Birthday portrait

It was the youngest DW daughter's 18th birthday recently and to mark the occasion I was commissioned (by Mrs DW) to take a picture of the said daughter's mutt - to be enlarged, framed etc and handed over as a gift.

A new collar and 'handbag' were meant to enhance the look but the words sow's ear and silk purse came to mind - I did my best!

These are a couple of the rejected efforts.








This was the one selected . . .



And here's the birthday girl . . .

Venturing out

Lovely day today, so I spent a bit of time tidying the garden.

Not much out yet, of course, but there are lots of things beginning to sprout and grow.

In the front garden, the crocuses and irises have more or less finished, but there are some lovely dwarf white tulips in flower at the moment.

They look pretty, but I have to admit they are part of a failed plan. I planted them a couple of years ago with some very dark purple, almost black, tulips - the idea being that the dark flowers would look as though they were 'sitting' on a bed of white. However, the labelling was obviously not quite right, because the purple tulips don't flower until the white ones have nearly finished. Perhaps I'll dig them out this year and start again.

I planted a Viburnum last summer and it's been flowering nearly all winter - a very pretty pink. It's just coming to an end now but still looks nice. It has a lovely scent as well.

Ouch!

Sybil caused us a great deal of worry (and trouble) this week.

She stopped laying last weekend, went off her grub and spent most of the time hunched up and looking a bit miserable in the corner of the run.

By Tuesday, I was very concerned for her and started looking up on the web and in books what might be wrong with her. The diagnosis of Dr Dog Walker was that she was egg-bound and the prognosis was not good - it could kill her.

The forums on various poultry sites offered a variety of treatments, ranging from wringing her neck to sticking a lubricated finger up her posterior . . .

I didn't fancy either of these, so we went for the pregnant mum treatment - a nice warm bath to 'relax her muscles' and a quiet night in a darkened room with a comfy bed (dog crate under the stairs). Unfortunately, this did not have the desired effect, though she looked a bit brighter in the morning.

We put her back in with the other two on Thursday and hoped for the best.

Friday morning . . . nothing. But when I arrived home from work, there was good news - she had produced an egg, but not just any egg. It was the most eye-watering thing I've ever seen.

This is an egg the size Sybil was laying . . .

And here is the same egg up against the one she laid on Friday . . .

How much did that hurt? Poor Sybil.

It's now Sunday and I don't think she's laid another egg yet - who can blame her - but she is looking very bright and happy, so we're not too worried.

I expect you might be asking 'who got to eat the egg?'

Well, we all did - it went into the Yorkshire pudding we had today. It was a double-yolker, too.

Deer, oh deer

The dog and I witnessed a slightly disturbing incident on one of our early, pre-dawn walks this week.

We were just walking past one of the village's 'big houses', which has set-back electric gates with railings either side, when we disturbed a muntjac deer which, seeing the dog, tried to leap through the railings to escape - only to get stuck.

I didn't know deer could make so much noise! It was very distressed and I couldn't see any immediate way to help it, so I thought the best thing was to finish our walk around the village and hope that it might quiten down, stop panicking and free itself.

No such luck. When we returned, it was still trapped and the only thing we did was distress it again. I was just about to pop into the phone box opposite to try to find an emergency number for the RSPCA when a chap from a neighbouring house appeared and offered to call a vet so, feeling a bit guilty, we left him and the deer to it.

I was pleased to see when I drove past a little later that the poor thing had been freed. I don't know if it was a boy or a girl, but I bet it's now working on getting that Christmas weight off its hips!

Grave matters

A while ago, I blogged about a gravestone or memorial for William Ison, a shepherd who died after being struck by lightning.

The stone, in the middle of a fen field, was looking a bit weather-worn and its carved wording was becoming hard to read.

One of our walks took us past the site this weekend and I'm pleasd to say the stone has been the subject of a bit of tlc and is now looking quite smart.

Before

After

A touch of frost

Christmas Day was, as usual, grey and dank, but we've had some lovely crisp, frosty mornings since. I've been out for a couple of long walks with the dawg this weekend and I think she's enjoyed stretching her legs a bit.

We didn't see too much wildlife on these walks - a nice, skittish fox with a huge brush tail, loads of herons, a few deer, a kingfisher, lots of redwings and not much else, though the mute swans on the river are looking particularly clean, crisp and white and the moment.

The thing I most like about these cold mornings is the lovely white dusting of frost that forms on anything it touches, especially the teasels in the hedgerows and, as usual, I can't stop myself taking pictures of them (even though I have dozens already).

The hips from dog roses are also really beautiful . . .

Chickens at work

The hens have now settled in and we have quite a good routine. I feed them and change their water every morning, they get a handfull of corn and grit every afternoon, I move the run to a new patch of grass twice a week, I scrape out the droppings tray twice a week and they get a good clean every Saturday morning.

In return, I get a near-overflowing compost bin, a wrecked lawn and, more positively, roughly an egg a day.

Here's their production over the Chrismas period . . .

However, I'm fairly sure it's not Sybil who's laying as she's decided to moult - not the best time to be doing this, with regular frosts etc, but I suppose it is a female's prerogative to change her outfit as and when she wants to!

I am giving her a bit of a 'tonic' which is added to the food but, of course, all three of them are getting it - there's no way for each one to have a separate food bowl. It's a means to an end - a bit like trying to 'get to know' a girl in a bar by buying her drink, but having to get them in for her two ugly friends as well.