The Trio of Pekin Chicks

The Trio of Pekin Chicks

Here they are, now just over 6 weeks old and well feathered, looking for mischief.

Will they stay or will they go?

Photo blog of their progress is HERE

Seedlings, Salad Stuff, Fluffy Chicks and Driftwood Sculptures

Seedlings, Salad Stuff, Fluffy Chicks and Driftwood Sculptures

What a mixed bag of good old Scottish weather we have had recently! But Spring has well and truly arrived because we had our first rhubarb crumble tonight, made from freshly picked garden rhubarb. We also had garden grown salad stuff at lunchtime!

In the little greenhouse, the seeds are coming along well, with three varieties of sunflowers pushing ahead in the growing stakes. I have sown a fourth variety today and am planning a sunflower 'fence' halfway down the garden, if I can protect all of these from the slugs and snails. The cucumbers and courgettes are now beginning to germinate, too, so they'll be transferred into the polytunnel soon… read more here

Day 4 of Making It In March - How to Make a Cat Den #MIIM

Day 4 of 31 - It's Pancake Day!

March 11th - 14th, conversations with 42 global leaders - free online event!

Pancakes all Round!

This morning when I got up, the sun was shining through the living room window and onto the newly hung mini plant pot holders - there was a little bit of heat, briefly, until the sun shifted round another degree and out of reach of any of my windows - a definite minus point in the house 'directional facing' stakes!

We forewent the usual porridge at breakfast in favour of pancakes, but I cheated and used a cheap 'just add water or milk' packet mix and, of course, added water.

I like my pancakes made crepe-style, so the batter covers the entire frying pan. This makes them large enough and thin enough to roll them up and serve hot with fillings, depending on what's available.

They shouldn't be too dark, I prefer mine just lightly cooked then flipped. These are so cheap and easy to make that we do tend to have them quite often throughout the year, especially when the ducks are laying. Scoop of flour, pinch of salt, an egg and some milk to the consistency that you most prefer - that's it! They are versatile enough to serve sweet or savoury, with a variety of toppings.

For me, it's usually a sprinkle of sugar and lemon juice, as Maple syrup just isn't on the frugal grocery list. Ordinary syrup is nice, as is a handful of strawberries and a dollop of ice cream and/or cream, but that's more of a 'use up the garden strawberries and homemade ice cream' combination. Today, I had mango!

Pancakes were my first 'make' of 'Making it in March', but now for a Frugaldom special announcement ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILKIE, 5 YEARS OLD TODAY!

On this day, five years ago, my first little Silkie chick hatched out in the polystyrene incubator despite the abuse the eggs had taken during their journey to me via Royal Mail. I'd bought half a dozen hatching eggs via eBay and the box arrived looking like someone had kicked it! Despite this, I set the eggs, turned them faithfully every few hours for 18 days and then waited patiently for day 21 to arrive in the hope that something would hatch - without holding out too much hope, I might add!

On 4th March, 2009, out popped one solitary Silkie chick, one that we aptly named 'Silkie Chick'. She is still known by that name to this day, a full five years later! This is her hatching from her shell inside the tiny incubator that was set up on my desk at the time.

Sadly, none of the other eggs hatched, so this chick ended up being reared in a cardboard box in the porch and preferred to behave more like a dog than a chicken! She was cheeky right from the start! She did eventually settle with the other hens and we did get her Silkie company by way of little Dumbledorf.

We eventually hatched another 5 blue cuckoo striped Silkies for additional company and, over the years, Silkie Chick has hatched and reared a few chicks herself, but she is now the only furry-looking bantam we have left after a mink went on the rampage in broad daylight in October 2011. Little Silkie Chick, here, survived the attack only because she was hiding inside the rabbit hutch where she had decided to lay her eggs! Daft old bird!

