snowbird's clutch

Snowbird is very proud of her Kinder eggs.

paddling, hens and our beach

The boys can't keep out of the padling pool and are getting through far too many sets of clothes each day just now, a couple of days ago young Stanley was very keen to join them, Ruan and Bindle are inspecting one of the two new scarecrows in the background. Bindle was the main architect while Ruan and I spent a couple of days uprooting and moving a fence that used to separate the trees from the rest of the garden but now runs across the bottom of the garden to try and keep the jabali at bay. I am going to try and finish the fence at the top of the garden today but the ground is full of stones and progress is slower.

The boys discovered the new PhotoBooth effects and actually appeared to get on with each other for a few mins the other day. Rowan has been cutting his hair again.
Some hens are happy with ordinary eggs...

Snowbird is sitting on some special ones and is very proud of them although the other hens keep laying proper ones next to her and she takes them in too... not sure what she will do when a load of little Kinder figures hatch.

The boys now think of Pantin as 'our beach' it is only a few kilometers further than Vilarrube and is a rather wonderful place although also has a lot of dangerous water but it does not have the sinking quicksand that we keep finding at Vilarrube. There are some lovely sand dunes and pretty patches of hotentot fig.Great places for boys to jump off.

And for dads to rest.

All seems well with gingi

Gingi seem to be OK, she survived the night and seems quite perky today although the hens have all decided to stay inside their house today. I have strung a network of white polypropolene string across their enclosure, hopefully enough to discourage any more airborn predators from coming down.

There was a rather sad looking apple treee struggling to survive near one of the front gates, I dug it up today and found it had been tied to a stake with nylon cord that had become deeply embedded in the bark, it was also planted in a mix of builder's rubble and gravel so I would imagine was bone dry for much of the spring and summer - no wonder it was struggling. It has now joined the huerta or orchard that we are planting in the rich soil down the West side of the garden between the house and the eucalyptus.

Weather is still on and off wet and windy but quite comfortable as far as temperature goes. When we moved to Cornwall I met the word 'mizzle' for that sort of rain that is somewhere between thick mist and drizzle...out here we ahve met another word that works really well - they call heavy showers 'tormentias' and inded they are a torment.

As we get our ear in to Galego we are starting to catch on to what one of the local old ladies says, it is always pretty much the same line of conversation something along the lines of "What fettle canny lad, ahm eyty two years ald ye naa, look me hair all fell out cos of me medication and ah hev te gan te hospital te have an operation soon." We wonder if one day we will be able to differentiate between regional dialects here - at the moment we are struggling to get more than about 20% of what they say and cant really tell if its Galego or Castilian....poco a poco.

Its getting dark I had better go and baricade the hens in for the night.

hen problems

The hens were out and about doing what hens do when out of the sky came a buzzardy eagly thing accompanied by a host of crows and pinned one of the hens down, Jen managed to scare it off and they are all locked away now. There was a few drops of blood on the grass but apart from a lot of ruffled feathers I can't see much damage but time will tell. I guess that is the end of our hens roaming round the garden and we will have to string something across the top of their enclosure to discourage marauders too. Some days are good some less so.

wild mite and happenings in the hen house

Wild mite or wild thing or crunch the kitten has moved into our downstairs and shouts for food every few hours, he loves sitting under the lemon tree but doesn't venture very far from the house neither can we get close enough to touch him but hopefully we now have less mice than we might have had if indeed we ever had any.

He has a nest in the hay that must remind him a tad of early days in the henhouse at Rioforcadas ..talking of which it is all happening down in our hen house, snowbird was eventually allowed to share the hen house but not on the same roost as the other hens, she had to hide in the hay for a few days then was allowed onto a low roost and eventually onto a high one a few feet away from the others. Two days ago I felled a couple of eucalyptus trees and one landed close to the hen house, well actually it hit the fence attached a couple of feet from the hen house but anyway next morning snowbird is on her own on the roost previously occupied by the 4 red hens and the four red hens are on the roost previously occupied by snowbird - the latter being the roost furthest away fron the felled tree incident. When we let the hens out they run or sort of gallop towards our spinach plants aiming to devour the lot so we have to fend them off and herd them into the old cabbage patch. Lisa and her husband came in today for the first time - they live up the road and are ancient as the hills - they loved the hen run and were impressed by the veg patch but due to a slight misunderstanding (one amongst many) we now have to go visit them to learn how to cook chestnuts properly on saturday afternoon...I think that means boiling them in water and fennel leaves hmmmm. We managed to by a mandarin tree and an orange tree and an olive tree all for 25 euros at Moeche market yestrday so have started our little orchard. Weather is still hot during the day but getting cooler overnight now.

