My henny helpers

 Whenever I step outside during the day I am greeted by this...

When I go out to hang out some washing I am followed...

In fact wherever I go, I am followed! I have constant companions now, either Cassie Cat, or my friendly, feathery hens.

At the moment I am keeping the Ginger Gang seperated from the New Girls - I am still treating the Ginger Girls for lice and I do not want the lice to hop over onto the New Girls!


So I let the Ginger Gang out mid morning and then after lunch I shout...and they all come running.

A treat of some corn gets them inside their walk in run. This is the run I am cleaning out every day and dusting with Diatonaceous earth powder so as to kill off any lice on any dropped feathers. I have also dug out a dust bowl  for the hens in the ground. They love it :-)

 When they have eaten their fill it is sleepy time. One by one, they go over into a patch of sunshine,

And settle down on the ground for a well deserved snooze.

All together, in a huddle of ginger feathers. And slowly, their eyelids droop and they doze off.

And snore!

New member of the small pets gang

This is Crystal. She is a Dwarf lop rabbit who is about a year old. She joined us from a local small animal rescue charity and is to be a companion for Peter Rabbit.

Rabbit introductions can be easy but can also be fraught with difficulty, sometimes even a buck and doe will hate the sight of each other and NEVER make friends, so we took Peter over to the rescue place and let him and Crystal met up first. When they didn't try to kill one another, we brought Crystal home and she and Peter rapidly settled down together.

This is them in the kitchen, having a bit of a feed. They are sharing a big hutch and are now very happy together.

I am feeling pleased as I now have sorted out the small animals being lonely issue! Fudge the Guinea Pig has two male companions, Chalky and Snowy, to keep him company and he is a much happier looking and sounding little piggy as a result. And now Peter Rabbit has a friend as well.

Cat joys and woes

Gloom.

I blogged earlier in the month about Cleo, our lovely rescue cat. She was beautiful and I really bonded with her, and she with me.

But....

Cleo was being terrorised and beaten up increasingly nastily by Tabitha and Tom, our original cats , who are siblings and have been with us for 2 years now.

Cleo was denied access to the downstairs several times and eventually in desparation wee'd in the wrong place twice (on our bed, saturating the blankets, sheets and matress - yuck).

She was shivering and terrified most of the day, hiding next to me under the bench in the study, was not eating much , and there was little way we could keep them all apart in our house and certainly not in the garden (where they were stalking her in tandem and then both beating her up)

so....she has been re homed to someone who has recently lost their only cat and really wants her.

I am so desperately sad about this, as is Compostman and Compostgirl ( oh...Compostgirl! so upset!) ...but after discussion with the behavioural vet nurse, we all think it is for the best.

Cassiopea kitten, who we got 2 weeks ago, as a rescue cat, is a far more feisty little girl and gives as good as she gets, and T and T have stopped bothering her already but Cleo was shy and scared and disabled and they were just getting worse and worse with her.

I am so sad it has not worked out but we have to think of Cleo and what is best for her. Holed up, terrified and shaking, in a room waiting to be pounced on was not doing her any good. Also Tom and Tabby have lived here for 2 1/2 years, from kittens, and they were/are also very upset by all this....

If we hadn't done something now we would have ended up with 3 very unhappy cats I suspect.

And our lives have been a nightmare as well during this episode...for example Tabby followed Cleo downstairs, waited until she was "positioned" on the litter tray and then shot through the cat flap and pounced on her....Cleo now has a badly scratched ear and Tabby has a flea in her ear...

AND Tom Cat sprayed sofa bed in CG's room the day before Cleo left. Boy did it stink, even though he is neutered. Yuck.

Sofa bed was un salvagable as it has a chipboard base which is now saturated and the non removable cushion stuffings are as well, so it went to the tip. Lovely. The sofa bed was 9 years old and had been well used, so I don't feel too bad but it is annoying as it was useful when Compostgirl had friends to stay.

