R.I.P. Bibo

Bibo the hamster, has passed over to Rainbow Bridge. We found him, or rather I found him, on Saturday afternoon. He was in his main area and it looked like maybe he had just fallen to sleep or had a heart attack or something. I just don't know. He was between 16 and 18 months old at least. We had him for nearly 15 months and I don't know how old he was when we got him last year in March. I've been told that they are normally around 3 months old. Anyway, it was a hard day. Isabella was totally heartbroken, but she decorated a little box for him - it was actually one of my 5 thousand egg boxes - it had a picture of Daisy and Dash on it. I told her that as they live in the garden, they would watch over him. She decorated it and then we wrapped him in some lovely flowery fabric before she wrote him a little note which she tied with ribbon, 2 white feather for wings and a little white flower. She was very brave about it actually and placed him into the grave that Steve had dug for him in the new area of the garden, which we only did last weekend. There is a large piece of slate over the top onto which we placed a candle and some flowers. She made a little tribute video for him and chatted to some of her friends who have also lost their hamsters so, three days on, she is feeling a lot better and is back to her normal self. It was harder for me really, watching her deal with the loss of this little bundle of fur, but I knew how she felt, so I think I was able to help her through it. I know the process you go through and how taking an active part in the process of saying "good-bye" is very healing. Anyway, rest in peace little Bibo. I'm sorry and hope you are now with Amber, Holly and Tibby in Grandad Thomas's garden. We will miss you. <3

Daisy's First Egg!!

Well done that chicken!! Or should I say "hen". Whatever...anyway, yesterday Daisy did something amazing. She laid her very first egg. Being a first time hen keeper and also a townie to boot, this was absolutely thrilling! I know, it sounds ridiculous, it's only an egg...chickens have been laying eggs for thousands of years. Okay, but this is no ordinary egg. It's special. Yesterday, when I got up at the crack of dawn to let them out of their coop, I noticed that Daisy seemed a bit out of sorts. Normally she is the first one out, she scratches about, comes up to me and so on. But yesterday she just kind of sat there doing nothing. Her face was rather red and she looked all puffed out, like twice her size. I thought she was sick, in fact, I thought she might even be dying and wrote as much on my FB status. One of my more informed friends assured me that Daisy was probably about to lay an egg. I wasn't sure I believed her. This didn't look like egg laying behaviour to me, not what I read about in the zillions of books and websites. Throughout the morning, I periodically checked on her before noticing that she had taken herself inside the coop. "Could she be laying an egg?"...I dared to wonder. At 12pm, Isabella and I went outside to see how she was and we were very happy to see that she was back to her normal self and was walking around cuckolding away non-stop. Isabella advised me to check the egg box "just in case". I said to her, "Don't get your hopes up - I'm sure there will be nothing in there." Of course, I mean, a chicken...laying an egg? What was she thinking? I proceeded to unlock the fort Knox that is the chicken coop, opened the nesting box door and nearly had kittens. There, sitting beautifully in the nest, was one perfect little brown egg. I was so shocked I quickly shut the door again and just stared blankly at Isabella, unable to say anything other than "Oh my God.". We both opened the door again and took loads of pictures of that egg, texting people, ringing people, updating FB all whilst squealing with delight. No doubt a farmer would be shaking his head with a mixture of amusement and pity. Anyway, we duly collected it and carefully placed it in one of our 500 egg cartons that we have been collecting for the past five years. We took yet more pictures of it sitting in the egg carton. So there we have it, our first egg laid by Daisy, the little brown hen. We haven't used it yet because it's a little on the small side so I'm waiting for her to lay another one which together should make one large egg...enough for some pancake batter for tomorrows breakfast. Three cheers for Daisy!

Chickens

Well, after many years of research and a whole year after orginally buying our chicken coop, we have finally got chickens!! It has not been easy, I tell you that much. About a month ago, I asked Steve to extend the run area because I really didn't feel that it was big enough for two much less three birds. So after much measuring and moving things about, Steve made a brilliant extention which I was very happy with. We had already purchased a whopping 20kg bag of organic chicken feed, grit, oyster shells, louse powder, Eglu feeder and Glug (which Steve managed to fit on to the side of the run - what a clever chap he is to be sure) plus bark for the run itself. Now all we needed were the chickens!! So it was that we went to Smilers Farm in Wickford (who were brilliant and have so many different types of hens including heritage) and purchased three hybrid hens for £15 each. I couldn't believe it when they arrived home - I couldn't believe that after so many years, I actually had chickens in my garden!! Isabella was so excited and helped to get the house ready by putting in their bedding etc. Anyway, after the first day and night, I decided to return one of them because I could clearly see that there was not enough space and there was some bullying going on (not the same as sorting out the pecking order) which would only get worse due to lack of space. So we sent that one back and now have two hens which have more than enough room. One is a speckledy (Dash) and the other, my favourite, is a little red hen who Isabella has named Daisy. Perfect names for chickens, I think! They have been here nearly a week and, although at first I was checking on them every five minutes and barely slept a wink because we have a lot of foxes here and, in fact, I actually bumped into one on the garden path in broad daylight only a few days before getting the chickens! On the second night, Foxy Loxy came to introduce herself to the hens and her paw prints were all over the hen house! She had left no stone unturned and had also knocked over my fly catcher on the roof which stank!! She had clearly had a good look to see if there was any way of getting in but seems to have given up for the moment. We've made it as secure as we possibly can - it has a concrete base, is risen up from the ground, has hardcloth wire all over it, a solid roof, locks on absolutely ever single opening, including the pop hole. I am hoping that it's safe. No doubt the fox will wait - will lure us into a false sense of security and wait for us to make one tiny mistake. Hopefully that won't happen. Anyway, I wasn't looking forward to getting up at the crack of dawn to let them out, but actually, I have very quickly worked out a good routine. After they have put themselves to bed, I go into the run and clean out all the poo etc (not a nice job but not as bad as doing the litter tray!), put the Grub (their food) into the feed bin (which is lidded and kept in the greenhouse) and lock the greenhouse up before emptying the water from the Glug into one of my plants and then placing it in the bike shed near the back door of the house. I then lock everything up. In the morning at 6am, I simply go out, grab the Glug and refill it, grab the Grub from the feed bin, open the house, put the Glug and Grub in place and then let them out. Easy as. In the afternoon I clean out the actual house which isn't that dirty actually, and that's it. I have tried feeding them various treats in the afternoon such as strawberries (they didn't like them), grapes (Daisy gobbled the lot), fresh yoghurt (Daisy gobbled the lot) and some bread (not interested). Now all I'm wondering is, where are the eggs?? If those chickens don't start laying soon, Steve isn't going to be very happy!

