Not good news on the rabbit front

Mrs Robinson has had 2 babies, unfortunately one was dead already when I found them, and I don't see the other living long without any siblings to keep it warm. It is several days ahead of when we were expecting them. She pulled a load of fur and made a kind of nest - unfortunately I hadn't yet finished making the nest box! Neither baby was actually in the nest and they were on opposite sides if the cage, so I kind of remade the nest and put the alive baby in it. I am not sure whether she knows it is there or not, she keeps bouncing round the cage and stepping on it. I gave her lots of food to try to distract her and give it a slight chance - although it keeps wiggling madly out of the warmish nest so all in all it is not looking good for it.

It is possible that there were a few other very under formed still born babies as well, hard to tell what the afterbirth was made up of. Perhaps moving to a new home when pregnant wasn't good, or perhaps just one of these things. 

We are still not having much luck with project rabbit!

Chicken Heart and Liver Pasta Recipe

Invented as a tasty way of using the chicken liver and heart after we slaughter a chicken. You could add more liver is you want and have it.

Serves 2

1 small onion (or half a large one)

1 clove garlic

1 chicken liver

1 chicken heart

1 tomato

2 tblsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

Optionally spice such as chilli, thyme rosemary etc.

Also splash of wine goes well

200g tagliatelli or other long pasta

The sauce cooks quickly. so do all the chopping, then put the pasta on and start cooking thr sauce about 5 mins before the pasta finishes.

Dice the onion finely. 

Cut the garlic in to similar sized pieces. 

Chop up the tomato (bigger bits than the onion and garlic)

Chop the heart finely and the liver a bit less so, but pretty small.

Fry onion and garlic in one spoon of the olive oil until golden brown (a few minutes on medium highish heat)

Add the liver and heart and cook for about a minute (still on highish heat)

Add the tomato

If you are using any herbs add with the tomato and the splash of wine if using too. Otherwise add a splash of water.

Fry for a further minute until it is heated through. 

Stir in the remaining olive oil - and more if you are greedy! 

Season with salt and pepper. 

Drain the pasta and toss it in the sauce

Serve with parmesan cheese.

Another cockerel bites the dust

We 'did' the 4th cockerel today. This time we held him upside down by his feet (the only way we can get them to stay still enough) and slit his jugular. I perhaps didn't cut quite deep enough so it took a little while for the blood to drain out. It was quite difficult cutting it as the skin is very thick, and also loose so it moves around as you do it, but I think having done it once I can do it more effectively next time. He seemed to fall unconsious quite quickly, but then there was a lot of flapping, it is hard to tell whether this is death throes or him coming round and thinking 'hey! what is going on???'

A lot more blood came out this way than when we have broken the neck and then decapitated. This is a good thing apparently, we shall see if we can taste any difference.

There are only two more to go. I enjoy eating them, but the killing and gutting is still a bit stressful. This was my 'favourite' method so far.

We had his liver and heart for lunch - see recipe here.

We have healthcare cover again!

I mentioned before that healthcare in France is not like in the UK where everyone qualifies to receive it. You have to contribute to the system before you are covered. Another difference is that the state doesn't cover 100% anyway, but that is another riviting topic. We were covered for the first two years because the UK paid as we had full NI contributions. As we don't work in France we are not paying the French NI equivelent so we had to apply to be allowed to make contributions and join the system in a different way. Since 2007, France has been denying this to citizens of other EU countries until they have been resident for 5 years. However this is slowly changing as it is against EU rules. 

I spoke to a help line to find out what the criteria for acceptance are, they said it was decided on a case by case basis so we just had to apply and see.

We did and we have been accepted - so we are covered again. Hurrah!

