A Dog Among The Chickens

*This post contains a picture of a dead bird*

Got home from work yesterday and I was greeted by the news from my wife that a neighbour had been walking his dog (there's a public footpath that runs along the top of our fields) and somehow it had got off the lead and killed three of my chickens.

 I trudged down the field a little grumpily to see what the damage was and which batch of hens had been attacked.
"Luckily" (although not for them) it had been my ex battery hens, who are kind of on the "green mile" stage of their life as a new batch are arriving in a month or so. They had lost a third of their numbers.
Our neighbour walked down the field to meet me and was very upset.
There were many ways I could of handled this whole situation and although I was annoyed I did feel sorry for the guy, it was genuine mistake. As he'd gone to go over the stile, with baby and dog, the dog saw a pheasant who bolted, the dog then chased it over two fields and ended up straight into the chicken pen. The rest is inevitable!
I do moan a bit about the dog walkers round here, as none seem to keep their dogs on a lead, even though there is a polite sign asking them to, but this guy does and is always courteous, although his dog isn't the best trained in the world.

He kept offering to pay for them, but I turned him down and told him that they weren't long for this world anyway and worth very little in money terms. We're neighbours (one of only 5 houses in our little hamlet) and so it's not something I'd want to fall out about. I made him shake my hand before he left to show no hard feelings, but he still seemed pretty shaken up about the whole thing. Like I said to him - who knows next time it might be something of mine in his garden - mistakes happen.

But...

Please keep your dog on a lead!

Angry Chicken

Ev's done pretty well out of being a new big sister. Everyone who's come has given her a present as well as the new baby, so she doesn't feel left out.

She's had books, trains and puzzels, but this has to be one of my favorites - This chicken pupet!

 Have you ever seen a puppet look more pissed off! I had to laugh.

Mind you I guess I'd be pretty annoyed if someone kept shoving their hand up my jacksee!

Ev likes it though and I'm sure it will give us many comic moments when I make it an angry bird about the house!

Storing Apples

I've been collecting a lot of apples lately but we can only collect what we can store. Fresh food storage at our place at the moment is relatively none existent, but my mother has a great unheated room that she keeps things like apples and potatoes in all winter.

Easy to spot fruit that's gone bad

 The cooking apples on the bottom two racks (Scotch Bridget) will even keep until April/May like this on these simple racks, whereas the Cox on top won't last that long because they will have been eaten long before that! We only bother to store prefect fruit as any blemish or damage makes the fruit rot a lot faster.

Large shelves I built for my mum to store her old apples racks on.



So this got me wondering how does everyone else store their apples over winter? I've lot's of old books that cover the subject and one day I'd love to build a proper store for apples. Storing your produce is probably as key to self sufficiency as anything and there is little point to me having so many apple trees if I can stop the fruit from rotting!

Sloes

There's not much in the way of free fruit that our little smallholding had in place when we moved here, but the one thing there is an abundance of this year is sloes!

 It's bumper year and they're hanging off the hedges like grapes. My little sister and her boyfriend came round the other day (mainly to see the new baby - not me) and I suggested we went and picked some so they could make sloe gin.

 It didn't take long to pick them, in fact I think we picked a tub full without moving more than 5ft!

I've made plenty of sloe gin and other liquors in the past but I'm not going to bother this year - we're just not very big drinkers any more (I'm not sure we ever were) so it seems daft to make something just for the sake of it (although it does make a good present).
Has anyone else got any other ideas with what to do with sloes? I made some sloe and apple jam a few years ago and that was terrible, so any ideas better than that one please!

Oh The Shame!

I am a man of many sheds, but there has been one that lately I just open the door and chuck things into. This is my old allotment shed and I feel it has been neglected somewhat!

Open door - chuck thing in - quickly close door before it all falls out!

My mother came up to visit last week and she wanted me to put some of Ev's toys away in the shed.
I had to say there was no room.
She didn't believe me.
I got talked into opening the shed.
She was unimpressed.
I was a little ashamed.
I decided to clean it out there and then.
She was guilted into helping me.



Not much better but I can now see the floor and get into the shed!

To be fair it didn't take long and it feels so much better knowing I can get back into what used to be a really useful garden shed! Also this has given me an area to sort out and store my paints until things turn a little colder.