London Zoo

Ah, London Zoo...easily one of my most favourite places in London! Isabella spent her 10th birthday there back in March and we all had a fabulous time. It was such a great sunny spring day - it was in fact, a perfect day in every way. I didn't tell her we were taking her to London Zoo, I just got her up and into the car we went before stopping off in Islington to pick up some other relations! It was all a great surprise and she really had the best time ever. We opened presents and had cake when we got home, even though we were all very tired! Every year she tells me, "This was the BEST birthday EVER!". Every year, I have to try and top the year before (last year she got her hamster, Bibo who is doing very well and now lives in her bedroom) so I better start planning where to take her next year!!

YouTube - How to Make an Angel Food Cake

YouTube - How to Make an Angel Food Cake

National Gallery

...won't be knocking on our door anytime soon, but you never know, with a little practice? Fridays are always Art Day and last Friday, we decided to spend a very nice morning painting. The Tabby Cat is of course the work of Isabella and the table of fruit (which I have been working on for more than a year!) is mine, still as yet unfinished. I wonder if I can get away with keeping it that way. Hmmmmmm....

The Temple

This picture of Isabella and her Grandmother (Muffa) was taken last year in the summer outside The Temple at Wanstead in East London. Wanstead Park is a really beautiful place which is local to us and we use it regularly. It has a very rich and interesting history which I won't go into here but I think later I will post up some more in-depth information about it. Amazingly unknown to many Londoners, it's kind of like the Hampstead Heath of East London. Anyway, the one remaining building recently opened to the public and we took a stroll around it last summer. It's not terribly large but it's still quite an interesting, quirky place and a beautiful example of 18th century architecture.

Halloween

Okay - so it's a bit early for Halloween but, as my favourite time of the year, I just had to post up the pictures of the stuff that we made last year on Halloween (2010). We had a really great time as always and my Halloween decor continues to increase year upon year. We now have two, yes TWO boxes of Halloween decor to put up...and take down. Anyway, we made a papier mache pumpkin which turned out really well actually - I was so impressed with myself!! We also made some spooky boutique style boxes, trimmed in black glitter ribbon and emellished with errie tea stained labels such as "Pixie Potion" and "Witches Brew" etc. We also made a fantastic Haunted House which lights up!! Okay, so I am a big kid when it comes to Halloween. How many more months to go??!!

Norton

Isabella's reading is really coming on in leaps and bounds! She has suddenly developed this passion for reading almost anything she can get her hands on, although books with animals as the central characters are her favourites. She recently finished reading, "Norton; The Loveable Cat Who Travelled the World" by Peter Gethers and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She read it in two days, reading mainly in the evening. She liked it because of the fact it was "very funny" and reminded her of her cat Buxton, who is our youngest, incredibly naughty cat. Another book she has read about five times is "The Four Ugly Cats in Apartment 3D" by Marilyn Sachs. This was a book we found by chance at Embankment Book market, one of my favourite places for finding all manner of books. Not sure if you can purchase it on Amazon or Ebay, but it's well worth a look if you have kids who enjoy books about animals - cats in particular!

RSPB Garden Bird Watch

Yesterday afternoon, Isabella and I participated in the RSPB Garden Bird watch experiment which involved watching birds for an entire hour and recording the largest number of birds that you saw at any one time, for example four Starlings etc. Although you could do the bird watch anywhere, we chose our garden simply because it was freezing cold outside and we could watch the birds from the upstairs bedroom window! We are members of the RSPB and Isabella is a member of the Wildlife Explorers, so she is pretty good at identifying birds. We feed them daily and have various feeding stations for them, and because we live in very close proximity to a park, we tend to get lots of different birds. Our favourites are our two resident Robins - they are so cute! We also have two residen Blackbirds (male and female) and lots of wood pigeons, which are kind of annoying actually because they tend to eat everything. Anyway, we duly submitted our findings and rewarded our efforts with some yummy orange cake. I think for Isabella's birthday this year I'm going to get her a really nice pair of binoculars and take her to Rainham Marshes for the day - they have all sorts of interesting things to do down there and a club for kids to get involved with.

New Year!

I am useless at keeping these blogs of mine up-to-date. I think perhaps I have too many on the go at once, along with a million other things that I'm involved with. Anyway, I'm going to try and keep this one up along with maybe two others. We'll see how we go! Doing a project on Africa today, so will be posting up the outcome of that in the very near future, along with some field trip reports!

Let's hope 2011 is a good one. :)