(Mini) Brawn

Some friends recently slaughtered some Vietnamese potbellied pigs these are a miniature breed, and were only about 5 months old so small even for small pigs. Apparently they were 15kg dead weight which is about what our bigger lambs were (last year when we let them grow for a bit longer).
Anyway they very kindly gave us a head and a leg (and some teeny tiny pork chops to sample) so we have made brawn (also, less appetisingly, called head cheese). They have some more piglets so we are buying a carcass in a few weeks time - to make some more mini charcuterie!. so we have made brawn (also, less appetisingly, called head cheese)

1 mini head
1 onion
5 juniper berries
10 pepper corns
sprig of rosemary
sprig of thyme

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper to season

Chop head in half (recipes suggest quarters, but this is a small head)
Put everything in a pan and cover with water
Boil for 4 hours (I put on the wood burning stove, not always boiling, so left it rather longer)
The pigs were black, it is strange how pink the skin has come out once the hair was removed.

After this time the flesh should be very soft and easily pull away from the bones. Lift the heads out of the liquid and let cool a little, Remove the flesh and chop reasonably finely (i put aside some fat and skin as treats for the dog at this point to make finished product slightly less fatty)

Strain the remaining liquid and then continue to boil until about a pint remains.

Mix the chopped meat with the lemon juice and season.

Put in to containers (I used metal trays like you get curry in - 4 x 0.75 liter)

Share about 100ml of the reduced cooking liquid between your containers and refrigerate.

You can use the rest of the cooking liquid as stock - I made very tasty peas pudding by adding some onions and split peas and boiling for ages, we had with some left over pork tenderloin.

It came out considerably nicer than I expected, we tried fromage de tête from the supermarket and did not much like it - too gelatinous and too vinegary. This tastes like pork pâté, with a bit more jelly texture.

It is also nice on pasta, fried with some chopped onion and tomato and lettuce (yes fry the lettuce, is nice) or spinach.

Ethological horse riding lessons

We have started a five week course of lessons covering 'ethological horse riding techniques'. This is pretty much the stuff we have been doing in our other lessons, but we have done quite a few new things, and it is interesting doing it with a number of other people - there are perhaps 10 people and horses on the course.
We have bought rope head collars for Daisy and Owen and some longer lead/longe reins. I will leave you to read about the theories (look up Natural Horsmanship, Parelli, Monty Roberts). The generally idea is that you try to communicate with the horse, using body language, in a way that it understands based on the herd nature of horses. I would say there are three main concepts I have taken from the lessons 1) The idea of comfort vs discomfort - horses want an easy and comfortable life so you use it as a reward and make it more effort to disobey than it is to do what you ask 2) Whoever moves the others feet is the boss - so there are lots of excersizes where you remain still and the horse moves 3) you are looking for a partnership where both sides respect and care for the other, but with a definate leader and a follower. There are various different theories and people can get quite religious about one or another thing being the only right way. 

It is very interesting and amazing to see how effectively it is working - particularly on Daisy who 'has a lot of ideas' as the riding instructor says. ie she wants to be in charge and comes up with many cunning ways to get you to do what she wants or to avoid doing what you want. Owen generally is more obliging, but he can have his moments and the poor chap can be a bit grumpy with his itchy skin - which is a lot better, particularly considering how wet it has been recently.

What a grubby leg he has! It is all the rain...

Deer in the potager

We have been expecting the deer to find the potager one day, and they finally have. I went up there a couple of days ago to find they had nibbled on the broccoli and left hoof prints all over the place.

I put up some sheep fence around it immediately. I didn't electrify it though

Unfortunately the next day they had been back and had just plowed through the fence and scoffed the rest of the broccoli and the leaves off the beetroot - leaving the beetroots themselves pulled out of the ground and scattered around the bed.

I then electrified the fence and bated it with peanut butter - I read that if you put some on foil wrapped round the wire of the fence the deer are attracted to lick it and never never never dare to come near the area again having been zapped with 10,000 volts in the tongue!

You can see how close they were to the house. Much braver than usual. There is still grass and no snow on the ground so strange they are coming in so close. Perhaps they just really love broccoli - which was just starting with the purple sprouts - v annoyed, I really like purple sprouting broccoli!

Strangely, they seemed uninterested in the peas and broad beans. There were footsteps all over the beds, but the plants were unharmed.

