A Year in Stempster

More snow fell during the night, filling in more of our footsteps. The water in all the animals' bowls and waterers was all frozen and had to be chipped away with a small wooden post that was the first thing I found. The chickens are not impressed by the snow, still, and I left them shut in their coop. When I went out in early afternoon, they were all in their house so I put their food, corn and water inside and shut them in for the night. There was thunder and lightning forecast for later, and closing the ramp door would stop the snow from blowing in anyway. The poorly quail was bleeding again, and his feet were red raw. Jude and I put him in a cat carrier in the garage. It's still chilly in the garage but he'll not get any snow, and there shouldn't be the draft. For the others, I draped some weed fabric over their hutch. They still have a small area where they can see out but it should help stop the drafts. When Ginny and I were just finishing with the chickens and qu...

Christmas Eve. The first day of the school holidays. Perhaps some of my colleagues would enjoy a lie-in this morning, but Orlando made sure I got up not long past my normal time. His insistent barking told me that I had quail and chickens to see to, who didn't understand the luxuries of holidays, and I (somewhat begrudgingly) got up and brushed my teeth ready to go downstairs. I switched on the many Christmas lights, a job I love doing, and made up some more antibiotic solution for my male quail who has an abcess. Orlando, and Jess, waited as patiently as they could before I grabbed my head torch and went out into the darkness. My routine is simple. On a day I'm not driving, I go to the garage to get more chicken food and quail food before going through to the kitchen garden to see to the quail first, telling Orlando to drop the log he's inevitably collected from the log store before I open the gate. Otherwise, he collects all our fuel in a pile in the orchard. The quail we...