Pottery Workshop update

Look at those happy hens, enjoying the sunshine! These are our current ladies, Davina (white), Fizz (grey) and Pig(widgeon), and I think they are as happy about a bit of warmth as we are. I counted at least 4 new dust baths in their run just now and they seem very contented indeed. 

We've had a somewhat busy week with all sorts of appointments, so things are a bit slow otherwise, but at least I can report that slowly but surely my very own pottery workshop is coming together. 

A few weeks ago I finally got all my courage (and savings) together and drove to the pottery supplier near here. I'd phoned ahead, so they had got my enormous order of raw materials, glazes, and clay together and I initially stashed it all in the workshop. When the weather got a little warmer I took a proper look at it all and set about decanting everything into more suitable containers. Thank goodness for all the empty yogurt and ice cream buckets that I'd kept. Always worth never throwing anything away, right? 

It all felt quite weird, and also a teeny bit scary, standing there with my big dust mask and disposable gloves on. Most of the materials are OK (even though none of them are exactly healthy to breathe in), but there were also a few more toxic glaze ingredients, and the boys were under strict instructions not to come looking for me...

It's all very exciting. I've even started to mix some glazes and my first batch is ready for testing.

Can you see Betty the big kiln on the right? 

She is STILL not connected. You would not believe the obstacles that we've come up against in our plans to connect her up. Things are looking good, though, and with any luck she should be functional within a few weeks. 

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RUMS

Oh boy...

... life has a way of getting in the way of good old honest blog writing, doesn't it? 

Not that it's been all bad, but the past few weeks have been absolutely packed with all sorts of things, both brilliant and not so brilliant.

On the down side (getting that out of the way first), work has been insane. INSANE, I'm telling you. Not just for me, we've all suffered. My colleague pulled an all-nighter the other day, working 30 hours in a row, with no sleep, just to catch up. While I am familiar with that from my student days it really isn't something that you regularly do in your 40s I think. She admitted that she felt absolutely dreadful afterwards and it took days for her to recover, but it needed to be done at the time.

While I've refused to work all night my days have been pretty intense BUT it's almost done now. Sure, I have other things to do (and I'll get on with those today, so I can finally, finally not feel guilty about postponing them again), at least the big big marking is out of the way and once we have our exam boards next week it will be properly finalised and DONE. 

Now, that's the bad stuff. The good stuff is pretty great too! 

First of all, boy #1 had his first holy communion a couple of weeks ago. 

We celebrated the day quietly, just us, and grandma, and D's uncle and aunt were there for the occasion. After the ceremony there was cake in the church hall and then we all came back to our house for some food. It was nice, and it was so lovely to see D's uncle and wife. They are getting older and who knows how long it will be possible for them to travel, so it was doubly appreciated that they decided to come for the celebration.

A week later (as in last weekend) was my birthday. My 40th birthday no less! 

Again, I didn't think we had anything big planned. D convinced me that we should mark the occasion with a nice meal in a restaurant we both like, and again (I thought) we'd planned to just have a quiet meal (well, not quiet per se perhaps, with the boys...), together with grandma, who lives very close by. Little did I know that they'd both been plotting for months! When we got to the restaurant who should I find but my dad and my 2nd mum and her aunt from Germany AND my brother-in-law and his family, all waiting for us?! They'd all been planning their surprise visit for months and my German family had stayed with grandma for the night before the party so I wouldn't know anything about it. 

Needless to say I was completely stunned! Such an amazing birthday surprise!

The relatives stayed for a few days afterwards, which was lovely, and went back to the airport on Wednesday, thereby concluding our very sociable last few weeks. 

Despite the not-quite-so-nice work pressures it's been a good few weeks. 

The only thing that has really suffered (besides the blog) is my knitting. I managed a few rows here and there, but it's been fairly unimpressive. 

Anyway, there you go, my excuses are made! ;)  

And since I have no knitting worth mentioning that I could contribute to this post today, have this instead - can you spot what is wrong with this picture?

Yep, you got it, it's a chicken in the kitchen. Nyla managed to escape quite a bit recently. She has been a bit unwell, poor lady, but ever since she recovered she's been up to her old tricks, flapping over the fence of the chicken enclosure, and then running, as fast as she can, to the back door so she can slip in while nobody is looking. As soon as she's gobbled up all the cat food she'll make her way to the kitchen to forage for crumbs under the table. 

Naughty girl, that Nyla. 

Rex disapproves.

Right she is. 

Anyway, up and onwards, hopefully towards less stressful worktimes and more productive knitting and crafting. 

Keeping Chickens

These chickens, they love us. 

Honestly, before we had chickens I could never have foretold how affectionate and even downright clingy these birds are. 

Even when we first brought them home they were already pretty tame and put up with not only children but also cats relentlessly stalking them. Not only that, they even seemed to seek out the company, seemingly drawn to the activity whenever we were in the garden. They are so nosy! 

As they got to know us they grew bolder. They would hang out with us on the patio, would sit on the bench next to me as I drank my morning tea, would wait for scraps under the table when we had dinner outside. If you don't watch them they'll fly up to steal food right off your plate (and once right out of boy #2's mouth - he was not happy!). In the winter they mainly hung out on the patio, sitting on the bicycles stored by the back door, high enough so they could peer through the glass in the door and spy on us inside.

Then they decided that this really wasn't close enough. 

They started following us into the house. Nyla, the brown chicken, in particular developed a strong fondness of cat food and whenever the back door opened she ran across the garden to get there before the door was shut again. It's pretty amazing how fast chickens can eat when they put their mind to it! 

She will also happily follow me into the kitchen to hoover up crumbs under the kitchen table. I wouldn't miind this so much if she didn't poop every 5 seconds. I think there is really not much space in there - it's mainly all egg I think - so whenever something goes in at the top (which is constantly) something needs to come out the other end (which is therefore also near-constantly). 

Sorry, I realise this is probably more information than strictly speaking necessary.

This is Rex on the picture above - the boys named her when they were still convinced that she was a cockerel. They look pretty fierce when viewed up close like this. I read the other day that they are descended straight from dinosaurs and I think in a shot like this you can kind of see that. 

Anyway, I'm conflicted about the fondness that our chickens have for our company (and food) - on the one hand they really are good company and I love the way they will immediately start 'chatting' to you when they can hear you getting close, but on the other hand there is all that poop, and the bold food-stealing off the table... We have built a run for them at the back of the garden under the fruit trees and they are mainly in there now unless one of the boys lets them out. They like it well enough, although they still prefer to be with us all of the time.