Leave of absence 1 - weather
The sun. The sun has deserted us. Gone. Instead it's been rain, mist, fog, mizzle, drizzle. Not so much grim as just mildly crap.
Leave of absence 2 - truth
Weather forecasters keep harping on about how sunny and warm it is, and sticky, and oh good it'll be cooler tonight so 'you should all find it easier to sleep'. Aye pal, I've put an extra blanket on the bed. I often tell people that the weather forecasters get it wrong up here - they are often forecasting rain and it stays clear and bright - but not the last week or so. Pah!
Leave of absence 3 & 4 - family and erm overall cleanliness
Jussi and the girl return tomorrow night - so obviously I've got a lot of tidying to do. Left to my own devices I gradually disappear under a pile of pots 'n' pans 'n' cans 'n' bottles 'n' papers 'n' socks 'n' undies 'n' stuff. The big clean up has started - should be just about done by tomorrow. But Leave of absence 1 has made washing clothes very difficult (well OK - its drying them what's hard) so there's a bit of a backlog there. Though it does seem quite dry* today so maybe...
Leave of absence 5 & 6 - builders and blogs
The builders went off last week for a two week break. Leave of absence 1 has made it none too pleasant to step outside with the camera - but as they're away for at least another week I'll still be able to update 'the builders are here' - once the sun shines and I can take the piccies to reinforce your perceptions of rural idyll.
Leave of absence 7 & 8 - chickens and a sense of proportion
Chickens put themselves to bed at dusk. It's then a good idea to then lock them in, or more accurately - lock predators out. About a month ago they were staying out till around midnight - and often you'd find me out weeding at that witching hour waiting for the chucks to come home to roost. These days they're often in bed by 10 o clock - but if the news headlines look interesting I'll not go up until 10:30 to lock them in, by which time if it's cloudy and moonless, things is getting pretty dark. Thursday was one such night. I popped my head into the chicken coup and behold - two chickens short. Eeeek.
Chickens like to wander. Ours seem to be good at getting into fields via the gate, and then finding themselves unable to get through the fence, or relocate the gate in order to make their way home again. This is why it is a good idea to go check on the chickens before it gets dark. Many a time I've wandered our boundary fences to find chickens (usually two of them) sitting stock still in a clump of grass. They're always pleased to see me and make little cooing noises as I guide them to fences, pick them up and throw them over, and then guide them back home. But if it's dark you can't do that.
I went to bed on Thursday night a worried man - hoping they'd be back with us in the morning.
Alas not.
Fridays are important days for the village - for the bank comes to visit. It set ups in the local library-cum-doctors surgery (Thursdays)-cum-council service point-cum-community computer-printer-photocopier resource-cum-lets cover the windows with posters advertising events/anti-drug smuggling advice/agricultural pest notices/ fishing diseases/marriage banns-cum-soddit-that's-enough-hyphens-for-one-sentence, and I had a cheque to bank. So off I set eyes-a-peeled, ears erm whatever you do to ears to make them sharp - searching for the missing hens.
On my way up the hill about a furlong from our cottage I passed a field that's had some coos and calvies in for the last few days. They're cute looking beasts with that lovely rich brown that you see in Jerseys - and I suspect these are some sort of Jersey cross. The field is on a slope and is roughly undulated so that from the road you can sometimes see an entire coo and calf, and at other times you can just see a head, or a swish of a tail, or the flash of a comb or, no hang on, coos dunnae hae combs.
When it saw me it came racing over to the fence clucking its little chooking head off. It looked bedraggled though clearly well. I picked it up and carried it home. It didn't respond to any of my questions about were it's pal was but later in the afternoon I was able to find it in the same field and all chooks were happily re-united.
Leave of absence 22 - peas
The garden is harvesting fairly well - but nothing like the riches we had last year. There have been multiple rows of lovely prepared soil delicately planted with seeds that simply didn't bother to even try to give me something to look forward to. Mostly, the peas germinated - or at least the first planting did - and they grew handsomely. Unfortunately that's about all they did cos now they be more or less roting in the vine without maturing enough to be worth eating. We had a few meals with sugar snap peas and in the last week I've had a few meals with at least a token presence of peas, but what promised to be a bumper harvest is rapidly turning to a black slime.
Leave of absence 48 & 49 & 50 & 51 & 52 - Security, stamina and time, and exhaustion and an eco-value set.
Left here alone with only a white van to get me to an emergency shop should the need arise makes me slightly nervous that despite the solar battery charger that Chris sent us, the vans' batteries are going to be flat precisely when I need to travel. So on a few occasions I've rather naughtily, or is that irresponsibly, jumped in the van to pop to the village to buy something, anything, just so I'll at least get to speak to someone, anyone, while the van sits outside the shop pumping out exhaust fumes. As I drove away I noticed a rather disturbing sound, and came of the opinion that some of those exhaust fumes were rather close for comfort. I stopped on a bit of flat land at the bottom of the hill and noticed that half of the exhaust had taken leave of the other half and was scraping quite spectacularly along the ground. Ever the resourceful I tied it up with baler twine and returned home. But this can only be a temporary measure - I need to do a proper repair using fencing wire.
There were to be a number of more entries under 'leave of absence' but I've run out of enthusiasm for it, and anyway, I'm supposed to be working.
* I just know I'm going to regret writing that.
5 comments:
Leave of absence (LOA) is a term used to describe a period of time that one is to be away from his/her primary job, while maintaining the status of employee. This term is in contrast to normal periods away from the workplace, such as vacations, holidays, hiatuses, sabbaticals, and "working from home" programs, in that they are considered to be exceptional circumstances, rather than benefits. Generally such an arrangement has a predefined termination at a particular date or after a certain event has occurred.
"Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer."
Ovid
I always envisage hens running away from people - nice to hear about them running up to you instead.
Hope the family got back OK and that there is a noted improvement in the 'management' of your animals *** tsk ***
MTB
Word verification:
'Jupici' - the remains of your partner after she found out about the hen loss.
yes - we're back and all the animals are thriving. Did I imagine it or were they glad to see us back? :-)
'Leave of Absence' obviously just means not writing anything more in your blog site for two weeks, leaving us all woefully uninformed and worried sick about your house, your chickens, your goats, your van, etc.
MTB
Word Verification:
'Kamati' - to commit kamati is to leave ones blog-readers in suspense indefinitely until, one by one, they shake their virtual heads and delete 'Run for the Hills' from their internet Favourites list. %-C
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