The potager looks a bit bleak at the moment. We haven't weeded or mulched and prepared for spring as we intended to have by this point. Hopefully we will manage to get something done 'just in time'. We are planning on focusing on the house this year, but we will plant things we know work and save experiments for later - 'When the house is done' is a common refrain!

Beetroot and Orange Soup Recipe

750g beetroot (probably about 4 decent sized ones)
2 medium onions
1.5 pints stock (chicken, veg whatever)
0.5 pints orange juice
Salt and pepper to season

Chop and fry the onions in a little olive oil until soft. Add the beetroots, stock and orange juice.
Simmer for about an hour until the beetroot is soft
Liquidise then add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with a swirl of sour cream

(Mini) Wet Cured Leg of Pork

Thanks to Kim and Steve (http://anenglishfarmerinfrance.blogspot.fr/) for providing the mini leg!

1 leg from a tiny pig (1.5kg)

2 liters water
500g salt
250g demerara sugar
4 juniper berries
5 pepper corns
3 cloves

Put everything in a pan and bring to the boil
Stir until salt and sugar dissolved
Pour in to a casserole dish or some non-metal container just big enough for the leg
Cool in the fridge until cold
Add the leg and leave for 24 hours (this is for meat less than 2 kg in weight so different for full sized leg)
Dry with a clean tea towel and hang for 24 hours to dry
Freeze or will store for around two weeks in the fridge

Ready for cooking by boiling then roasting.

Cooking ideas from friends

We had beef chilli with baked potato for dinner. I cooked the chilli in the pressure cooker, it took twenty mins to cook so the chunks of meat was really tender, normally I would cook it for three hours perhaps. The potatoes cooked in the wood burning stove wrapped in foil.

Both were ideas from friends, I hadn't thought of actually cooking in the pressure cooker, I got it for canning/jarring which I have done a bit of, but not as much as I would like (when the house is done!). It is pretty big and although I made enough for tonight and four more meals (eight portions) it was only a few inches in the bottom of the pan.

More on bunny breeding

It turned out that the bunny I thought might be pregnant was not. So I put her in with the male, yet AGAIN. This time things went a bit differently though. She seemed very excited and made little kind of oinking sounds, a bit like a guinea pig. I wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing. But bunny boy seemed to think it was a good sign and went at it with enthusiasm. You might remember that the man I bought Mrs Robinson off advised me that if the male falls off as he finishes if he is doing it right. Bunny boy has never shown any signs of falling off before, but this time he suddenly keeled over sideways with a little groan as if he was dead. But he was ok and got up looking quite happy.

I took the female out and put her back a bit later and the same thing happened again.

Perhaps he has got the hang of it, or perhaps she feels spring is coming or something and is morei n the mood.

I put the other female in the following day, but she didn't seem keen and he didn't fall off. I tried again the next day and he did. So I am very much hoping that they have all got the hang of it and will be pregnant. Only time will tell. Reading about it suggests that mating rabbits often isn't as easy as general belief has it to be. Then you have to manage to keep the babies alive - not always easy eithr apparently. Hopefully one day we will have so much rabbit to eat, that we will look back on our struggles now and laugh!

Mrs Robinson has started trying to build a nest. Female rabbits collect straw/hay in their mouths in quite a distinctive way when they are nest building. They do build nests sometimes when not actually preganant, but this is a hopeful sign. She was also trying to burrow in the corner of the cage.

She is due in 2 weeks, so is starting the building rather early - apparently it is usually a few days before. Anyway this has made me think we had better start doing something about a nest box for her. If it were summer we might not bother with one, but the poor little bald babies are going to have a tough time of it as it is winter so we need to give them the best chance we can.

A new friend

Poppy has a new friend. She is called Maggie and came round here a little while ago. We went to visit her at home at the end of last week (and had a nice walk and delicious lunch). She is younger than Poppy, but a similar height and slightly heavier build, she is one of the few dogs we have met with similar energy and enthusiasm levels, quite a few dogs we meet are rather intimidated by the mad dog trying to play with them.
While we were having lunch Poppy was keen to join us and jumped up on the window sill. Perhaps Maggie will learn this awesome trick from her! It is a nice sunny place to sit and watch the world go by.