But I digress, again! On to more 'Making it in March'. I made it into the kitchen to unpack my latest 'MuscleFood'* order: 5 kilos of chicken breast fillets, 2 kilos of turkey mince and a kilo of boned chicken thighs. Yes, we BUY our chicken - you didn't really think we ate any of our own home-hatched or home-reared birds, did you? Anyhow, this lot arrived and I managed to fit it all into the freezer after splitting it up - the turkey mince was on offer at £1 per 400g pack with maximum 5 per customer, so I got my 5. The chicken thighs were paid using loyalty points, thanks to online friends who have used my referral links and codes. This order should keep us going for the next couple of months, as I still have plenty of beef mince, bacon and pie filling in the freezer. But not only that, the order included an added free gift... A CAT DEN! Scruffy Cat will love it, I'm sure! :)

Remember all the 'rubbish' leftover after unpacking the new living room door? Pieces of polystyrene, 4 plastic corner protectors, 4 strips of thin wooden board, assorted spacers, board edge protectors etc.?

I finally found a way to recycle some of this 'rubbish', along with the cardboard box and insulated liner that came with the meat order this afternoon. Naturally, I saved the ice packs into the freezer.




Turning a cardboard box into a cat den

I started by removing the flaps from the box so I could use these to create a roof with 'attic' space for storing all the cat's toys.

Making a door in the insulated box liner

 Next thing I did was to cut an entrance (and exit) door in the insulated box liner, roughly the size of a small cat flap.

Making the apex roof with attic space

Is anyone else trying this? Take the four cardboard flaps cut from the box and pair them up - one long and one short - lengthwise. Overlap the longest piece over the shortest piece where you will be folding it in half to create the apex roof. I initially used tape before gluing it in place. You should now have two equal lengths of cardboard. Fold these in half to form a right angle. This is where I was lucky to have saved the door packaging, because I was able to use the corner protectors to hold the cardboard at the 90 degree angle by gluing in the plastic, but you could simply fold and glue scrap cardboard. Do the same with the second strip and then these need to be joined together, side by side.

Reinforcing the apex roof

I used three of the four plastic corner protectors for the roof - one at each end and one in the middle and, rather than glue it all together with more cardboard, I used two of the pieces of board from my 'rubbish' stash. If you glue your board or card about 6cm from the edge of the cardboard, it makes a small ledge that helps to prevent the roof slipping while gluing it to the box.

Adding the roof to the box

Before adding the roof, I covered the main box in fabric - I used some more of the old fleece that I had covered my homemade footstools in a couple of weeks ago. Next, I replaced the insulation liner and glued it into place. I reinforced the front of the box using a third piece of board.

Next, I used the little folded pieces of stiff card and glued then along each of the side edges of the box and then glued the roof onto these. I was left with one plastic corner piece from my 'rubbish' stash, so this gave me another idea! I had also kept the pieces from a broken A4 picture frame - the type you see in pound shops. (The glass didn't break, so that got kept, too.) I used the two longer pieces of the frame as edging for the cardboard roof and joined them together using the fourth corner piece as a feature at the peak of the apex.

Side view of the cat house in construction

Before doing any more work on the cat's house, I decided to introduce the frugal puss to her new 'den', just to make sure she actually fitted through the door! As you can see, I haven't added any roof décor or edges to the attic space.

Scruffy cat investigating her new 'den'

Another rummage in my crafty stash and this time I was able to retrieve someone's unfinished project that was sent to me for recycling into McGonk stuffing. Using my largest crochet hook, I crocheted the last of the ball of wool onto what was already there; it made a near perfect sized cat blanket for lining the bottom of the box.

Woolly blanket for the cat's new bed

Blanket completed, I fitted it into the box and then waited for the cat to pass judgement. Her first reaction was to go inside and play 'paddy-paw' on her new fluffy blanket, so I think she approves.

Let sleeping cats lie.

That's as far as I got with Project Cat's Den today, so I'll need to continue with this project tomorrow, when I'll add the attic pieces and get the roof tiled - I'm sure I have enough scrap cardboard in stock to cut and overlay cardboard shingles, rather than just paint the roof. :) I want to start doing that right now but, once again, the day has passed far too quickly. Now it's almost time to find the cat's pyjamas!

NYK, Frugaldom

* Friend referral link, which has the potential to earn me a few extra loyalty points.

A Day Out at Wigtown Agricultural Show

Even Frugalites Have Day Trips

Yesterday, 3rd August, was Wigtown Show. It's an annual event that has been running for the past 200 years and one that we try not to miss. Son was home to hold the fort, so we had a frugal day out. £15 for 2 adults and car parking isn't that much, in the grand scheme of things, is it?

