Beaters Day

It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny which made a change from the last few Saturdays when it seemed we had been transported to the North Pole. Meeting up at the beaters hut, we split into two teams and all entered the sweepstake with wildly ranging guesses as to the final bag.

One team would beat, while the other took up their positions on the line. My heart was pounding as the first few birds came out of the woods presenting some challenging shots (and misses).

After a couple of drives we stopped for elevenses in the warm morning sun and discussed our varying success and failure.

By the end of a long day, I was delighted with my two birds I had shot. The spirit of the day is not to shoot large numbers of birds in a Gin fuelled massacre as many 'antis' will have you think, but to spend some time in good company and take a few shots at some quality birds.

A big thanks to all who made it such a wonderful day, from the pickers up, keeper and those who cooked loads of food for the hungry mob.

If you are interested in beating and the countryside or would like more information, visit the National Organisation of Beaters and Pickers Up website

Greenhouse stuffed full of plants

I have been working part time in a local nursery over the winter months and it seems that most of my wages went on plants. This time of year is great for buying cheap plants as most nurseries have a sale section with items ranging from 99p upwards.

It seems that the general puplic only want plants that are full of leaves or in full flower, so you can really pick up a bargain just now. Especially as they are making way for the spring stock.

Our greenhouse is now full all along one side and half way down the path. I even managed to bring back 12 rose plants which had been thrown away due to frost damage. A couple of weeks in a heated greenhouse and they are already coming back nicely. Ok they might not perfomr fantastically this year... but next year.

Laying Again

Now that the darkest days are over, our hens have started to lay properly again. At one point we were down to only 2 or 3 eggs a day, which came as quite a shock due to my love of huge Tortillas.

During the winter, hens tend to reduce their egg output, older hens stopping altogether, and molt their feathers. Our chickens are all looking a bit worse for wear just now, but should soon all be sporting their Spring/Summer collection.

This year we hope to increase the number of hens by allowing our Light Sussex to go broody and sit on the eggs. Each hen should be able to look after around 5 eggs, so if all goes well we could have another 10-15 birds. I can't wait to see the look on the childrens faces when the first chicks hatch, will probably be wet pants time with squeals of delight.

Unfortunately for the cocks (we are bound to get some), they will be fattened up and put in the freezer at around 16 weeks, we may keep 2 or 3 of them to help Eggward out on the breeding front (Not sure how much lead he has in his pencil).

Freecycle:

Our local Freecycle group was in the paper this week.

A copy of the article follows:

AN OCKLEY man is doing his bit to reduce landfill and the idea is catching on. Hedley Phillips moderates the web-based group, MoleValley Freecycle, part of the international Freecycle Network.

The website welcomes postings from anyone with items they want to get rid of, and which they would otherwise throw out. The items are then free to anyone who wants to collect them.

“Recycling is a way of life for me and my family,” said Mr Phillips.

Almost anything can be offered. Since June this year, when Hedley set up the site, computer printers, a wheelbarrow, vacuum cleaners and even a large number of plastic bags have all been advertised and taken.

Perhaps the most unusual posting so far has been several hundred 44-gallon plastic drums from a local farmer.

“Most of those went to a gamekeeper for grain storage,” said Mr Phillips.
It is also possible to request items, though it’s a Freecycle rule that no one asks for anything too valuable.

MoleValleyFreecycle has 200 members. Anyone interested in joining should go to www.freecycle.org and follow the links to the UK.

Moon:

I have always had a love of astronomy and love watching the stars, but up until now this has been through either binoculars or by naked eye.

Until I was given a telescope on Freecycle. It's a Skylux refractor with 700mm focal length.

I had to wait a good while until there was clear sky, but once the clouds had gone, the moon was full and I took some pictures.

This one is not great, I had to hold the camera up to the viewfinder and try not to let it wobble around, next time I will use a tripod for the camera. But, pretty chuffed with the results, and the view through the scope was a 100 times better than this, you could actually see craters and hills on the edge of the moon.

The techncial info on the scope is here:

"It's a proper 70mm F10 achromatic refractor, coated lens, with 2 eyepieces,
star diagonal, 2x barlow, erecting (terrestrial) 1.5x barlow, & finder, AND
it's on a proper German Equatorial mount, on a steady adjustable tripod, with
accessory tray & slow motions on both axes." ...er yeah right, of course.

And for those interested, Lidl (yes the food shop) sell them every year around Nov/Dec for about £59.99 which according to all of the sites I have read is a very good price for a pretty decent scope.

No need to say that I am 'over the moon' with it and now get angry every time it is cloudy at night.

Beating:

Ah,

the first day of beating at our local estate. It was great to see all the old faces again, the usaul beaters banter in the back of the wagon, the smell of wet dog and mud, taking the 'P' out of the guns. Love it!

It was a fairly sedate day, with 4 drives in the morning and just the one after lunch. Finished by 2pm, so had time to do some gardening afterwards.

The guns were ok shots, some of them better than others, although I think a few should have practised during the closed season as they missed some really easy shots. The total was about 120 birds for the day. That's not many between 8 guns. Thankfully it's not one of those pile 'em high shoots.

It started off fine, but around lunchtime a horrible shower came through, while it didn't manage to dampen our spirits, it did make wading through the mustard and sorgam a little tricky.

Chicken Run:

No, not the film, it's banned in our household just in case the ladies get any ideas. But the actual chicken's run.

We only have 9 chooks, so while they are not actually free range, they have a lot of space.

Our laying ladies have stopped for the winter. Bit depressing as we have not bought eggs for a year now. But they have done us proud, and I think deserve a break over winter to recharge their batteries. They haven't started to molt yet, but it will probably be soon.

We realised that they were drinking more water than we could fit in the drinker so it was out with the jigsaw and chopped the bottom off a 200 litre drum. This has been sunk slightly into the run and now they have more than enough water.

Autumn:

Blue sky, crisp cool air, the beatiful hue of leaves, plants dying back, woodland animals venturing into the garden in search of food.

I love this time of year!

It just makes me want to leave work, put on a pair of boots and clamber up a hill, more so than any other time of year.

But it's not my favourite season, I like them all, and am always trying to decide which is the best, but I can't. I love the hot balmy summer days, with the sound of crickets, and birds, I love the freezing cold winter snow, I love the fresh spring. I suppose all of the seasons are my favourite. Which is lucky as we live in Britain.

Avian Flu: Killer Zombie Chickens

Would everybody just shut up about this and realise that the press hype things up to sell papers.

You do not need to stop eating chicken, as I have heard many people are doing. If these idiots had a decent education and didn't read papers like the Sun and the Daily Mail they would understand a little better. You can not catch flu from a dead bird.

Also, people don't seem to realsie that bird flu has been around for 10 years now, and less then 120 people world wide have died from it. I worry more when driving my car to and from work than about killer super bugs eating flesh and creating zombie chickens.

But, I suppose we have to be thankful for these people, otherwise, when I took my kids to MacDonalds ^(TM) for their Happy Meals ^(TM), there would be nobody to serve us.

Too much rain:

Jeez,

when is it going to stop raining? It has been belting it down for a week now, and everything is getting just a little muddy.

Found out that chickens shrink in the rain as our poor ladies are now half the size they were and decidedly unhappy. But then they can always go inside to dry off. I suppose they are like horses, would much prefer to stand outside of their shelter looking miserable, trying on the guilt trip. Daft things.

On the way to work this morning I realised I have holes in my shoes. Why couldn't I have found this out during the summer? So sitting at work barefoot, wishing this town had some decent shops that aren't boutiques or fancy cafes. Neither are my type of thing.