It is over five years since I did a Start-Up course at one of those enterprise type places. That was my first official experience of 'networking,' although I had been doing it for a long time before without knowing what it was called. On that course I came across about ten other people, all with their own businesses. It wasn't as far back as The Dark Ages, so everyone who attended had business cards to hand out. They ranged from 'amateur printing at home on thick paper' to 'professionally printed on card.'
This morning I was going through my wallet which holds important details like bank account numbers and National Insurance numbers etc, and found the cards I had collected on that course. Some had mobile numbers on them, some had email addresses included, but only two had websites listed. Of course, part of the course deal was to receive a free holding page designed for your website, so perhaps the others had elected to get that up and running before having the details printed on their cards.
Just for curiosity, I checked the two links from the cards, and neither of them are loading.
I would anticipate that if I attended the same type of course today all ten would have websites. It is so easy to get yourself up and running these days with fifteen different social media identities, blogs, and websites that I dare say the site would be done long before the business plan!
I first noticed the red mites in the coop some time ago. I put my tee-shirted-naked-arm in to the nest box to gather a couple of eggs and when I drew it back out there were hundreds (I don't think that is an exaggeration!) of wee bugs all over me. When I looked closer there were loads everywhere, mainly underneath the shelves and nest box roof. Some were small and black, some were slightly larger and red. The red ones have already sucked the blood out of a chicken. *shudders* Looking back now, I wonder if this had anything to do with losing one of the original hens, Hetty, so suddenly.
Immediately I started applying a dose of Jeyes Fluid as per the instructions found on several forums. The coop was emptied and the birds turfed out on their ear all day while I sprayed EVERYWHERE with the fluid. Over two days I attacked these wee blighters and was mighty pleased with myself that they seemed to be gone. Unfortunately, after a couple of weeks, I noticed them coming back again. By this time I had put in the Ikea Hack nest boxes and wasn't best pleased that they weren't helping much - in fact there were now MORE lovely wee nooks and crannies for them to live in.
This would be the point where I started to temporarily lose interest in the chickens. They were very hard work. There were mites everywhere. When I had been anywhere near the coop I came away scratching my head, arms etc. Even when I collected eggs - the eggs had loads of mites on them. This wouldn't affect egg numbers or do anything to the eggs themselves, but it was very off-putting.
Then one day Iain asked me how I was getting on with the battle against the mites and I admitted they were winning. He told me of a product called a Sulphur Candle that he had read about in the paper (The Sun DOES have its uses after all!) that gardeners use to fumigate greenhouses at the end of the growing season and which he had found mentioned on several forums after doing a quick search for "red mites and sulphur candles." The idea is that the thick smoke the candle emits can get into areas that you might miss with the spray.
The very next day I made my way to B&Q to pick up two tins of this miraculous stuff (each tin was roughly £5) and had a lovely 45 minute long chat with the B&Q guy about chickens and red mite and sulphur candles - I heard his life story and came away with loads of images of him as a young child with red mites swarming over his skin after being in the coop for a few seconds!
I had to wait for several weekends before being able to use it though, what with family events and the weather and all. . . but finally finally, I was able to clean out the coop again, wash all the (very easy to wash) Ikea Hack nest box, and set the candle alight and shut the coop doors. After checking for obvious leaks of mucho smoke which would need taped up, I kinda left it for a while. It said 12 hours but I didn't think it would take that long to kill all those itty bitty mites, so, after about 6 hours I went to the shed put the candle out. I got as far as opening the doors and stepping half a step inside when the smoke transformed itself into a clenched fist and punched me in the left eye, leaving me sore and smarting, before moving through my nose and attacking my throat from the inside making me think that the last thing I would see would be chicken feet and legs as they ran over my dying body lying in the mud.
I managed to shut the doors before this happened and made it all the way back to the kitchen where I seriously considered life without the sight of my left eye! Needless to say I left the candle to finish its business over night. Even the next day when the smoke was well and truly gone, the smell still caught in our throats when we went to check the levels of mite activity. At first glance it looked terribly disappointing. There were thousands of mites all over the walls of the sheds, they seemed everywhere. It wasn't until I scrutinised the shed that I realised these were the dead ones. They must have felt the smoke creeping into the grooves in the wood and tried to make a run for it.
So far the news has been fairly up-beat. I did see one very small bug on one of the eggs yesterday which I am choosing to believe was something other than red mite. Play along with me on this for a while please. I suppose it is possible that there were a couple of mites still on the chickens while they were out of the coop. The good news is, if it DOES come back I have the other tin of sulphur to use immediately - I don't have to wait for months spraying and letting them take control - I can just zap them again.
So long as I keep my eyes shut and don't breathe!
So BIG thumbs up for using a Sulphur Candle rather than a spray. As long as you have somewhere else safe to put the chickens while the candle is lit, I would say it is a much more effective solution and definitely a lot less effort! Good luck - let me know how you get on.
Did you think you had missed the posting last night about the red mite situation? No, I didn't post it yet, other events overtook the evening.
Jessica was head-butted by her horse as they were standing waiting to go into the lesson. The horse, now named 'Evil Blackie,' was in frisky mood and tried to eat Jessica's coat. When she was told off about that EB reared her head up, straight into Jessica's mouth, making lots of blood-spurting and scream-yelling malarkey. There were several people on hand to help dish out some first aid, one of which was a dentist who advised xrays should be taken. I got a phone call at home from Jenny, the riding school owner, but had to explain to her that I had no car, Iain was walking the dog and would be back to pick her up in ten minutes. But I misremembered the time of the lesson and was out by 30 minutes.
