Firstly, we have a serious red theme going on. Having red fans in the house make decoration so much simpler. However, there is a small vignette featuring lovely fresh green on our china cupboard (which is red! Ikea Hemnes to be precise), which is linked to the photo on the wall. This is an old film photograph I captured many years ago, reprinted, framed, framed over, forgotten until the move unearthed it. I love the simple white frames, and the clean look. Forgive the hideous red cast on the wall from the cupboard, the sun was pouring in and there was very little I could do to avoid it.
The little bird is from Typo, (I have a weakness for that shop) and the canvas is my own work also. The photo of me with a horse is one of my father’s slides. I gave it a bit of a working over in lightroom and loved the gritty other-world finished product. Candles from Ikea and Dusk.
The other little splash of green is from a Climbing Pea suitable for winter gardens up here. I planted 7 pots of them, and this is the first one to emerge after their rather rough start. I checked the others very delicately, all but one were looking like emerging, the final one had rotted. This weather is wreaking havoc with the germination. Soil temperatures below 25 are required and it’s blazing sunshine and no rain. Halfway through AUTUMN!!
But we will press on. I have plans to plant Broad Beans tomorrow. And the Garlic has survived it’s brush with a wandering neighbourhood cat (YUCK!) and one pot has already sent up one lovely shoot. Hopefully many MANY more to follow. As an example of this glorious, however un-cooperative weather, the current average temperature for April here has been 23.1C. We have had only 3.4 mm of rain for the entire month! For April last year our average maximum was 19.6, and we had received 20.2 mm of rain. Our long term average rainfall for April is 58.5 mm. Can you tell I love weather and statistics?
Meanwhile, in Chicken news, DH and I decided to do the dirty deed and catch the girls last night before putting them to bed. It was either that or wait another week as the evenings get dark now before he gets home. The rings on their ankles looked to be getting tighter and tighter, better to deal with it now before any real problems began. However we hadn’t actually had to catch any of them in the 2+ weeks that we had had them. So it was a bit of an adventure….. apparently despite his sporting prowess, I have faster reflexes in the chicken department, and apparently the right touch for cuddling and soothing, feeling their heart rates going back down as I snuggled and stroked them. As we don’t want to upset them more than we have to, catching them is a last resort type thing, and so I made the most of it while I had the chance. This morning, all was forgiven, and all 4 of them were eating out of my hand, which is actually an improvement on yesterday! So maybe it wasn’t that bad after all. All the leg bands are safely off, and that’s one less thing to go wrong. Of course, call me mad, however I have a batch of yoghurt brewing on the kitchen bench at the moment just for adding to their mash tomorrow morning. There have been too many sneezes for my liking in the hen house, although no runny noses or any other symptoms, so I think a garlic mash with some extra protein might just help put them back on their feet so to speak.
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