Dead rat

There was a dead rat outside the front door this morning. After a moments horror as I wondered if Freckles and BlackKnees were now making sacrifices, I realise that this was what Davy was so fidgety about. It was quite a fair size.

Ian has put his foot and is refusing to examine the goats nether regions. A sure sign (so I have read) of impending kidding is a swelling in the rear end. He did agree to hold their horns while I looked, but he flatly refused to give a second opinion. I am sure that James Herriot wasn’t so squimish.

I mucked out the stable, which included goats, rabbits and quails. Had a quail escape – my fault. I forgot they could get out of small places and one managed to get out of the whole where their water would normally be. Luckily this was a dim one, who just stood there looking confused.

I am of the conclusion that with the exception of humans and dogs, that males are normally the tidy ones of the species. The male rabbits and quails cages were immaculate, specific corners used as a toilet, feed still in its bowl etc. The females have everything everywhere and within a fraction of a second of putting the female quails into their new sparkly clean cage and they tipped their food out, knocked their water out etc. And if they are going to be true to form, they will now go on egg laying stike.

We’ve got a poorly quail, one has been pecked and seems quite ill. I’ve bought him in where it is warm. I am assuming it is a male seeing that males do seem to get bullied, but I’m not sure.

I wrote after Christmas that it seemed to be getting darker not lighter in the mornings, well that is certainly not the case now and the days are getting noticably longer. The last chicken puts itself to bed now at 5.30, and over Christmas they were tucked up by 3.30! It is now lightish by 6.30 so won’t be long before we are complaining about sleep deprivation because of light nights.

Talking of sleep deprivation, Bob excelled himself last night, having lost his ‘baby’ at 3.30 and walking round & round in circles looking for it. All we could hear was the tapping of his feet on the floor boards. Both Ian and I feigned sleep hoping the other would sort it out – however I think we both cracked at the same time, the light went on and we helped Bob in the quest for his baby. Assuming of course that Bob would have checked the most likely place – on the bed where he was laying. So with ill humour we were looking for Bobs festering, smelly and quite frankly hideous baby at 3.30. Finding it on the bed in prime position didn’t really make us any happier and I had to point out to Ian that throwing ‘the damned thing’ (which I hope was Bobs baby and not Bob) out of the window actually would not ‘teach Bob a lesson’ but instead mean that we would get more frantic paw tapping which would be likely to end up in howling.

Had two sets of people look at the house over the last couple of days, but no feedback yet.

I’m going to contact a gallery today about going to see them about exhibiting some jewellery. Ian has made me a portfolio site www.kaffi.co.uk, although some pics need improving. I’m just waiting for a sunny day to take them outside. Might be a long wait….