Chicken cam

You can view our chickens online:

Our chickens

NB If it is black when you look, it's because it's night time here. Remember, our chickens are English ladies. If you view during the evening, you might see them sitting on their perches ready for bed. If you view during the day, the camera switches to an outside view where you might see a chicken perched happily, or eating a yummy meal.

Chickens and birthdays.

It's been a week of mixed emotions.

Our lovely boss chicken, Portia, departed this world and is now in Chicken Heaven with her best friend Cordelia. She had been with us for just 1 year, 2 days. When we got her as one of our original four, we were told that she was older than the others, probably 9 months old. This turned out to be incorrect, and a little

research showed that her brittle shelled eggs, then no eggs except for small brown pebbly things, indicated that she was about 5.

Over the last few weeks, Portia started to look old. She was sleeping a lot, and she wasn't running around with the youngsters. I thought her days were numbered. On Wednesday when I went to visit the coop in the morning, only 6 chickens greeted me. Portia is always there, as she doesn't lay eggs. She wasn't one of them. Then she appeared at the top of the ramp,

hesitating to come down. She did come down, but fell at the bottom, then stumbled over to a corner where she settled herself down. She stayed there for the rest of the day, then we transferred her to our spare coop, with lots of straw around her to keep her warm. We found her in exactly the same place the next morning, looking very cuddly and peaceful.

And now for some happier news.

It was Ellen's birthday yesterday

. She is 7, and we had a party at the Wacky Warehouse today.

I made a Giant cupcake. It was my first, and it turned out rather well.

Go on!

Who's going to have a go first? Go on, I dare you!

(Why did the farmer leave it here, anyway?)

Busy Sunday

Yesterday I sent the Hubby to TFM for chicken feed and scaly legtreatment. For a couple of days now,
I've noticed that some of the chicken's legs
had loose or sticky-up scales, and they also looked bright white. A little research showed that it was probably caused by a mite which gets under the scales and irritates the legs. This isn't our chicken above.

The worst example is

Juliet, as held here by Rachel, but I don't think you can see much. We treated them yesterday with 'Just for Scaly legs' spray, and already they've improved.

I think we caught ours in the earlier stages. It's highly contagious and they haven't all got it.

The chickens did their bit to dig over the veggie patch with Rachel.

Rachel and Juliet relaxed on the swing

I dug up a few more carrots

My new sewing machine is in place and I am very fond of it. It looks good. I started my first project on it. One of those zippered boxy pouch things. This machine is famed for it's lovely straight stitching, so here's an example.

And what about keeping these shelves for lovely fabrics and sewing supplies?

Changed my mind

I was going to make a Drops design top from this Rowan Lenpur Linen I got (bargain). It was this pattern >>>>>>> but I'd only done a few rows. Each row took a lifetime, and I realised that I could fit me in it twice.

So now it is due to become this:

No problem. Except this knitting pattern is in French. Bonne chance!

First Day

Ellen's first day at her new school, a specialist autism school. She is 6, and will be 7 in 3 weeks.

Look what I've got!

I bought it on Ebay today, as an early birthday present to myself. I'm very excited about it. Apparently, it is the best sewing machine ever made, as long as you want to sew lovely straight lines. It's semi-industrial strength, which means it will sew leather and lots of thicknesses of fabric, eg. denim.

The Singer 201K was bought mainly by professional machinists who would sew for a living. The Singer 201Kwas pretty much bullet proof and could take a direct hit from a nuclear missile and still sew. Today there is no sewing machine made that will stitch better than the Singer 201sewing machine.

So it's a Singer 201K and it cost me £35, the starting bid. I'm rather happy with that. It's going to live in my bedroom and double as a dressing table.

I finished this recently. It is a Holden Shawlette knitted with Easyknits bamboo/merino sock yarn. Looks like the colourway I used isn't available though.

It's a lovely soft shawl and was a pleasure to knit.

Portia is considering corn.