Catch up - 2 trips to Garden Organic, Ryton, in the space of 4 days

I have had more broadband problems recently so am woefully behind with the blog posts, but here is a catch up post of my inspiring and refreshing 2 trips to Garden Organic Ryton a few weeks ago.

I went on a Sunday to attend the Garden Organic Volunteers day, where we get various talks, workshops and an outline of the coming years strategy, a fabulous lunch and a guided tour around the gardens by members of the GO team. In particular I had a wonderful chat with Bob Sherman about Heritage Seed Library seeds, growing vegetables, the work I do at school with the Organic garden and Eco Club, and plants and stuff, over a fabulous lunch.

It was generally a very inspiring sort of day, it was good to meet other members of staff again, to fit faces to voices over the 'phone, to network with other volunteers and spend time with like minded people from all walks of life. Garden Organic views its volunteers as valued members of the team and provide lots of support, information and back up, and I got to choose a shirt to wear from a rather nice selection of organic, fair trade Garden Organic logo'd tops. I chose a polo shirt and I shall wear it when I am gardening at school with the children.

I was then back at Ryton the following Wednesday to attend a Food for Life Partnership training day. It was good fun, I met lots more like minded people who were passionate about wanting to get children growing stuff in school and all in all had another lovely and inspiring time.

So these photos are from the two days, just things which really captured my interest......I could post lots of pictures as EVERYTHING at Ryton is so wonderful, but I won't. It probably is a good thing I do not live any closer, though! I suspect I would be there all the time.....

I do urge you to go and visit Garden Organic's HQ at Ryton, the gardens are full of ideas and tips on gardening organically and really do showcase best practice. I promise you will come away with some new ideas!

The fabulous demonstration composting area! I seem to spend a lot of time in there whenever I visit Ryton ;-)

The huge compost heaps which make the wonderful compost used to grow all the fabulous plants and veggies the award winning cafe use to make the most scrumptious meals!

A wonderful pebble spiral inside the Biodynamic garden


Inside the Paradise Garden greenhouse, this garden is dedicated to the memory of the late Geoff Hamilton.



The practical bits of the FFLP course on Wednesday, sowing seed in the Allotment garden, we dug and composted,weeded and sowed...it was great fun! ( Am I odd for enjoying doing gardening in someone elses garden?)



The small town garden, this originally was put together as the garden for the C4 TV series "All muck and magic" - anyone remember that? I LOVED it!



Returning home both days I was treated to a most amazing sun, setting over Marcle Ridge as I drove home....

Stopping a very broody hen!

As I previously mentioned , Violet Dorking had gome madly broody...dunking her bum in icy water didn't help, and she was severely disrupting the other Dorking girls in their life and egg laying...so she had a 2 day spell in the "anti hormonal hen" pen....aka a double insulated plastic rabbit hutch, with no bedding, but lots of water and food...

She REALLY did NOT like this and screetched like a mad hen non stop for a few hours, then settled down to a low key grumble for another few hours...and then stopped being broody.

I let her out after 24 hours and she is back to normal, laying and free ranging and being her usual delightful self.

So...as Sweetiepie is also mad broody hen, guess who is in the "anti hormonal hen pen" now?

Quiet reigns in the orchard, at last ;-)

Sad news about Cathy Hen

Unfortunately my trip to the vet with Cathy did NOT have a good outcome :-(
Cathy had been suffering from Sterile Egg Yolk Peritonitis (EYP) This is something she has had for some time, it is something which is sadly common in ex battery hens due to their egg laying equipment being damaged by the excess number of eggs they are stimulated to lay. It is also what eventually led to the demise of Genghis Hen:-(

