[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] The conclusion to the sorry chicken saga. Where to begin. Can’t begin at the beginning, that’s already been done. See above. So, let’s find a point in the middle to start. Firstly, after Tempest’s last two chicks (the yellow one she’d hatched and the small Australorp she adopted) died, we worked out it was those bloody fleas. The adults weren’t so badly affected by all appearances, though the eggs were fewer and further between, so maybe they were affected. We seem to have bathed the heads of the other chicks in olive oil in time to prevent an outbreak of chick killing proportions. JJ also put some concrete slabs under the roost, as apparently this helps break their life cycle or something. We like to go with naturalish preventative measures and remedies as much as possible for everything, saving The Big Chemical Guns for when there is a situation that warrants it. This was one of those situations.

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] There was much excitement and trepidation at Wannabe when Chess, our bossy little evil Pekin bantam went broody, and amusement when the more demure Tempest decided that she, too, would also like to hatch some eggs. We were pretty thrilled to have broodies, as one of our long term plans was to increase our flock naturally, including letting the broodies raise their chicklets, and bring in new blood every so often to prevent too much inbreeding. This idea has since expanded to JJ planning on developing his own chicken breed.

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] It’s the hottest driest summer ever in Australia (except in Queensland and northern WA where they’re experiencing floods, and meanwhile in Europe where they’re having longest coldest winters with craziest snowfall). Here in Perth most of our rain happens in winter with drips and drabs here and there in late autumn and early spring. We don’t usually get rain in summer. The last few days I’ve felt quite at home while a large number of my friends have been complaining of the oppressive, stifling, terrible humidity.

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] The lovely Ursula (also known as SulaMoon) over at deviantART gave me and another friend of hers pearwood a dragon for Christmas. I think it’s agonisingly cute. Ursula is an amazing artist.