a Clue", stories like the currently running "Chamomile Lawn" and recently finished "Night Watch" (Terry Pratchett), plus a BBC-shop DVD of the Griff Rhys-Jones series "Britain's Lost Routes". The latter was bought mainly for the Thames Barge episode, but proves to be good throughout. Also a Birthday Present boxed set "Frozen Planet" (Dad can't get enough Attenborough.) When those run out I guess it'll be back to Dad’s current gently slog through ‘improving History book "Ireland Since the Famine" (FSL Lyons).