4 hen names, school and my job.

I forgot to mention the names of our two new hens - Ginger and Flappy, they joined Kate and Poppy a week or so ago and settled in fine unlike El Pájaro De la Nieve who is a feisty girl rather like a yorkshire terrier she will take on anything. She almost escaped today - I had to do a bit more wing clipping and got pecked in the process but now she can only do a floppy spiral so I don't think she will get out of her pen again.

We managed to get to the local school - cosy with a total of 7 pupils, rather warm inside but very friendly staff and the children seemed nice too. Rowan liked it but Callum is adamant he is not going to go. We have to go to the Junta de Galicia in Ferrol to register before they can start and the English speaking person is only there on a Tuesday so the boys have a few days holiday to go yet.

I work running a degree programme at Anglia University and our students start back on Monday - I am really looking forward to it, the last few weeks have been filled with planning and resource making which is ok but I much prefer the working with students bit..its a totally online work focused, inquiry based approach so I spend my days in online community spaces facilitating a great bunch of students on theirjurney towards self improvement. My cohort are one semester away from graduating..exciting times.

two in one

A double yolker no less woohooo again.

egg

Jubilations we have our first egg from the brown hens, I went out to think about making some nesting boxes and there it was still warm with all of the hens inspecting it as if it was something alien. One egg between two boys doesn't work unless it is in a pancake so we are off to make a mix. I think so far the egg has cost around 45 euros but the cost should drop as we get more :-)

At last an answer to a universal question - the chickens definitely preceded the egg in our experience.

The Snow Bird and some gas

Bianca did not last long as a name - she now has the grand title of "The Snow Bird" and she is a really feisty princess. We should really be going for Spanish names but 'El Pájaro De la Nieve' does not exactly trip lightly of the tongue...hmm it does sound grand and almost Quixotish though and is perhaps a rival to Dulcima de Toboso on the beauty front.

I think we have a gatito (kitten) ariving soon; it is black and in its current home sleeps curled up with the eggs in our friends' henhouse - any guesses as to the likely name ? I think it might begin with B.

The boys are giving serious consideration as to middle names for all of the birds....naming things really is important to them just now - what wonderful ages to be - just 5 or almost 6.

We ran out of gas on sunday, have been ringing the gas man's number for a couple of weeks and getting a constant engaged tone so I finally had to check the address out in google earth and wend my way to the depths of Ferrol on Monday where amazingly enough I drove straight to the right place and even found a parking space not far off. A man arrived manyana de manyana to sort our new contract and on my proud rendering of "No hay nada gas" he became rather concerned and got busy on the phone and within 20 mins a lorry arrived with three full cylinders and just as I was getting lost in a mire of galego/castillian banter a lovely lady by chance chose that moment to knock at our door and introduce herself - a neighbour from not far away who speaks excelent English, and galego and castillian i think so phew confusion difused and clarity resumed and we breathed a huge sigh of relief..then realised a power surge had damaged our oven and the microwave now does a great lightning storm ...ah well life goes up and down doesn't it..the computer is thankfully ok .....upward and onward.

Bianca the new hen

We visited the local school to see about our boys attending but missed it by a few mins however the folk over the road invited us in for coffee and we left 20 mins later with about 30 kg of potatoes, 30 eggs and a new white hen now called Bianca. They warned us to keep her solo as she had not had her beak trimmed so would peck others in the cage - we don't do caging hens so we thought she might be ok outside with ours but nope despite being half their size she tried it on and was then mobbed by our 4 so she is now in the old temporary enclosure while we wonder is she a he and think out what to do.

Here is the luxury outdoor run somewhat shaded by the eucalyptus.


Our 4 little red hens and some white feathers.


Bianca hiding in her temporary hut.

Waterboys and outdoor girls

The boys love being in the sea, the Faro end of Valdovino has had some perfect waves for playing in recently.

Kate and Poppy have moved into different temporary accomodation, this time they are outside and they are a lot happier, as you can see the garden is getting a little more organised but not a lot. The hens are named after the boys' big sisters who are all grown up and staying in the UK. It is three weeks today since we arrived and we are all begining to miss the folks back home. With school about to start the boys in particular are feeling a bit lost for friends and getting a tad naughty despite telling us that living here is just perfect. They are still telling us they are not going to school in Spain ..time will tell.

chuck chuck

Our first couple of chickens settling into temporary accomodation - Poppy on the left and Kate on the right, they will be 'gallinas libre' once we pluck up the courage to let them out...for the moment they are in what was an indoor rabbit pen and seem quite happy. As soon as I find a shop that sells big nails I will be building them a hen house and an outdoor pen.