This year was the bicentenary and, to mark the occasion, HRH Princess Anne attended. It's the agricultural community's biggest event of the year, so it is always very well attended. We are normally treated to a shower of rain but this year the sun shone throughout the day and a great tme was had by all.

HRH took the time to wander around the showground, chatting to many of the locals and stallholders. Things about here are usually of an informal nature and yesterday's event was no different. It's seldom you find many false airs and graces around these parts, most refreshing, albeit a little disconcerting for some of the visitors.

This year's poultry show was every bit as well supported as last year's, if not more so. There were hundreds of hens, ducks, geese and turkeys, several I hadn't even heard of, let alone seen. However, for sheer 'aaaaw' appeal, this little bantam with her chicks stole the show for me.

Judging the 'Champion of Champions must be a huge burden on the shoulders of whoever has that unenviable task because I really don't know how anyone can compare a horse to a cow to a goat to a sheep to a donkey to a goose!

I had picked out my favourite, a Black Galloway bull with the rather undeserving name of Nancy Boy. He was rather docile, I have to admit, but I'm sure his name won't endear him to his future suitors.

Now that I come to think of it, do cows even bother to exchange names? Perhaps Nancy Boy won't have to deal with that sort of problem afterall. LOL

The feature act of the day was a performance by 'Jive Pony'. The team had travelled many miles to appear and the crowd seemed to appreciate their performance, particularly the audience participation part. The young guy concerned was escorted into the ring, dressed in a pink tu-tu and then legged up onto the Highland pony for his first ever riding experience. He did really well, considering the ribbing he endured from his friends.

We were also lucky enough to see one of the world's smallest owls. I'm guessing it was some sort of pygmy owl, but I didn't want to pay £3.50 for a photograph, so you'll need to do a search to see what it looks like. Maybe I'm just mean, but £3.50 is about half a bag of hen feed, so not an amount I was prepared to pay for a photo on the Frugaldom blog.

 After the show we visited friends and shared a late afternoon cappuccino and chat on their patio. While there, I was able to take some cuttings (thanks, J) of an assortment of geraniums and some grapefruit mint. I'm thinking that an assortment of mint would be an ideal addition to the front 'garden' where each type could be planted in its own pot. This grapefruit one smells lovely.

It was then time to collect our new bantams. There are six in total, four Light Sussex X hens, one blue Pekin hen and a lavender Pekin cockerel. At the moment, they're beng quarantined in a 2m coop and run. In a couple of weeks, we'll let the X bred bantams out with the others but will need to keep the Pekins in the run so Billy Gruff, my blue cuckoo Silkie cockerel, doesn't attack his smaller counterpart.

 

That brings us back to what's happening in Frugaldom. Last night I was sure I heard a small squeak coming from the incubator. Today is day 17 for the quail eggs, so I shouldn't really have been surprised to come through this morning to find the first chick hatched and bumbling about in the incubator. Since then, a second has arrived and several of the other eggs are rocking and rolling, with the tell tale cracking sound of tiny beaks on shell.

Any chick from this lot is a bonus, as the eggs were all collected from my hens the week after they were seperated from the males. With no way of knowing how many, if any, would be fertile, I stuck 32 eggs in the incubator and crossed my fingers. 3 were removed shortly after that, but 29 remained. I wonder what percentage are fertile? I think we've reached 10% now, as I can see a beak pocking out of an almost open egg.

 

I'll update with photos as soon as I possibly can. For now, the incubator is remaining firmly shut. You can follow the updates by reading the section amed 'In the Incubator' on the free forums, which is where I normally upload the photos.

Frugaldom now has a new project to add to the list of many - we need to build an aviary to house some Diamond Doves that we are rehoming from the same person who gave us the bantams. He's leaving the area in a few weeks time, so we'll need to get organised soon to ensure we can house these new birds. There are a few others comig too, mainly zebra finches and bengalese, but we already have those species, so they'll mix OK after their quarantine period. The Diamond Doves, however, I'd like to see outside in their own space. More on this at a later date.

In the time it has taken me to edit and upload this post, quail chicks 3, 4, 5 and 6 have arrived! We've already passed the 20% mark. :)