Forever

On Sunday it was Meggie dog's 4th anniversary of finding her forever home with us on 17th January 2006. A whole 4 scrummy years of having her in our lives! We adopted her from the Evesham branch of the Dog's Trust. You can read a bit about her story by clicking here. Meg is a big softy who loves lots & lots of cuddles. Bear hugs with Meg are one of my most favourite things. Her fur is silky soft & I love just burying my face into her soft warmth. The soulful, trusting look with which she gazes up at me is truly humbling. To me it is incredible that she is still able to give so much after such a horrible & frightening experience early in her life. The pleasure & joy she has brought us is immeasurable. My eyes are just filling up with pride & love for her as I type & my heart could just burst!

If you find yourself considering welcoming a dog into your life, please, please do go to a Dog's Trust rescue centre or other dog's home . I promise you will find your perfect pooch there & adopting a dog will be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life.

My fabulous, furry, four legged friends!

Things have been fairly quiet over the last few days with our ducks & hens, apart from the sad loss of hen Chicken Licken after a short spell of illness.

Even though we have had quite a few chickens come & go now it always saddens my heart to lose one.

Puddles is much recovered & is doing a wonderful job of playing foster mum to the rescued Mallard ducklings. Jess is all healed again & seems content with her ducky friends for company, so for now she remains is the back garden happily digging & shredding & uprooting things she shouldn't!

The weather this weekend was glorious & sunny, so I decided to make the most of it & spend some time in the garden with the dogs. I feel that I haven't properly introduced them yet, so here goes:-

The youngest at 2 years old is Mabel, an impish Jack Russell/ Yorkshire Terrier cross. She was looking a bit scruffy so I got the brush & comb out together with the scissors only intending to trim the fur from around her eyes. She was being so unusually good about being groomed that I decided to trim a bit more off here & a bit more off there, until - oops! - I had managed to just about trim her from head to toe! It was the neatest of cuts but I thought she looked gorgeous when I'd finished, just like a pup again!

Before....

and after!

Mabel is diminutive in proportions, but she has that big terrier attitude, believes she is indestructible & will kill anything that is smaller than her given half a chance! On our dog walks she has been known to kill & then drag a rabbit home with her, then spend the rest of the afternoon crunching it up in the front garden with blood & gore all around her chops! She has also been known to disappear down rabbit holes & not come out for more than an hour, once getting stuck & having to to be dug out, so now she is strictly on the lead on our daily countryside walks & the rabbit population is much safer for it! On the flip side, she is a loving little thing, me being her favourite person in the whole wide world & being curled up on my lap being her most favourite place in the world.

Our oldest dog at the age of 10 & looking like she needs a hair cut herself is Polo, our Westie.

Apart from brushing her I leave her grooming to the experts at the grooming parlour. She enjoys having a bath & loves the hair dryer, but isn't so good at being clipped! She especially hates having her paws touched by anyone - a bit bothersome when it comes nail clipping. I don't know how they placate her at the grooming parlour (& it's probably best that I don't know!) but here is a picture of her looking much prettier after a haircut:

Gorgeous, isn't she? In 10 years she has been through a lot with us & that makes her very special. She is faithful & fearless but even at 10 can be very wilful & when the crops start growing in the fields will, if not watched like a hawk, disappear after rabbit scents & not return home until she is quite ready! She has never caught a rabbit & in fact is completely trustworthy with our own pet rabbits, preferring to kiss them on the nose rather than savage them as Mabel might, but does love a good scent trail to follow!

At 6 years old our next oldest dog is Maggie, my beloved Border Terrier.

Maggie is my constant companion, a beautiful girl inside & out! She is playful, fun loving & affectionate. She gives the love she is shown back ten-fold! She is the type of dog who feels your moods intuitively & knows what her response should be to make you feel better. I can't imagine what life would be like without her by my side, so I hope we will enjoy many more happy years together.

And last, but by no means least, we have Meggie, our Border Collie / Whippet cross lurcher.

Meggie came from the Dog's Trust, Evesham, & is a special, but complicated girl! After being rescued from the streets she did not get on at all well with kennel life at the Dog's Trust, but was thankfully taken on by a wonderful foster mummy who looked after her for about 2 months before she eventually found her forever home with us. When we first had her she was clearly frightened of men & it took quite a long while for my husband & 3 sons to completely gain her trust. She had some strange habits due to her deep insecurities & would steal all sorts of objects from food packets, to glass bottles to cuddly toys & hide them all in her bed. She would panic if any strange males came to the door & would cower in the corner of the kitchen & wet herself. She was also a terrible food thief & we quickly learnt that anything edible must be kept out of her reach. Right from the start though you could look into Meg's soulful eyes & know there was something special that just needed reaching & with lots of patience & love we have unlocked a beautiful, loving dog with an awful lot to give. She is just the softest, cuddliest of girls & I can't imagine how anyone could have been cruel to her. I often wish I could climb inside her mind & erase any unpleasant memories she has so that she is no longer haunted be an unhappy past. Look at her here with middle son:

She loves her cuddles that's for sure!