Maggie on the left (she has a full tail)

On the window sill

Maggie watching in amazement as Poppy is allowed in

Ruby and Gemma, another friends dogs, were also there. They are rather nervous of Maggie and Poppy separately so we thought both together would totally astound them, but luckily they were left to get on with their own fun while Maggie and Poppy were mad together.
All dogs were exhausted by the end of the day and had great fun, so we will have to repeat the play date sometime soon.

Wood for the new A frames

The wood for the new roof A frames has been delivered. We expect (hope) the roofer will come and start work on them in about a weeks time. Fingers crossed! Luckily I had just cleared out this area a bit for the quail to fit in so there was room for the wood out of the rain and snow (forecast for tomorrow)

Bunny Palace is built

It was quite an undertaking building it as each piece is very heavy. We managed to slightly damage one of the walls in transit, but it still works fine. We may need to patch it up a bit at some point.

This is probsbly not its permenant location, we haven't worked out what that is yet though. Not looking forward to moving it!!

We still need to block the connecting door between the two bottom hutches so that new bunny girl can live in one of them.

New Rabbit

Our new rabbit accommodation has room for four, we are (very) frustrated about not getting any baby rabbits yet, so we have bought a fourth rabbit who is allegedly already pregnant - but we shall see... She is due between the 5th and 9th of February.

It was quite funny going to get her as I asked the guy about how to tell when a rabbit is pregnant. He said 'Si le mâle tombe, elle est pleine'. 'If the male falls she is full (pregnant)'. He then proceeded to give me a demonstration of this by putting a female in with his male. The male went at it and after a few seconds fell over sideways off her. I am not sure if this is always true, but our male certainly doesn't do it - or hasn't while we have been watching anyway. The helpful bunny guy also said that although rabbits ovulate after having intercourse rather than ovulating periodically they do still have a 3 day cycle during some of which they are less receptive to the male.
The new rabbit has had two litters before, we have called her 'Mrs Robinson' as we hope she can show Bunny Boy how it is done... else he is getting EATEN!

As you can see she is living in the spare room at the moment until we have built the new bunny palace. She has not been living outside so needs to be transitioned slowly to grow some new fur.

New Rabbit Accomodation

As well as new quail accommodation, we have got the rabbits some winter quarters. They are in cages on the lawn, which is great when the grass is growing as we can move them around and they don't need much other food. However in the winter when the grass is not growing they get frustrated and dig out even when we feed them other food. They are also making the lawn rather unhealthy and muddy by eating it too short. So we decided to get them some concrete cages for the winter. Not perhaps the most aesthetic item in the world, but what everyone here uses for their rabbits. We plan (eventually) on painting the doors black (they are rust coloured now) and perhaps the concrete white or something too. They will also be useful for keeping young animals of various sorts in throughout the year.

We haven't put it back together yes - will be quite fun.

New Quail Accomodation

The quail have been living in a cage inside the chicken fence with the chickens (they can't really free range as they would just fly off - although some people try it and it works although I think it would then be hard to find the eggs). This works quite well except they are quite hard on the ground they are on. Their poo is very strong and kills the grass and unlike the chickens they won't go in to a house - which is where the chickens seem to poo most, making it easy to clean them out and stop their enclosure becoming a poo swamp like the quails.
This cage was quite big as we thought they would like room to move around, but they stayed in one corner pretty much all the time, so we decided a smaller cage under cover and off the ground would be more practical. I debated with myself for a long time about whether a cage with a metal mesh floor was OK - we want our animals to be happy and comfortable. In the end I decided to go for it as it is so practical from the keeping them clean point of view - with the thought that we could put something else in as the floor if they seemed uncomfortable. They seem very happy (as far as quail express emotion), they wander about a bit, and spend the rest of the time sitting watching the world go by, which seemed to be their favorite activity in the other cage too. We now have them in the little barn attached to the house as their new house really needs to be under shelter, they seem happy watching comings and goings and only a bit but out by a giant dog face appearing right in front of them.