Cathy had been on antibiotics for a week, and had been kept near by, but separate from, the other hens for another two weeks. She was allowed back in with the rest of the hens a few days ago and seemed very perky and happy, as I detailed in my post showing her indoors with us.
But on Sunday evening she looked puffy in the abdomen, and hunched up, which is NEVER a good sign in a chicken. She also didn't want to move around or eat much. I had to take Sid down to the Vets on Monday (he has a poorly eye) and I decided to take Cathy also as I was worried about her. On examination she had a swollen abdomen and a temperature again. The prognosis was not good for her, but after establishing she was not in any real pain the Vets and I decided that they would try to draw off the fluid, to ease the discomfort and to get her back on some antibiotics. We all knew this might not work and if it did might not be a very long term help, but we were all wanting to try to save her. I left her at the vets for the procedure and when I went to collect her, was told that 350 ml of nasty fluid had been drawn off! Poor Cathy, no wonder she felt poorly.

I took her home Monday afternoon and started her on the antibiotic again and yesterday she seemed to perk up and came to see us in the house and had a few worms from where Compostman was digging



and seemed much restored



BUT today I was worried, she didn't look bad, exactly,..... but chickens mask how poorly they are (as a protective move) and so I just trusted my instincts that she looked wrong, somehow... Her comb was turning purple whenever she moved and she felt very cold so I took her to the vets this afternoon. On examination it was apparent she wasn't going to recover from all this. So I very sadly held her and stroked her whilst Tamsin the Vet gave her a lethal injection and she went to sleep for good.

I came home with her body and she has been buried on the edge of our woodland, next to Genghis Hen, with some flowers placed on her grave by Compostgirl.

We shall all miss Cathy very much, she really WAS a pet to us, wanted to be with us all the time, was gentle and friendly and sweet natured to all. She followed me around and chatted to me as I dug the garden or hung out the washing or worked in the polytunnel. I shall miss her waiting by the door to get into the kitchen, jumping up on my lap for a cuddle and purring when I stroked her neck. Compostman is also very sad as Cathy was his favourite hen and he chose her name, and she liked to come and see what he was doing in the garden also. She was the only hen to be really friendly to Compostman and Compostgirl as well as to me.

RIP Cathy Hen, you will be missed by all of us, but especially me.

Vet visits

A quick post as I am off to the Vets to collect Kitty Cat after leaving him there this am to have his bloods checked for his kidney function (not good, but no worse) and to establish he now has bad arthritis and nothing worse...( and yes he has arthritis and he has had a steroid injection and has some glucosamine tablets to take which hopefully will help)

I had to take Sid puss( injured eye) and Cathy hen ( more Sterile Egg Yolk Peritonitis worries) down to the Vets on Monday..Sid has antibiotic eye drops prescribed and is already much better, but ..Cathy had to have 350 ml of fluid removed from her abdomen and her prognosis is not great :-(

and today she is much worse and I am taking her down to see Tamsin the Vet at 5.30 to discuss her condition :-((

an update on Cathy later will follow.

Mole!

So, as I said here , my friend A came round to visit us last week and get some compost leaflets and things. In that post I mentioned the Mole incident and promised to elaborate in a later post, so here it is....

While we were all drinking coffee, Compostman gave a shout from the sitting room, and when we rushed in, we found that the cats had brought in a live mole!

The poor mole was trying to dig its way out down through the carpet, so Compostman "fenced" it off from the agitated cats by putting books and DVDs around it, and stood guard over it, while I ran to get some leather gloves (moles can bite quite hard!)

Having put on a pair of gloves, he picked it up and we went outside with it and put it down on the grass. But the ground seemed too hard for the mole to dig down through, or maybe it was a bit shocked? anyway I picked it up,



it seemed undamaged, but a little shocked by all the goings on,


so soft and so clean as well!




I put it down on the soil in a flower bed.



and it rapidly tunnelled down into the soil..







It seemed undamaged, and rapidly disappeared.

The cats were MOST annoyed at losing their mole! They found out where it had been placed and hung around the mole hole all afternoon....and were very cross with us for the rest of the day.

We lay on varied entertainment for visitors to Compost Mansions :-)