Party on

Doris loves a party.  I wondered how the feathered guests would go at our recent family and friends gathering for a significant numbered birthday party.  Not mine thankfully.  I don't do the zeros!!  When guests arrived it was a chicken free zone. They took to perches, trees and shrubs out of view.  They listened from afar and went to bed bothered by noise and disruption.  A great night and whilst we managed to do most of the hospitality ourselves, we did get a lot of help.  Every time I returned to the kitchen there was a new pair of hands in the sink washing up.  By the end of the evening when all that was left was the birthday boy and his dog, with our wonderful neighbour and his dog, I left them to see the night out.  In the morning, being the first up I opened the back door to see Doris and friends at party central.  Squawks of excitement at a few dropped prawn shells, small bits of marinated this and oven roasted that scattered under trestles and beside pot plants.  The excitement was very evident.  Then the memory returned as I pictured our number one son and cocker spaniel face down in half a lobster with legs and arms poking out from beneath his chin faced firmly in shell.  By the time I returned to remove the feast, the entire thing had gone.  Only to be revisited the next morning.  On the stairs, on the carpet, in his bed!!!  A very sad and sorry dog the next morning.  Not a great start to the day.  Even less so for a house full of guests.  Eewwww.

I'm just one of you guys, really I am...

The back door is the hub of our small farm life.  It's where Max sees the world from the confines of his small inside cat life (which he wouldn't have any other way) and previously it was the reverse for Minnie who having been dumped on our property was our outdoor farm cat looking in.  Winter blew in cold winds and swept up leaves in a circling frenzy in the courtyard that rushed in the back door one icy morning.  Along with Minnie.  She hasn't looked back since.  Now regularly demands entrance and has put a hole in the wire on the bottom corner of the security screen from knocking a little bit too hard.  Now of a morning Lewis (pictured rooster) sits on the mat and waits for breakfast.  He's watched the cleverness of Minnie manoeuvre herself from outdoors to indoors and I suspect is considering the same thing.  He'd quite happily sit perched on the banister at the end of our bed and wake us with a full throttle crow at all hours of the morning.  It's hard to explain to him, that he's really not one of those guys who can come inside and eat and get warm.  Or as in today's case, inside and stay cool.  We've got a particularly hot day coming up today so all those who can be in will be in and all those who should be out sitting under trees in the shade should do so.  That means you Lewis!