The cage has a slight slope so eggs roll forward for collection. In their other cage they just seemed to lay eggs anywhere although they did dig holes sometimes and lay in the hole but I felt it was for a feeling of security rather than egg laying as they generally seemed quite happy just dropping eggs wherever they happened to be - unlike chickens who like to lay all in the same place and in a secluded area which is why the chicken houses have nest boxes.

Cheddar

A while ago I tried making cheddar. It was nice, but not really like cheddar. I haven't made any cheese in yonks, I do fully intend to get back to it one day (the usual time for everything ie 'when the house is done'). Perhaps I will never master cheddar as there seem to be many variables which must be precisely right. However it won't matter as one of the local supermarkets (Leader Price) which opened recently does very nice (Scottish) extra mature cheddar. Hurrah for cheese on toast! I didn't realise how much I used cheddar for until I didn't have it...

Toasted cheese (on home made sourdough bread)

New Zealand memories

Nick brought us a bottle of wine from the Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant in New Zealand.
We had it the other night - it brought back happy memories of eating and drinking there when we were in New Zealand in 2002 on our round the world trip. So long ago now, but yet it seems only moments...

We had it with roast lamb, marrow and potato. All home grown. Delicious!

How is Owen?

People have asked how he is.
He is fine, not cured, but not worse. Some spots are better but new ones appear from time to time.
We are treating him by grooming and spraying with very dilute anti bacterial solution a couple of times a week - initially TCP, but now hibiscrub. I use only a few ml in a 1 liter of water. I apply it with a plant sprayer and rub it in carefully to the lumpy spots as well as picking off the scabs - apparently this is a good thing to do as it allows the anti bacterial to get to the infection as well as letting the spot dry out. It feels like a bad thing to do though as you are basically pulling his hair out! We are also having him the barn overnight occasionally to make sure he dries out properly.

Spicy Chicken Hearts

They have a lot of exciting things in the supermarket here that you don't see often in the UK. For example lambs lungs, pigs tongue, pigs trotters, calves sweetbreads (pancreas) and chicken hearts. I bought some chicken hearts although I had no idea what to do with them. This is what I came up with.

Serves 2 

300g of chicken hearts (that is a lot of hearts!)

1 onion

1 clove of garlic (grated or finely chopped)

10cl cream

Juice of half a lemon

1 tsp gravy granules (cheating I know but I often use when i want a sauce thickened for the flavour too... eg when I make stirfry). Use flour if you don't cheat on your gravy less than a tsp though.

Splash of water

1tsp cumin

1tsp paprika

Some cayenne pepper or fresh chilli - to your own taste

4 juniper berries (crushed)

125g rice

Chop the onion and fry on a low heat until lightly browned. Perhaps 15 mins.

Add the hearts, spices and the garlic and increase the heat slightly. Fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the cream, the lemon and the gravy granules. Stir until it boils, then add a bit of water to thin a little to consistancy of cream.

Simmer gently for about 15 minutes. Use this time to cook the rice too.

Serve

I found the hearts to have an interesting texture, not nasty, but not amazing either. The sauce was delicious though, and would go well with chopped chicken, pork or some kind of firm veg (aubergine, courgette and baby sweetcorn?)

Animals on the loose.

I got up this morning and was just putting on the kettle for tea when I saw a bunny hopping past. I quickly locked up the dog and rushed outside. Bunny boy has learnt to move his cage by sticking his nose through the bars and lifting it up then hopping forward. We have tied a rock to the corner of it to weigh it down, but somehow he had knocked this off. He seemed quite keen to be caught though and just hopped in to my hands.

I retired inside for tea (can't function without at least two cups in the morning) and some breakfast, I was halfway down the first cup of tea when Doug stuck his head round the door and shouted 'horse on the loose!', so I rushed out again, just in time to hear Doug say 'oh the sheep are out too'. From the hoof prints it seems that Daisy got out some time in the night, and then in the morning got tangled in the electric wire going up to the cows field, as she ran off she mowed down the Ouessant sheeps fence. Luckily the cow fence didn't come down too. 

