Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[fuzzi]

I think it might be this one
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7360242M/The_Story_of_English

That's it!

Inexpensive options on bookfinder if anyone wants a paper copy:

https://www.bookfinder.com/search/?...9WGJHwwcyrdkHnkXAdzRM_1735655575_1:8054:14737

Series on YT:
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6D54D1C7DAE31B36

 

[fuzzi]

Tax:

Martha and the remains of a cabbage...

 

[Molpet]

Plus, and I assume this is the sort you welcome in as mouse-killers, "the contents of the venom glands of the American short-tailed shrew are sufficient to kill 200 mice by intravenous injection."

Yes and they do have venom. I can say thier bite is painful and festers like a spider bite. As a kid I was sneaking up on a rabbit, crawling on my belly to get close enough to shoot with a air rifle. I felt something biting my stomach. I jumped up and rabbit lived another day. A little bitty shrew, defiantly standing on its hind legs, screamed at me. About the size of my thumb. I was impressed and respectful. I didn't think about killing it and it went on its way. After all if a giant was smashing me I would bite it too.
That was the first time I seen a shrew. I had to look up what it was. I had a half dozen stinging tiny cuts in my stomach and didn't think much about it until it looked like a spider bite and was painful. Healed up fine after a week or so without going to the doctor.

To make it more confusing, I have short tail and long tail shrews. Mainly short tail.

 

[BDutch]

I just saw the first part on YT:

The series are almost 40 yo and it got really old fashioned to look at.

Sorry I cant post chicken tax. Im on a vacation and unfortunately I’m mostly in bed with a nasty cold today.
But I do have nice photos of the Kings trail in Andalusia though (caminita del Rey).

The path below are the remains of the old unsafe path (prohibited 25-30 years ago).

 

[HiEverybirdy]

In spur news, Merle Hagbird shed his right spur this summer (if I recall) but not the left one, a curvy affair that looked impressive. There it is a few months ago:

Two things about Merle:

1. He has a lot of foot problems, either due to foot feathers or his hobby of kicking a fence to bug his brother Andre.

2. He's a mama's bird. He follows me around when he doesn't feel well. He has faith I'll fix what's bothering him, usually with a warm foot soak and spritz of Vetericyn.

He started following me this morning, so I bent down for a closer look. His left spur was gone! No limping. The new spur probably just felt strange.

He and Andre had been doing their morning "hello" a few minutes before, so I quickly went to look for the spur in the spot they do the most head bobbing. My hypothesis was that he snagged the spur on the fence, and it popped off.

There were 2 leg scales on the ground but no spur, so it was time to review tape, and the chicken cam proved me right. At 9:06 a.m., Merle's spur hooked neatly on the fence.

Luckily he didn't pull something, because he'd never let a little thing like a trapped leg keep him from antagonizing Andre.

The camera shows him free a few seconds later. The spur was likely ready to pop off anyway.

What it doesn't show is the Speckled hens spiriting the spur up the hill in their yard, where I was tickled to find it later, after thinking about where on earth it could be. I figured it was somewhere in their yard or in Miss Peck, and Peck seemed too comfortable to have a 2" claw in her crop!

It's hollow, no blood. Only a little bigger than the one Merle shed months ago, but more sturdy. Pretty neat.

 

[HiEverybirdy]

Yes and they do have venom. I can say thier bite is painful and festers like a spider bite. As a kid I was sneaking up on a rabbit, crawling on my belly to get close enough to shoot with a air rifle. I felt something biting my stomach. I jumped up and rabbit lived another day. A little bitty shrew, defiantly standing on its hind legs, screamed at me. About the size of my thumb. I was impressed and respectful. I didn't think about killing it and it went on its way. After all if a giant was smashing me I would bite it too.
That was the first time I seen a shrew. I had to look up what it was. I had a half dozen stinging tiny cuts in my stomach and didn't think much about it until it looked like a spider bite and was painful. Healed up fine after a week or so without going to the doctor.

To make it more confusing, I have short tail and long tail shrews. Mainly short tail.

Geez, shrews are so mean. Who knew? Besides Shakespeare, I guess.

Looking at photos of shrews, Lil Nugs *may* have killed a baby one recently. Until now, I've been calling all non-mouse, non-bat tiny mammals "voles."

 

[Shadrach]

Nice!
And no, I can't find any takers for my Dad's cufflinks. They are way too nice to go in the bin, but nobody I know wears them either.

I'm going to dig out one of my collarless shirts and wear the cufflinks, tie pin, the lot on my next posh outing.

 

[Shadrach]

that looks like a wonderful book - thanks for alerting me to its existence. I see hunting for detritivores in my future!

There are several oaks on the boundaries here that are hundreds of years old, as well as the holm oak I planted soon after we moved in. I'm also a big fan of gardening with native species, while recognizing that plants and animals move and naturalize different areas, especially now with climate change and other environmental challenges, so that what thrives in a place changes over time. For example, the holm oak is naturalised not native, so too the London plane (which is one of my favourite trees), so too the larch, sycamore, horse chestnut and many others that people might assume are natives but actually are naturalised (taking the flooding of Doggerland that turned GB into an island as the cut-off point). Meanwhile two genuine natives have been almost wiped out in my lifetime by disease: ash die-back and Dutch elm disease. Resistant varieties are growing in hedges, but meanwhile the gaps they leave make space for other species. Diversity is ideal for most species, and evolution never stops.

Sixty years to grow a full sized Holm Oak in Catalonia. Great trees to have as they're evergreen. How long had yours been growing? How about a Cork Oak tree in your garden? I think they will grow in the UK.

 

[Shadrach]

I recommend "The Story of English", either the book or television series from the 1980s. Fascinating stuff explaining why English is so difficult to learn.

 

[Shadrach]

New Years Day I believe. I'm too drunk to know really. Down to the last two open bottles of whisky. One is definitely an aquired taste, very peaty with a peppery after taste and pretty hot at the back of the throat. The other, easy drinking and not too much of a killer at 40% proof.

Of course I did the chickens. Not very cold with a light wind which picked up in the last half hour before I left. Due for 50mph gusts again tomorrow.
We got out onto the allotments. We had smoked salmon for tea.

I bought a couple of packets half price at the local supermarket.

Mow at one of the large compost piles. I broke open the bottom edge a bit.

It's quite a sever case of "Oh look there's Henry, Sylph and Tull" at the moment. I think I saw Tull crouch for Henry. My glasses don't work well past a certain distance.

I must get in this fruit bush patch and get the rest of the geotextile cloth dug out. It's become a favoured shelter spotfor the chickens and with a bit of assistance they get in there and thin the undergrowth out.

Once the wind picked up it was back to the coop run and then off to roost.

Anyway, about the cake. I'm going to make another one. Eldests husband and I finished it off in bowls of custard after dinner. I fed them this evening; meatballs and pasta. Very nice it was to. I've got this tomato sauce bit more or less sorted. We discovered that the cake went down very nicely if one had imbibed the same amount of liquid whisky that went in the cake, 250 ml in this case. Completely sorted that slightly doughy taste.
Eldest isn't keen on the cake but she's doesn't drink whisky. She's driving.
Best wishes to you all for the New Year.