Little Cotton Rabbits

in the garden again

Forgive me for banging on about my veg patch again but it really amazes me how quickly things grow at this time of year. I took these pictures a month apart and the difference is huge (the left-hand ones are from May and the right-hand were taken yesterday)

I do get quite excited by the first picking of our fruit and veg. I love these translucent mangetout and they're all ready to be snapped off and lightly steamed - yum!

Later this week we'll be able to pick the first of the courgettes and french beans and the strawberries are still going strong.

There are flowers too - I do so love this time of year in the garden!

seaside

Summer has really arrived here - it's turned hot and sunny and Amy and I couldn't pass up the opportunity that came our way last week for a girls only weekend at the seaside. We set off at the crack of dawn on Saturday and arrived with our friends in Walton on the Naze for breakfast.

The day at the beach was perfect and we topped it off with a visit to the pier, fish and chips and an evening at the kids club. It was so nice to get away and relax but lovely to come home again yesterday and see our menfolk who had pottered around the garden all weekend. Although we were only away for 18 hours it felt like a much longer break and I feel very relaxed this morning - hope that feeling lasts a little longer!

and then there were two

Thanks so much for the good wishes for both Amy's ballet performance and for poorly Toffee. Amy had a wonderful time and really enjoyed performing on such a big stage. We were really proud to see her up there giving it her all.

Unfortunately Toffee did not have such a good weekend. I inspected her foot and leg and thoroughly bathed it but there was no sign of cuts, bruises, breaks, nibbles (although  there's no way any rodents could get into our run) and she still had movement in the toes and could just about weight bear on the leg. Unfortunately though she stopped eating the regular chicken food on Saturday and so I put her on the rickets diet that I'd read about - she seemed to enjoy this but was still only eating a little. She wasn't showing other signs of illness so we made her a comfy woodshavings bed and waited to see if rest would help.

Sadly though she died during Sunday night. I'm hoping that the absence of other symptoms means that she didn't have an infectious disease that the others might get but to play safe we've thoroughly cleaned everything and are dosing Mrs Black and Butterscotch up with vitamins. We're so sad to have lost Toffee but it feels a little better knowing that she had a good life here with lots of treats, a comfy home and a little love which is much more than most of her commercially bred cousins can dream of.

poorly little red hen

Poor Toffee has hurt her foot.

No-one is very sure how it happened but it seems most likely that she caught a toe when coming down the ramp one morning. She is limping and unable to scratch around as chickens like to do so is spending much of her day sitting.

 

Hopefully it's just a sprain and will start to get better soon but for now we're all taking care of her and the other two chickens are spending a lot of time sitting with her which is quite touching. I'm at a bit of a loss to know what to do but will see how she is after the weekend - I'm hoping she'll be OK. Apart from chicken nursing, we'll be spending the weekend preparing for Amy's ballet show on Sunday and I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures to show off afterwards! Enjoy your weekend where you are.

weekend stuff

We had a busy weekend with a lot of ballet rehersals for Amy. There's only a week to go before her ballet school perform Cinderella at the local theatre and Amy is Cinderella's shadow (as you might imagine she's very excited!) So that meant a lot of sitting around for me - not too bad when you've got a bag full of crochet to keep you busy! I'm working on lots of different bits at the moment which I hope will one day become a collection of cushions!

There was also a little garden time. Everything is growing like mad and there are loads of strawberries ripening.

We learnt our lesson from last year and picked them quick before the birds or the slugs could tuck into them.

They tasted good!

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PS: the crochet cushions above are all based on the summer garden granny square pattern from Attic24's blog

the loveliness and the not so

Thanks to a generous voucher from a friend I have treated myself to some gorgeous new yarn for a cosy autumn scarf (bought from first4yarns). It's really soft and beautifully marled.

but on the not-so-lovely side is this...

Luckily for Toby it has fixed easily with a dab of superglue or he'd be in the doghouse for sure!

the saggy baggy bag

It's finished and yes, it is saggy and oh so very baggy. I now realise that it would have been better to have used a finer crochet hook with this yarn and it would have helped to have woven in the ends as I went. I also still dislike the purple spot but all things considered I am ridiculously pleased with my finished bag! I'm also glad that I got the time to finish it over this half term break which has had it's difficult moments but overall not been a bad week for us. Even so, I'm really looking forward to the peace and quiet that tomorrow will bring when our term time routine resumes again!