We still have a little way to go with her. She can be unpredictable with dogs & people she doesn't know, especially men, so we have to muzzle her for safety's sake when we go for walks. Now she has her confidence back she can make herself big & scary when she feels threatened as the Parcel Link delivery man will tell you!! But taking on Meggie has been a rich & rewarding experience & when I look at her sprawled out on the settee with all four legs in the air & that lop sided grin I that know it has all been worth it!

So know you've met them properly & I'm sure there will be lots more doggy tales to follow...

A tale of two gardens...

At last I've recovered from the Swine Flu & not a moment too soon because my Mum & Dad's dog Jane arrived on Friday for a week's stay while they are away on holiday. She is a gorgeous black greyhound that they adopted from Perry Barr Retired Greyhound Trust. She had been to visit us on three previous occasions so that we could get our four dogs Polo, Meggie, Maggie & Mabel accustomed to her. Each visit had become progressively less stressful for all involved so we were hoping all would go well!

Mum & Dad's dog Jane

A lovely greeting at the garden gate from Meggie, our lurcher. Polo, our Westie, is in the background

On Saturday it was so nice to have a day of sunshine after all the miserable wet weather we've had lately. In the front garden all five dogs were enjoying the sunshine peacefully together. Well, four of them were relaxing in the sunshine. I don't think Mabel knows the meaning of the words 'peace' & 'quiet'! She was playing with the tortoise, or was it the tortoise playing with her? It was so funny to watch!

Mabel & Jenny the tortoise

I patted the dogs & tried to imagine how the garden will look when our little project is finished. Our 'Home Sweet Home' for the last six years has been our lovely single storey barn conversion. Our bedroom window is coming out & will be replaced by french doors, which will eventually lead out onto a rustic decked area with pergola over, draped with lovely, scented climbing plants. That's my vision anyway. So far, the radiator underneath the current window has been ripped out & a new one installed on the adjacent wall. So three months on we have one very messed up wall in the bedroom (which is what you can see in my previous blog about the Mallard ducklings)!

Talking of the little Mallard ducklings, they were doing so well that it was time to think about moving them outside. But in the back garden was a scene of carnage. Who had broken my plant pot? Who had ransacked my raised bed & eaten all my beetroot, french bean, spring onion & radish seedlings? Who had shredded the leaves of my rhubarb plants?

Was it (much recovered) injured hen Jessica? Surely not. Was it mild mannered Lottie? No way.

Injured hen Jessica with a purple neck from the antiseptic spray (left) & the lovely Lottie (right)

Who could it have been?.......

It was all the work of Kitty, Molly, Norah & Oprah our other four ex-battery hens who had recouped their health & strength a lot more quickly than expected & had run riot in my poor garden while I was sick with 'flu! Still, it has been absolutely fantastic watching them go from very sorry looking birds to hens with all the lust for a free ranging life that they should have. The garden can wait until next year. Because they had done so well & the ducklings needed a place to live outside I took the brave decision to try integrating the four vandals into the rest of the flock, leaving just the injured hen & a friend with the freedom of the garden & shed. This would mean the old rabbit hutch was no longer needed as a hen hospital & would be available as a home for the ducklings. So on Thursday Operation Brown Hen commenced & we sneaked Norah & Oprah into the hen house under the cover of darkness. The next day it seemed that the stealth mission had gone unnoticed & they looked, apart from their missing feathers & ragged appearance, as though they had always been part of the flock! So on Friday night we sneaked Molly & Kitty up. That introduction didn't go quite so unnoticed by the rest of the chickens, four new house mates was obviously pushing our luck, but thankfully no serious fighting broke out & the next day, after a few squabbles, all was peace & harmony again. I took a moment to sit & enjoy the scene. Our little field is full of happy looking birds now & is such a pleasant place to be. Just enough room left now for four little Mallards if needs be.

Oprah (left), Kitty (middle), Norah & Molly (right) join the rest of the flock

Happy birds!

