I note that my better half has shared my moment of madness, but I should stress that it was nothing more than a entle shock. I’d finally got around to finishing the lighting in the dining room – I’d fitted the lights some time ago but had never connected switches, though they were wired into the circuit.
I’d forgotten that.
So it was that I lifted some floorboards and happily opened a junction box. I usually check wires to ensure none are live but again forgot to do that. So I removed a red wire, safe in the knowledge that it was dead and then disconnected an earth.
At that point I suddenly found myself involuntarily throwing the screwdriver over my shoulder. Odd I thought, though not as odd as the sharp tingling in my left hand. Oops.
We put 7 young chickens out in the front garden yesterday evening and they’ve spent the day acclimatising to their new home and trying to stay out of the way of the older chickens who quite randomly attempt to peck the little ones just to stress that they are the lowest of the low. Hence the little ones spend their time looking a little nervous.
I rather suspect that our latest chick addition won’t have any such fears. Generally when chicks come to getting themselves out of the egg, they spend some time methodically breaking through the inner membrane, rotating themselves all the time so that they make a continuous break around the shell. They then work back around this line breaking the shell.
Today’s chick had a different plan in mind. This morning it started to pip the shell as most chicks do, but then did little more. Even after I knocked the incubator off of the table and cracked the base of the shell, the chick didn’t seem that bothered about getting out, though throughout the day it kept cheeping from inside the shell; almost as if saying ‘I’m ready now, you can let me out’. Obviously, knowing how wonderful nature can be, we left the egg alone to sort itself out at it’s own rate.
Eventually, this evening I noticed that it had at last started to work its way around the shell.
15 minutes later it had stopped working its way around the shell and had instead started to batter an ever increasing hole in the shell.
Another 15 minutes and it had rather bizarrely stuck a wing out of the reasonably large hole that it had produced. At this point I had to stop and watch what it was going to do next; it was doing everything wrong but seemed to be getting somewhere regardless.
It’s next move was to extend the hole a little more and place a foot on the edge of the opening.
At this point its strategy became clear. Rather like someone who has sawn part way through a log for firewood, but without the patience to saw all the way through, the chick braced itself and started to take the strain.It probably took the best part of 30 minutes to get itself out, but that would have been quite a bit quicker than the time it would have taken to peck around the shell.
On the subject of small animals, I’ve been tied up recently in a battle of wits with the mouse population of the house. We’ve only become aware of the mice recently and have conceded that we have no choice but to be ruthless. Hence one of the kitchen cupboards has been rigged with mous traps and Davy has been conscripted into helping out. He prefers rabbits and finds mice too small generally, but thankfully he will help when coerced.
The other night we locked him into one of the spare rooms where Kate had heard a mouse. Come the morning Davy had deposited half a mouse on the floor to confirm his success.
At this point he was doing much better than me. I’d bought half a dozen mouse traps for a quid but was discovering that they did nothing more than offer mice a convenient place to eat the little tit bits that we were putting down for them.
At this point I decided to up the ante and invest 99p in a single mouse trap – the Little Nipper. Success has been variable with the mice probabl having a slight edge. Fortunately there are enough heavy headed mice in the house to trigger the trap, though today I spent much of the day resetting the trap as the mice were popping out and taking the bait and then helpfully resetting the trap. However in the time that I’ve been writing this, 2 members of the Cheese Liberation Front’s hardline suicide squad have selflessly laid down their lives for the greater good of Mineral House.
The trap is reset and hopefully there’ll more success tonight. Davy’s hoping so. It was bad enough being locked on the spare room. I don’t think he’ll appreciate being locked in the cupboard for the night.