Daisy seemd very keen to be caught and returned to her field with Owen and Voltaire, the sheep were also quite easy to catch although the roofer turned up mid process which nearly scares them off.

Having animals makes unpredictable days! We were meant to spend the morning insulating not chasing naughty animals!

Bunnies love brambles!

Sometimes we feel if we turn our backs for a second, brambles will engulf almost the entire property - with nettles taking over the small remaining areas.

The horses eat the leaves a bit in winter and the highland cows are good at forcing their way in to the odd bramble patch, but none of the animals seem to really LOVE them, they just eat a bit when there is nothing else on offer.

With the possible bunny pregnancy, I was reading about feeding rabbits when you are not feeding pellets (which we are not) and something I read suggested they really enjoy bramble leaf and that this is reasonably high in protien along with useful vitamins. So I gave them some to try and they YUMMED it down.

It is hard to imagine how we will harness the bunny bramble eating power to see off the evil invader from our land, but it is good to know that they are of some use at least.

I also read that willow is a good high protein feed for rabbits which was interesting as we are considering making some 'living fences' from willow. You can make willow 'hay' by cutting branches int he summer and drying for feed in the winter.

Bramble leaf tea is meant to be good for you too apparently, but is it tasty?? We will have to try and see.

Vapour barrier or no vapour barrier?

We spent quite a while considering this. Initially it seemed obvious that we would have one as most things you read have one, in which case our roof would be built up like this

The Outside

Slates

Batons (horizontal slats the slates are attached to)

Rafters (vertical)

Insulation

Vapour barrier

Ossature Metalique (literally metal skeleton - the metal framework that holds the insulation up and has the plasterboard screwed to it)

Plasterboard

The Inside

On a lot of roofs there would also be a felt layer between the batons and the rafters.

Intensive reading suggested that the vapour barrier like this is actually being used more as an air barrier than a vapour barrier, and that if you want to keep moisture out of the roof then the air barrier is more important. For example read this

Our roof outside the insulation is now very well ventilated, so we concluded that if we install the plasterboard well, and make sure we seal round all edges and get it airtight we don't need the vapour barrier - saving time, effort and money. What we need to avoid is water condensing out in the roof as warm moist air leaks out and cools and water condenses out of it.

We consulted with the roofer - he agreed we didn't need the vapour barrier and said he did his roof the same as we are planning. Which is lucky considering once we attach the ends to the suspenders they don't come off again, so you can't add the vapour barrier easily.

More on insulation

Having finally got some insulation in both sizes (10cm and 4cm), and the metal rails and supports along with various screws, string, set squares etc we were ready to start the job of putting the insulation up.

Support

Metal rail (clips to support)

Insulation (goes
behind rail)

Day 1 - At the end of the day we had about 10 of the supports screwed to the roof, but various flaws we could see in what we had done. Mainly the tips of them were not level which was going to make it difficult to attach the metal rails.

Day 2 - Had a horse riding lesson then went back to the DIY shop for some extra supplies (bits of wood, screws) and while we were there got another pallet of insulation. Carried the insulation upstairs and cut some bits of wood to length to use in places where the rafters are too round or too narrow to screw a support to.

Day 3 - Removed the supports put up on Day 1. Started again with a new method for getting the supports level. We did this using two different spacers to try to speed the process up some. By the end of the day we had some insulation on the wall!!!!!

Spacer to get the support the correct distance from the roof slats

Spacer to get the supports the right distance apart (with spirit level)

Metal rail with spirit level to check the supports after installation

Insulation on the wall!!! 

We actually got a bit more than this up. When we stopped we were having a problem with the 4cm layer which we had put up last, it is quite flexible and was sagging off the ceiling. We have spent some time thinking and have decided it might work better if we work on each layer at a time rather than all three at once, it also might be easier if we started at one end and worked horizontally rather than vertically up one section - but we need to roofer to install the two missing A frames to do this. 

