Ward Round 25th.

Doctor's Ward Round Report 08:00 25th Jan. "The patient appears to have managed an almost full recovery and is bouncing around with the others like a mad thing this morning. We have walked the estate, she has poo'd and pee'd. She has eaten a hearty breakfast and the three have now been allowed upstairs to rest on Liz's bed (the morning treat). Poppy was maybe a little less sprightly going up the stairs, but she made it. I lifted her onto the bed. Today we buy short leads for pups before anyone goes out in the lane. The relief is immense". 

Thank You, Aoife (Rhymes with Deefer) the Vet for your prompt and skilled response. Poppy is on pain killers called Meloxidyl (Oral Suspension of 'Meloxicam') and may be floating around on a drug-induced fluffy cloud, but they seem to be working. I was thinking I'd have to leave her behind on walks for a couple of days and then dreading meeting the lady who she collided with in case the lady saw only 2 dogs and had a panic. I am now thinking that Poppy will not actually put up with being left behind, so I'll do a gentle, careful, recuperative walk with all three (on short leads). 

Meanwhile, in other species we have no more goose eggs yet but I am getting a fairly regular supply from the hen 'Lucy Long Drop' and from Wandering Wendy. Lucy Long Drop is our hen who gets caught short while still up on the 7 foot perch in the night and drops the egg onto the bedding of hay (and poo) below. They always survive this, cushioned by the hay and just need a quick wipe to remove any poo they may have picked up on impact. WW lays eggs which are slightly freckled with tiny blips of shell material which stand proud of the surface, just enough to feel them with your finger tips, as if the date code was written in braille. She mostly now lays hers in the nest boxes, but we do occasionally find them in the yard, on the front terrace, down the drive or in the cattle race. We think it's just the 2 girls in lay at present. Broody Betty has been off since her broody episode and the other chicken is just, we guess, fed up with all the rain and cold and is waiting for the humans to lay on some proper spring sunshine for her.

Wandering Wendy and Lucy Long-drop

Thursday 26^th

Hin3 does it again with the egg from 7 feet up stunt. Please don't let this become a habit. Mum and Dad like these eggs and they taste nothing like as nice when collided with poo-y sawdust and concrete.

A scorcher of a day here so what's more sensible, asks Dad, than to don a sweaty chain-saw hard-hat and thick kevlar glubs and go throw that petrol engine around again at the neighbour Una's? He is rewarded by more beautiful tea, scones and farmhouse kitchen. Lovely! Mum takes advantage of his absence and blitzes the floors. Kitten unspecified has managed to poo one end of the leather sofa and wee the other end. Happy, contented young animals will sleep in kitchen from now on. Living room is returned to 'best parlour' status and animals are barred.

The West Field gets mowed and Dad digs a third raised bed. Mum and Dad do lots of weeding in kitchen garden and thinning of young, but too close-planted carrots. There is lots of communing with happy animals in evening sunshine of yard. Dad even got the hand-held camcorder out to record but we promise not to inflict another cute kittens playing video to the millions on You-Tube. There is a SUPERB oxtail stew from Restaurant Feigh and so to bed.

27^th /28^th

Meanwhile, back in diary territory, we had a bimbly Friday. Dad was aching a bit from chain saw wielding Thursday, so he pottered and did tidy up jobs, thinned carrots, weeded, moved some corrugated iron sheeting and left-over concreting gravel and plastering sand off the "bit to the left of the hay-barn" (we have snappy titles for our bits of garden). 'Lucy Long-drop' did NOT, for once, lay her egg early morning from the 7 foot perch, so we know we got 100% productivity - 4 heggs from 4 hins. Go the Lovely Girls . All be it 'Wandering Wendy' still hops out of the run and nips off to our woods to sneak hers out privately. We have now 'busted' her and found where she's a-laying but we think she might be getting a clutch together to go broody on (5 so far) so we are sneakily date-marking them and returning them to the nest each day, leaving them be till she has, in her view, enough, whereupon she may start to sit, and will be gathered up, eggs and all and put in a broody-box somewhere safe from foxes and out of the rain, probably the calf house.

On the Saturday Dad is off up to Dublin to help Sparks in his attic. The alarm goes at 0530 and we have that usual flurry of feeding pup and kittens and mopping up any badly located poo and wee, then letting out bunnies and letting out and feeding chooks. Lucy Longdrop has, this morning, done another 7-foot up egg, so Dad has to clear that up, chuntering about stretching necks and the stock pot. He gets a good run up to Dublin (2 and a half hours on almost clear roads) and gets stuck in to 'slabbing' (cutting and fitting thermal panels and then plasterboard) in which we they, rather delightfully, joined by Dad’s old friend and Best Man, Billy T. He is a good friend but one of those you sadly let drift, till it's barely a Christmas Card a year and it’s always easier to make the effort some other time (all be it they have been chatting on Facebook for the last couple of months but never actually got together). Well, says Dad, they had a brilliant day working with Billy and chatting to him and it just highlights that you should never let good friends drift away in the first place. 

Sparks reimbursed Dad petrol this time in the form of a couple of chainsaw toys; a new chain/blade and a sharpener/grinder. Hours of fun trying to work out how to use that later. He has a nice run home into the sun always seeming to on a stretch of road just AFTER it had rained, so had all the spray and glare driving west into the setting sun, with his eyes already sore from the dust from the thermal panel 'foam'. He has a “beautiful shower” and lovely chickenny pasta provided by the welcoming Mum (love her!) and a glass of wine or two before we all settle down to watch a recording of that superb and uplifting Olympic Opening Ceremony. And so, via another try-to-open-your-eyes-under-water-in-the-sink eye wash, to bed.