Urgh, well – the kitchen is almost done thank goodness. For the past three days I have been able to actually see what I’m cooking, the dust is all but gone, I’m not hopping and skirting around containers and pots, and all in all, it looks pretty good. I have my kitchen back. YESsss!
I have a little bit of work to finish, and then I’ve got a very long list of things to do at the allotment and Smallest Smallholding, some of which include:
1. Putting the Early Potatoes in the ground
2. Putting in more of my Hercules, Stuttgarter Giant and Red Baron onion sets
3. Putting my tent cloche up and sowing my Gladiator parsnip seeds
4. Getting the rest of the Aquadulce Broadbeans in (better late than never)
5. Sowing my Mussleburgh and Porvite Leeks and Snowball Turnips
6. Collecting up some more loo rolls (last lot got put in the recycling by accident) to sow my Heirloom sweet pea seeds that I collected from the plants last year
7. Sow my Nantes Carrots and Golden Bell Peppers
8. Buy some wood and get Rich to build my greenhouse staging (I’ve done a very scientific diagram for him to follow)
9. Buy some wood and get the compost compartments built
10. Do a big ‘poo run’ and stick on compost.
11. More digging (and back pain, and general boredom)
12. Getting the borders sorted on one side for the flower bed.
13. Buy another passion flower to trail up the trellis to disguise the chicken wire.
14. Some general landscaping in the ‘eating area’.
15. Find pots and sow my millions of herb seeds!
I could go on but I imagine you’re starting to get bored now.
In other news – we took Yoko and Cyn to the vets. Yoko had a check up and it was decided that she’s doing fine as she is, so no need to drain her thus far. I really hope she can make it through the summer, because when she stopped laying over the Winter she shrunk back down to a ‘normal’ size.
Cynthia on the other hand, is still unwell. She tends to go in cycles of being ok for about 3 weeks, then gets a problem with her crop, as well as the lack of egg laying and swelling underneath. So we took her in, and it turns out she has a ‘mass’ inside her, just where the eggs pass down. She did a funny egg a few months ago, and we think it may be another one that’s lodged itself there and it may be ‘walled off’ like an abscess. The vet thought that she was a bit young to have a tumour, but didn’t discount it. She said that problems elsewhere can cause problems with the crop too, which is perhaps why Cyn keeps having this reoccuring sour crop problem. It always seems to clear up with the Nystatin though. So at the moment, she’s having 1ml oral baytril a day (baytril works on contact, so getting it to pass through her system is the best way to attack this ‘mass), and we’re waiting a month to see whether the mass has grown or shrunk. If it’s grown, then there’s the option of an exploratory op, and depending on what that finds, surgery. All of which carry risks of course. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
In the meantime, I’m trying to keep her well fed and comfortable. She’s not lethargic as such, just a little bit withdrawn and not gobbling her food. I think the sour crop is returning, so today I’m zipping up to the vet (10 miles away) to get some Avipro and see whether we should start another course of Nystatin or not. Apparently if a hen has a fungal infection, baytril can actually compound the problem so we really need to keep a close eye on her. She’s up and about, she seems happy enough outside so I’m hoping and praying that in a month we’ll not be facing a really difficult decision.
Aside from our hen troubles, we got through Easter fine, had a lovely visit from Rich’s parents, and we’re both now on a healthy eating kick. We have a wedding and my school reunion that I’m organising (am I mad?) in May, and I don’t want to look like a spotty beached whale for either event. Plus, there’s the summer, and being plump during the hot summer is not fun. I’ve got loads of gardening, smallest smallholding and allotmenteering to do, as well as swimming, so hopefully that should get me back in shape. And of course, with my kitchen back (not that it went away as such), I am looking forward to a heck of a lot of baking and cooking, especially with my own home-grown produce.
Hi Lucy, i’ve enjoyed reading your blog, just wondered what a “big poo run” is?!