I'll not tell you the whole comedy of errors that saw me starting to run into the village, trying to flag down my 'it's against my religion to carry a mobile phone' husband as he should have been driving past the shops on his way back from walking the dog, then standing waiting for him for 10 minutes, then watching Jenny drive past me with Jessica in the passenger seat, and me having to run practically the whole way home again.
Sigh.
We finally met in the middle with big hugs for a sobbing Jessica.
Almost 4 hours we sat in A&E last night! It wasn't all that busy with only a couple of people waiting in reception. The evening did have its high spots though - like the wee old lady who just walked out of the A&E door and on out through the main exit doors. One minute later first one nurse, then another nurse went outside. Three minutes later the nurses returned with her and hustled her back through the other doors again.
We think she was making a bid for freedom and FAILED.
Much later the woman's daughter arrived and sprung her so at least she did get home, albeit later than expected!
We were eventually taken, she was assessed, xrayed, and superglued back together! The main cut that wouldn't stop weeping was the only thing they wanted to touch, they weren't concerned about broken teeth etc, preferring to leave that to the dentist next week. She definitely has a chipped front tooth and we aren't sure if perhaps a couple others have been knocked loose or not. I am desperately hoping there hasn't been any cracking of roots which could lead to discolouration.
A simple drop of superglue was all that was needed to make sure she didn't end up with a scar above her top lip.
We made it home by 12.45am and needless to say Jessica wasn't in much form for school today so I have had the pleasure of her company here all day. Yay!
I brought home some 'ready mixes' from the shop last night - crumble, sponge, and cookie mixes, you know, the sort you add an egg or some milk to and hey presto you get something delicious after a few minutes. While tea was in the oven David decided he wanted to make the choc chip cookies up.
He seems to have a genuine interest in cooking, always telling us what he is due to make in Home Economics in school, so I prepared the ingredients he needed and let him weigh out the butter and explained the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon to him. For about 80p we got 8 rather large choc chip cookies out at the end of it, with an oven that was already on for our food. That's not bad huh? He was mighty proud of himself as he allocated each of us two cookies! Yes, I know we should be making these things from scratch, but with the box being less than a pound and us only having a certain amount of time in the evening, it is much better to go down this route. Plus, the simpler and quicker it is, the more likely we are to keep the children focused on the job in hand.
Jessica's turn this evening. I bet she picks the chocolate muffins to make rather than the sponge!
Just a quick follow up on the whole "cleaning the chickens out over the weekend" malarkey. Iain very kindly donated most of his Sunday to helping me after my start on Saturday. We cleaned out the new chicks (which are quite a lot larger now), letting them join the main population now. They kept very much to themselves in the enclosed run, preferring to hide behind the feed bins rather than stretching their wings in the big outdoors.
We then cleaned out the guinea pigs who have had a 6 foot long run outside most of this year. I tend to think they would do ok outside over the winter too but erring on the side of caution we moved them into the normal cage and have them now in the garage. They will have more company there as the children are in and out of the garage all the time. So far they have paid more attention to the poor gps in those few days than they have in the past 6 months!
With two cages/runs now empty in the enclosed area our intention was to save space by doubling them up. We then noticed that there seem to be two distinct groups of chickens. The originals plus a couple of hand picked others, and then the two we got at the last fair and all the new chicks. The second group do not go anywhere near the nest boxes in the shed, preferring to stay outside at night. They have taken over the space created by the two cages and seem quite happy to brave the cold. It is said that they don't mind cold but don't like drafts. This run is more or less enclosed on all four sides and as I don't force them to stay out they must find the accommodation to their liking!
And to finish off this tale, I found three bread crates abandoned in a car park a few months ago. I knew I would find a use for them sometime so hung on to them. We have now added them like nest boxes to the 'shelves' of the cages. You need to see the photo to work out what I mean. So far they have also been a big hit with the 'outsiders.'
I do have an update on the red mite problem. I'll post about it tomorrow. . .
It is family custom for us all to gather at Iain's sister's house on New Year's Eve. We generally have loads of food, play a girls against boys round of Trivial Pursuit which the boys usually win much to their delight, and have some family craic revolving around making fun of the silliest blonde-moment things that our niece Louise has said during the previous year.
Last year we had a slight deviation. After all the years of listening to nephew Andrew strumming his guitar he actually sat down to do some real singing. We all joined in on the songs we knew and threw requests at him for more. He then confessed to being a bit of a songwriter and delighted us with a couple of his own songs. Being an emotional bunch his female family members had tears in their eyes with pure pride that he had such expertise at the guitar playing malarkey and I came away firmly believing that he would make it big IF he was ever discovered.
I felt bereft at the thought I would have to wait another year to hear his compositions again.
Then, this morning, a strange sequence of events lead me to find he has a couple of songs on You Tube. Why, oh why, I hadn't thought to ask if he had any online I'll never know. I suppose we are all guilty of a few blonde moments! So without further ado - here he is.
You like? The song is great - isn’t it? *beams with pride*
Posted by Susan on 10 November 2009 at 10:33 AM
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