Day 4 - Spent first half of day with hangover. I went to the CMU (the health care administrator) and the supermarket. Doug put up some more insulation, in this section we have decided to add some verticals round the side of the window. We may need to adjust slightly to get the sides of the window in the right place, one side looks a bit squint, not sure if it is just the photo.

Still quite a lot to go, we need to develop our technique for efficiency and speed as well as being able to achieve the higher sections.

Is this bunny girl pregnant?

To be honest the answer to this question is 'I don't know', but I have palpatated her as advised by many things I have read and I can feel some little lumps I have not felt before. However it may be that she is just getting more used to having it done and relaxing more and I am feeling internal organs or little rabbit pellet poos working their way through her.
When we mated her a few weeks ago we left her and bunny boy together for about 2 days despite advice that you should only leave them together a short while - that technique clearly wasn't working and we have never seen them be aggressive towards one another.
We will just have to wait and see...

Insulation

I forgot, in the excitement of New Year and Nick visiting, to mention that we went and got the first palet of insulation before New Year

There are 10 more like this - and it looked even more when we got it inside the house.

The fork lift driver did an awesome job getting it in the trailer as there is about 1cm space on each side, he also lent us a cargo strap long enough to go over the top. Despite that it did sway quite a bit, but we got it home without it keeling off the trailer.

We went yesterday to Leroy Merlin which is a gigantic DIY, furniture and decor shop - it is a chain, the nearest one to us being in Pau. We went there rather than a closer DIY shop because we wanted plastic not metal supports for the metal rails which will support the insulation and have the plaster board screwed to them and this was the nearest we could find them.

Now we just need a 2nd palet of the insulation (the 4cm as the 1st one is the 10 - we are doing 24cm) and we are ready to get started. Too exciting! 

The roofer is meant to be coming this week to cap the 2nd chimney and fix a couple of leaks around the chimney and he thinks he will do the two A frames at the end of January - we shall see!

Owen has rain scald

Poor Owen has rain scald, which is a skin infection and often happens to horses that don't dry out for long periods. With such thick winter fur he is a little bit damp often even when it is not raining as sweat is trapped close to his skin.

Each patch starts off as a little lump and then the top layer of the skin falls off with the hair attached. It is sad as little clumps of his hair fall our when you stroke or groom him, it feels really awful pulling his hair off, but the infection is under these pieces of skin, so it is better to have it come off so the area can dry and any treatment can get in.

We are currently treating it by spraying him with dilute TCP and working it in with our fingers to get it over as much of his skin as possible. We have a limited supply and it takes quite a bit to cover him so we have ordered some stuff called hibiscrub which is recommended along with an anticeptic shampoo. Some people suggest spraying regularly with diluted listerine (one person suggestd this worked well for her as a preventative during the winter). We may give that a go when other things fail! It seems that different things work on different horses - but all take a certain amount of work and regular application.

We could give him a course of antibiotics, but it seems this is only called for if less drastic measures fail to resolve the problem and it is better to find a another solution as it will tend to reoccur.

Oops

Some friends kindly brought round a scaffold they are lending us. As a punishment for their good deed they ended up in the ditch at the side of our drive. It is very rainy and wet today, but I have to say that noone else has managed this particular trick. Hopefully it won't become a habit of the drive to trap visitors. Luckily our car is well equiped to deal with this kind of thing so we were able to drag them out quite easily. Makes me feel like a proper 4x4 driver!

We all got rather muddy. There is no photo of the actual event, but here is Poppy warming up and cleaning herself up afterwards, of course she was a great help. She seems to be over the phantom pregnancy thing and back to her 'normal' self.

Happy New Year!

Very short post... We have Nick, and old friend (I mean a friend for a long time rather than someone who is old) staying, so no time to write, too busy enjoying seeing him after so long - 5 years - which seems like no time at all. 

I struggled to write a new year message last year, as it was obvious my mum would not last long in to the year. Haven't done better writing one this year perhaps and still miss her desperately, but I wish you all a prosperous and happy year.

Love and kisses, Rhoda.