I have emailed the R.S.P.B. to get their advice on what I should do with the rescued Mallards. Should I leave them to them fly away when their wings grow? Will they survive in the wild now? Or are they vulnerable because of their tameness? Should I clip their wings & give them a permanent home? A part of me dearly wants to keep them, but really I just want to do what's best for them. I keep checking my emails in trepidation, but so far no response. So I have just got on with the day to day care of my little charges. Weaning them from chick crumbs onto growers pellets with the occasional treat of shredded lettuce. Giving them a daily splash about in a tray of warm water. Cleaning their bedding daily in a never ending cycle of towel washing & drying. Watching them develop playful little characters. Boo, the smallest, in particular had become rather fond of the game of creeping up behind one of her siblings & pecking them up the backside before retreating rapidly! I have cared for them while I've had 'flu & they have cheeped away to me while I've been lying poorly in bed. So maybe you can imagine now just how attached I have become to them.

My little 'flu buddies

On Saturday, in the sunshine, it was time for them to move into their new home in the back garden.

They were a little scared at first, but only for a short time.

Before long they were exploring their new environment excitedly, cheeping away & foraging in the grass for tasty morsels. I filled two trays of water up for them & soon they were enjoying a splash about & setting about giving their new feathers a good preen. Of the three sets of ducklings we have raised recently they have feathered the quickest. I guess they need to in the wild. They now look like some strange kind of duckling / duck morphed creature, with fuzzy duckling faces attached to mini adult bodies! Their plumage looks to be female, but I have read that the drake only gets his colourful feathers to attract the hen for mating, then moults when the hen is busy laying & goes back to looking brown like her. So I don't think it's possible to sex them just yet. However, two are bigger & their feathering is slightly more advanced than the other two. Are they drakelets? It's exciting trying to guess!

So, that's my news brought up to date & as I enjoy a welcome day's pre-booked holiday from work to recover my strength after the 'flu it's hard to decide which garden to spend the most time in. Five dogs & one fast tortoise, or four ducklings & two hens (not to meantion the 2 rabbits & 3 ferrets!) - never the two shall meet me thinks!!

Animals are such a tonic!

I've been feeling under the weather with a flare of my fibromyalgia / cfs symptoms, which fortunately is a relatively rare occurrence these days. I try to do everything I can to shut it out & reduce it's affects on my life as much as possible, but it's at times when I feel unwell that I especially appreciate having firstly my very caring family & secondly my lovely animals around me.

The dogs were very confused because normal routines went out of the window. Because my blog has been filled with duckling & hen stories you wouldn't have guessed yet that I'm a massive dog lover, or should that be a massive lover of dogs? I may be heavier than I'd like to be, but not massive yet! We have four dogs; Polo the Westie, Maggie the border terrier, Meggie the lurcher & Mabel the Jack Russell / Yorkshire Terrier cross. They are all very special & I promise I will introduce you to them soon! They all sat outside the bedroom door while I was in bed & were besides themselves with excitement when I finally emerged. They were then glued to my side in case I disappeared again, nudging at me & wanting to be as close as possible to me. I do love them so! When I feel recovered I will treat them to long walkies & lots of extra pats & cuddles to make up for being a rubbish mummy these last couple of days.

Later I spent a quiet hour out in the garden with Chalk & Cheese the ducklets. They are about 8 / 9 weeks old now & far too big to be called ducklings any more. Here are some up to date pics:

'Chalk'

'Cheese'

They are so grown up now that it's time to start thinking about taking them up to our little bit of field & introducing them to the hens, Khaki Campbell ducks & geese. I want to do it while they are still small enough not to be a threat to Pop, our gander, but big enough to pretty much take care of themselves & free range with the other birds. They are really quite good at foraging in the garden now (with the odd treat of mealworms, lettuce or grated carrot) & only eat a bowl of their growers pellets in the evening before bed time. In fact they have become a bit too good at free-ranging! At first the worst they did to my raised beds was squish a few onion & shallot plants. But now all that remains of my baby leeks & beetroot plants is one small dug up beetroot & bare earth! However, sat watching them in the pleasant evening sunshine was such perfect, peaceful bliss that I really didn't care one bit. Cheese was especially funny listening to & watching the wild birds in the garden whilst chilling out in the pool, his crest feathers rising & falling inquisitively. Chalk was busy preening herself. She's still more feathered than Cheese & her beak is starting to develop it's red colouring.

Another thing that put a smile on my face was receiving my first parcel from Primrose Hill Studios. I have never opened such a beautifully wrapped package before! My little covered notebook & gingham lavender heart were made by a lady who clearly puts a lot of love into her craft work. Have a peak at http://www.primrosehillinteriors.com/.

And yet another big thing to be very happy about is that eldest son has passed his first year exams at Uni, with a first in Artificial Intelligence!!! I'm so excited & proud of him! Middle son has finished his GCSE's now, but he has quite a long wait for his results - fingers crossed that he's done as well as he deserves to after working hard for them.

So clearly no reason at all for feeling sorry for myself here! My life is full of so very much to feel happy about & I'm a very lucky lady. Onwards & upwards as they say.