A face only a mother could love - but no one will own up

He wouldn't win any beauty contests that's for sure but Crossbeak has recovered well and is now part of the team.  He still struggles to eat with the crew and prefers to jump into the metal garbage bin where the seed is kept.  He can manage to scoop up the seed quite easily from there and chirps away happily, oblivious to the dinner mahem that descends most afternoons at feed time.  I was watching him the other day from the kitchen window where he jumped up into one of the potted pencil pines near the back door.  He must have spotted some insects camped in there and ploughed in face first.  Doris, not one to miss out on anything jumped up pushed him off and stuck her face into the tree.  I often wonder about Doris as to whether she can actually see or not.  I know it's a hairdo choice but sometimes I worry it comes at a cost.  I've seen her walk into the odd wall every now and again.  I guess the feathered beehive works as a buffer?  Spring is here and all the daisies are showing their faces.  Blossom is breaking out all over the garden with the trees along our road looking like they've been studded with bright pink popcorn.  Just need some warm weather now to get out and breath some life into the veggie patch.  We let it go a bit feral over winter and will soon need to reclaim it back from the chooks.  They dance in and out of the bird netting (what a joke) and dig up the leftover straw.  Our soil has enough manure now to just about grow a chook but we don't need anymore.  I'm on the lookout for broodie hens as the days grow longer.  We had a poultry population explosion last year and will need to keep it in check this year.  I'm not sure if they've heard of the one child policy, but we could do with it here.

Tin shed momentary calm

There's something kind of nice about sitting around an open fire in a tin shed on a windless evening watching the last burst of sun hit the hills at the back paddock before it quietly slips away.  We ended our Sunday with a glass of something and some good company to rest tired legs from bouncing around on a tractor (not me) and wrenching nettles out of garden beds (me).  Weekends are a time to literally eat into some of the oversupply we have of eggs at the moment.  Now, at about 5 a day of the ones that we can easily find...the others are for Bennie (pictured sleeping on the mat) to carefully place on the back doorstep unbroken.  Most of the time he's successful, but you can see the look of 'bugger' on his face when not, and of course he just has to eat the contents then.  Weekends usually produce a sponge cake (at least 5 eggs in that, tick), and a roast to slowly go round above the flames in the not so old but made look old tin shed.  Sunday nights are best relaxed but weary.  Unfortunately the evening bliss didn't last long after picking up dog pooh for a second time in the dining room that weekend (you might have heard me scolding the dog from where you are), or cleaning up another pile of cat vomit as Max's delicate constitution repels his offending dinner on no less than three bathroom mats as one is cleaned and replaced by another.  I was glad when the clock said bed time.  I settled into a good book about someone on a bigger farm with much bigger problems to worry about.

Crossbeak and the big reveal

Another busy weekend outside.  Our Sunday night legs begin to wane as the forever walking, bending and lifting jobs get priority.  Weed pulling has never been the name of a fitness class, but definitely should be, 'now dig, dig, and puuullll...those weeds'.  We do take time out for coffee with Minnie and our sheep (all bar one, oops) are all in lamb with Boris now the shepherd.  The three girls are heavy and happy to find anything green.  We've now started our two rows of espaliered apple trees so looking forward to some wonderful blossom (and hopefully fruit) in the coming years.   And my Friday drama was resolved by Friday evening.  Well actually, it wasn't mine, it was Crossbeak's.  He was ready in his cardboard box at 9am for his appointment with his vet for major plastic surgery on his beak.  He was excited and kept popping his little curvy beak outside the round hole carved in the side of the box for air.  We arrived at the vet and the nurse took him into surgery.  I waited nervously.  A little snip, surely that's all, I thought.  The vet came out and I asked "how'd he go?"  He replied, "Not so good I'm afraid".  My God, I panicked for a brief moment imagining the vet to have slipped with the clippers...but the vet advised his beak was a serious deformity that really couldn't be corrected.  He said he was surprised that he'd even lasted this long.  The vet was able to clip back some of his beak but it bled and he was concerned that if he knocks it, the beak may bleed again and this would need to be stopped.  So with some dabbed cotton tips for repair work, I took poor little Crossbeak home.  I guess it's like any plastic surgery, there is the swelling and bleeding before the healing but I wasn't ready for what I saw in the box when I opened it.  He was in shock.  He couldn't walk out of the box and his beak was not a pretty sight.  Why did I do this?  I thought.  Next time when mother nature throws me an abnormality I will but out.  I said to husband farmer, if our baby lambs are born with three heads, so be it.  Fortunately, we soon realised that little Crossbeak is more resilient than we thought.  He managed to recover from his ordeal, clean up his beak and was back eating out of the seed bin as he usually does by the end of the day, with a somewhat shorter and less curvy beak.  Phew.  It was a lot of stress for a mere $20 vet bill.