I hate the smell of cat wee

Then I discovered Tom Cat had wee'd in the clothes basket as well as trashing the sofa bed beyond washing, so spent the rest of the weekend rinsing and washing and re washing clothes, which I didn't need to wash at all and now had to try to dry out. House was festooned with damp clothes. On a rainy day. Even with a dolly in the kitchen roof space, still a bit to many for my taste.And this had been the daily round for three weeks.
Washing basket ( wicker) was also wrecked. Bloody Tom Cat. Grrr.

So..the end result of all this mayhem is ....my Cleo cat now gone to new home   new owner is a vet nurse at our vets. Much tears from CG and me as well, but it is all for the best. I tried, oh how I tried ! but she was too disabled to fight them off and they were too mean to stop bullying her.


Am sad. Very sad indeed.

Our new companion cat

Rescue cat is ADORABLE!

All black except for a bunch of white hairs in a whorl slap bang on the middle of her chest.

She has been at the vets for 3 weeks while they tried to find her owner, with no joy, was found starved and shivering under a shrub and with an injury to her hind paw ( looks like a trap injury, she had lost 2 toes...)

She is so friendly and delightful and purrs and purrs and has already draped herself repeatedly around my neck

Tom Cat and Tabitha think she is the anti christ, of course and much growling and posturing is currently going on in the kitchen...


Her name is Cleopatra....she has green eyes....  and has some Siamese blood I think, judging by the way she talks and sucks fur, wool etc!

A very wet Monday, with pears to be picked and things to be done.

Managed to get up and get dressed, (eventually) after a very long lie in and breakfast in bed, thanks to lovely CM.

I wandered outside and collected eggs and let out the feathery ladies, have picked 17 lb of assorted beans in the sunshine, scrubbed out a few buckets and trod washed a load of horticultural fleece sheet.

Came in, scrubbed the kitchen bench and prepped some tomatos for drying later. I have also put on a load of washing and tidied up several rooms of assorted "stuff"

All this took 5 hours, as opposed to the normal about 1. Not operating at full efficiency, I think

Am now lying down again (3 pm) , having exhausted all energy for the moment.

Hmm dark thundery clouds are appearing, I want to pick the Beth pears but they are not quite ready to be picked BUT may get knocked off by the storm if I don't pick them...bother, what to do for the best?

5 pm update. Answered my own question and have just picked over 50 lb of pears. Obviously not yet quite ripe but ready to pick ( come off easily with stalk intact when raised up horizontal) and would have been knocked off by any wind/heavy rain.  About as many left which are not ready to pick, yet. Hope they can stand the gales/rain etc!

Pouring with rain here, has been since 11 pm Sunday. Did right thing with pear picking! BUT sadly looks like the Blaisdon Red plums will be ruined by the rain ( they go mouldy on the tree if it stays too wet/humid )

Have to take Peter Rabbit to the vets for his Mixy jab and to possibly collect an abandoned rescue cat later today. Fingers crossed it all works out...!

Spike, our new house guest!

We have a new guest at Compost Mansions. A young Hedgehog! He was found wandering around the School Field and so we were asked to take him home, as we have reared hedgehog babies before. He was in a bad way from cold and lack of food and he is too young and small to make it through hibernation this winter and would die if he tried. He only weighs 150 g and ideally needs to be around 500g to make it through hibernation AND WAKE UP AGAIN ( very important, that last bit!)

So this poor, small, lost little baby needed help. Urgently.

He perked up a bit that evening when we put him in a spare rabbit cage we had in the shed, with a nice warm dark bed and cat meat to eat, and we thought we had sorted him out, but the next day he had started to wobble when he walked - never a good sign in an animal!

So, we brough the cage in the house, I put him in a box by the woodburner to warm up and then dropper fed him rehydration fluid.

And gave him a massage ( with all those spines, tricky, that! )

until he roused enough to eat a bit of mashed cat meat from my hand.

BTW, do NOT give bread and milk to hedgehogs as it is VERY bad for them!

He is now stuffing his face with cat food today and making a hell of a mess in the cage.....

We have called him "Spike".