work!!!

rain stops play, well actually the weather is quite good but it might as well rain because the beardy one cant get away from work, and as anyone who is self employed knows if you dont work you dont eat. its so busy at the mo, i shouldnt complain i know but there are things i want him to do, like my quail run. i wonder how home from uni son is at woodwork, hmmmm.

happy day

happy colour today was a really good day.

dad was well which is always a blessing as his mood can be horrible, i did his shopping and cleaning etc, then beardy one took me wood shopping. oh i know its hardly shoes and handbags, but i have daughters who will do that kind of shopping with me. wood and wire means the imminent arrival of a new run for the quails, yippee. when the weather picks up, booo.

so i have a little request that god please stops watering my garden for a few days so that some of his feathered creatures can please have their new living accommodation. pretty please!!!

oh what a night!

did you get that storm last night? i could almost hear my grass saying aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

iffy quail had been to the vet on Friday, nothing positive to say sadly, she could find no apparent reason for the paralysis which had spead down one side, and gave me the 'it may be kinder...' speech. i asked if there was any hope, always hope she reassured me. i decided to take the weekend to decide. she was in a hospital cage in our aviary porch, i was feeding her softened chick crumbs every few hours and dribbling water into her beak with a dropper but no change. when i went out at 6 this morning she was dead. its so sad but it was her decision not mine or the vets, i gave her the best chance.

it leaves me with a bit of a dilemma though. my ratios were perfect, one cock and 5 hens in the upstairs run, the same downstairs. but iffy has gone now and so has hannah montana, and to top it off, one of our beautiful hens with a perfect string of pearls crowed yesterday revealing herself as a boy. so its 2 cocks to 4 hens upstairs and one cock to 3 hens downstairs. i need 5 more hens to bring the ratio up to 1 and 4. i clearly need to rethink the living quarters and talk the beardy one into building me something bigger. all i wanterd was a few cute birds, why does it have to be so stressful?

i think i can finally hear movement upstairs but it would probably be too much to expect all of them to accompany me to church this morning, one or two might we will see.

stressful night

awful absolutely devastating.

beautiful gentle as a rule dolly dog has been fascinated with the quail since their arrival a couple of days ago. earlier i had to pull her away from the run as she was being a bit aggressive to one through the wire, unlike her, shes good with the aviary the love birds and house budgie, the gerbils and guinea pig.

i was watching tv in bed nursing a sore throat last night when i decided to call down "any chance of a cup of tea?" as i peered over the bannister there she was on her bed with a white fluffy beard. omg as girlie daughter would say. i ran down hoping with all my heart she had raided the bin and found kitchen roll, tissues anything, but i knew, i just did.

poor poor beautiful hannah montanna, our white texas a & m hen lost to the deeply buried instincts of dolly dog.

immediately i ran out back to check the run closely followed by girlie daughter and goth daughter, there was a hole in the wire, no more were gone thankfully. the way my life is, i am always thankful for small mercies.

home from uni son appeared and in a very uncharacterisic moment saved the day by fixing the run very securely by torchlight. hes not an animal fan but he wouldnt see harm come to one.

this morning with the kitchen cleaned and dolly dog very subdued due to me not being able to so much as look at her, its hard to imagine the drama of the night before but believe me, its not a sight ill readilly forget.

dolly wants her mummy but mummy cant cuddle right now, maybe later.

day one, always think of it as day one

after a lot of umming and aahing, the beardy one talked me into finally committing to buying some birds. i want quail, chickens and bantams, decided to start with quail so off we went to market.

still undecided even as my bidding arm involuntaruly shot into the air time after time, and came home with 2 japanese, 2 italian, 2 texas a & m white and a brown texas. a good start the beardy one commented, no yells i thats it, i only wanted 3 or 4, but knowing me better than i sometimes know myself he smiled no doubt thinking, yeah yeah this number will be doubled by next week.

the birds settled beautifully but one didnt look so good so i prepared beardy son for the worst and sadly over night the worst happened, another looks a bit iffy and ive popped her into a holding cage for a bit of intensive tlc.

after realising that i had 2 cock birds, standing to full height and crowing their fabulous 'im king of the world' song i needed to up the ratio of girls to boys, so off we went to the local farm park and bought 6 of the plumpest most beautiful quail hens ever. 5 girls to one boy,( what was that about doubling my numbers?) all is well, iffy is still iffy but i am totally in love.