Rhubarb from my friends' garden. I stew it, freeze it, then make it into crumble throughout the year. There's nothing better than rhubarb crumble on a cold winter's day!
And this is sweet little Coco Pops. We had to get a few new chickens due to over half of ours being taken by foxes/illness. We spent yesterday building their new pen. I'll take photos of the rest later and post.
There are baby crows in our driveway at the moment. They are very cute and completely gormless. Last night when I went to put the original hens to bed there was a baby crow in their coop. His parents were overhead making warning calls, but he didn't seem bothered.
We suspected that some of the hens are laying outside the hen house at the moment - as egg production has dropped to between 1 and 3 eggs per day (from five laying hens). So this morning when I saw Yoko run off - again - as soon as I opened the hen house door, I quickly ran after her to see where she went.
I tracked her to the dividing hedge and could hear her scratching around inside there. I left her to it, determined to go back later, sure I would find a little cache of eggs.
I scoured under the hedge, but could see no eggs. I was so sure, though, that there were eggs nearby and sure enough, a couple of feet away, in amongst leaves and nettles I found them!
Once I looked at them in the box, though, it seems not one but two of our hens are laying there. And as Shelley was hanging out with Yoko around the hedge I think it might be her.
There are probably lots of little bunches of eggs lying around the place, waiting to be found :)
Hagos had an unexpected gig cancellation late on Friday night. He was supposed to be travelling early Saturday morning to a gig in Cheltenham. So it meant we felt like we had a bonus weekend. We did our usual Saturday stuff but I also managed to stick to my original plan too, to spring clean and sort three out-of-control areas in the house.
This area, in front of the living room window, has been un-usable for weeks. Knitting, bags, jackets, have all been dumped on top of my piano, making it impossible to find anything, never mind play it! So now all my knitting-in-progress is sorted into easy bags, my drawing and writing materials are tidy, and the piano is plugged in and ready to go.
The next section is this shelf unit in the kitchen. We keep re-usable envelopes and packing materials on top (that was almost up to the ceiling and a complete mess), then I kept my knitting, sewing and baking books here too. So I've packed away all the wool I'm not currently using and have only kept out stuff that's in progress at the moment. I cleaned it all up too so no more dust and fluff.
The third section I wanted to get to (and it may still happen) is the shoe rack by the back door. It's untidy, plus it has all sorts of unrelated shoe items in it: hair accessories, bicycle helmets, a cat harness from two years ago when we first moved in!
So I'm slowly moving around the house and dealing with 'pockets' of mess.
I'm feeling the effects of working full time at the moment. When Hagos is coming and going, and I have extra work stuff to do too it all feels too much. I've been delegating more, and forcing myself to concentrate on one task at a time. I find myself simultaneously working on several tasks at once as a general approach to work and life and it's a complete mind-melt! And even things I'd like to do, like go to a Tai Chi class, seem like too much to take on at the moment. Too much of my time is scheduled already and I know I need much more unscheduled time than I have to just decide what I'd like to do, rather than being locked into duty and obligation, what I have to do.
And it's important to take time to empty my mind and roll around in the garden with Meg. This is the first weekend in AGES I feel I've managed to stop my continuous brain chatter and let my imagination drift and wander and sometimes be still.
I love Meg so much. She's so beautiful, and she smells divine, and she has such great attitude.
And she loves me and always tries to snuggle up to me wherever I am.
She's a great friend.
