Between blotch and blok

Not quite every day. And the wind blew too.

Wind on Wednesday was noisy. Unlike the last strong easterlies, it didn't cause so much of a draught  above my sleeping nose. I have now located the source of this draught and if it's still around next winter (after we rethatch in the summer) I know where to fill round a beam.

Wind on Friday sent a gale through the top of the house that the central heating could not warm through. Downstairs was snug. The damage was:

• one potted bay tree blew over and needed righting
• one decorative peacock blew over and needed righting
• the roof of the summer house lost some felt (now replaced)
• a small sliver of broken glass (not from any of our windows) blew onto the path and I think this is what LL slipped over on when she got in from work last night

And in between was Thursday night... when the hens refused to go to bed.

Normally, the hens put themselves to bed in their house well before dark. One of us will pass the hen house, notice the lack of hens in the run, and shut them in for the night. On Thursday, LL remarked at gone eight p.m. that the hens had still been out when she came over for tea. I checked and they were still visible in the run.

Gone nine, I looked out again and they were still out and on going to check on them I found the door to the house already shut. We all deny having shut the door with the hens outside, so I assume that the wind caught it and blew it shut (although it's locked in place when open). I opened the door, dislodging the sleepy hens from the steps into the house and left them to go in.

An hour later, they were still out. In the intervening time, the transparent wind shiled fixed round part of the run had come adrift, the cable ties holding it in place having (been) snapped. The hans were "sleeping" or at least huddled in very odd places--one Pole under a feeder, another under the ladder to the hen-house door.

I went inside to get a torch and LL to assist. As I came back out, the fox (the largest one I've ever seen) disappeared into the bushes near the vandalised side of the run. Can't blame the wind for that bit of damage, then! Creme Brule was very much active and agitated in the run; the other hans were asleep. We reattached the wind shield and then I tried to coax the hens into their house: whilst there's little chance of the fox actually getting into the run, I wouldn't want to leave it to chance. I had no luck, so eventually crawled into the run, had LL shut the run up behind me, and bunged the hens through the hen house door one at a time. I shut them in and reversed out on hand and knees (the very bruised knees, still sore from their accidental encounter with the pavement on Regent Street last weekend) and then went inside for a bath to decontaminate as the hens are still in Bird Flu lockdown.

By next morning, the wind shield had been ripped down again. But not since.

So all the drama happened on the non-windy night.

No, not the one you might be thinking about. From 14th Dec, the chooks will have to stay indoors. There's avian 'flu about.

In other news, it's snowed. And then rained. So not the nice going out and building socially-distanced snowmen kind of snow, but the miserable soggy stuff. Of course, the reallyimportant question is, can we throw snowballs at one another so long as we stay 2m or more apart?

These are Creme Caramel and Syllabub:

 I've had to shut the big sliding door to the garden office to prevent the hen getting in: she's found the one ex-meat delivery container, made of expanded polystyrene, and is eating it. What is it with hens and polystyrene?

It's such a shame. Yesterday, before Miss Sixpence started eating the boxes, I had her and one of next door's cats for company.

Next door's cat has taken up residence in the fennel forest instead.

Got what was probably Marek's.

So Miss Bluebell has made her one and only trip to the vet. And has now gone to join the mouldering menagerie under the back garden. (We have lots of very healthy-looking worms!)

We're trying to work out how old she was. Possibly over 10.

Here she is (the solid slate grey one) just after the two newbies arrived:



And here, having a snuggle in a dust bath:

Today's haul:

Having watched closely, I can now state pretty conclusively that the medium brown egg comes from the black and gold Tuppenny and the teeny dark brown comes from little miss Sixpence. The h-u-u-g-e plae egg is Miss Blue's.

So, here are the new hens, Misses Tuppeny and Sixpence:
( peek-a-boo! )

New henz!

No pictures: too wet to photo.