A Flaming Nuisance

A Flaming Nuisance

Sometimes life doesn’t go to plan, does it? In fact, sometimes, quite major things can go wrong, and part of life is deciding what to do next when disaster strikes. This week has been a little like that.

One disaster was due to the hot weather we’ve been having. My mum, having survived a week in Camber with me, then phoned in bit of a panic, as the trees near her house were on fire. I went down to see if it was safe for her to stay there, and found the whole area filled with smoke and the smell of charred wood. There was a fire engine, and a lot of people, mainly neighbours who had come out to watch. The people who lived right next to the fire had been evacuated, and the other neighbours were finding them chairs and cups of tea, holding their hands and being generally helpful. Sometimes people are very nice.

I decided to bring Mum to my house, mainly so she didn’t have to breathe all the fumes, and also so she could recover from the shock somewhere peaceful. Animals are quite calming, and I have lots of animals. Her own house wasn’t damaged, so after a few hours of being climbed on by cats and bounced by the dog and watching the ducks and chickens, I took her home. Mum is fine, but the trees look very sad.

(When I went to collect her, I needed to drive over a fire hose, and I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to. So I asked a fireman, who said: “Where are you parked sweetheart?” I don’t get called sweetheart by beefy firemen very often. So that made my day!)

My other disaster was a chicken massacre. Usually the fox is too scared to come into my garden because it gets chased by the dog. So my chickens roam freely all day, and I shut them in at night. But when I went up to shut them into the cage, only one hen appeared. I shut her in, and went to investigate. The compost heap and orchard were covered with feathers. Not a good sign. While I was searching, the fox came back, presumably for the hen I’d shut away, and the dog chased it away. But I couldn’t find the other chickens.

Later that evening, the cockerel turned up at the kitchen window, looking a bit lost. I picked him up and put him in the cage. Am guessing he hid when the fox came (not exactly the chicken equivalent of beefy fireman, as he let the girls get eaten).

So now I only have one cockerel, and the hen who escaped. What a shame. The fox has visited a few times since, so I’m guessing it’s raising cubs and has become more daring. I will leave the birds in cages for a few weeks. They are not happy.

On a lighter note, the duckling that the hen hatched is still doing well. I am now trying to teach it that it is a duck, not a chicken. I moved it into the big aviary and caught a duck from the pond to keep it company. The duckling spent a whole evening crying for his ‘mum’, which was rather sad. I have now moved the other ducks inside, so he is getting used to being with ducks. I’m hoping that in a couple of weeks, when all the birds are free again, he will want to go on the pond, and not into the chicken coop.

When the egg first hatched, it was hard to see if the hen had hatched a chick or a duckling!

As the duckling grew, mother hen was rather perturbed every time it jumped into the drinking water.

Feathers start to appear after a couple of weeks.

At 4 weeks, fully grown, though not yet fully feathered. Moved into a cage with ducks from the pond, so he can learn how to be a duck.

Hope you have a week that is free of disasters. Thank you for reading.

Take care,
Love,
Anne x

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