Is it summer?

The weather has been awful, the fields are boggy and muddy like they are in the winter months and Quito has been going out at night in his lightweight new zealand rug.  Hard to believed it is actually June.

The meat chickens will have to be moved to the field this weekend as they are wrecking the few plants and flowers I have in the garden.  I haven't got the heart to leave them in their run any longer, they hate it in there. The turkeys are doing OK, one is a runt of the litter as it were and is very small.  Russell and I have been watching it and it does manage to eat and drink, but it is around a third the size of the other birds.  He is my favourite, and if he survives we may have to keep him. They make such a mess it is unbelievable, and the smell is fairly pungent. I had to clean them out at about 11pm the other night as they just couldn't be left any longer.  Every other day they need to be cleaned out and it is not a pleasant job.  Plus the little sods are always escaping as their run is being cleaned. We still have all 26 (we think) despite Luke and Cassia letting most of them out one afternoon without me realising.

Russell is spending all waking hours when he is not at work on the turkey house.  It is another high spec design, so when it is finished it will be amazing, but it is taking a lot of time and Russell is a bit stressed in case he won't have it ready in time.  He comes home from work at about 7.30 - 8pm, has some dinner and then heads out to the shed to cut wood until around 11.30. Every night. We tenderly removed splinters from each others hands one evening this week, how our relationship has changed :-)

I've got my BHS stage 2 exam on Monday, which I'm trying to prepare for.  The kids are on half term this week, but they have done a lot of drawing with me at the kitchen table as I try to revise.  I do need to practise plaiting, putting on bandages etc on the ponies but it is too wet to tie them up in the garden and the kids don't want to traipse down to the stables in the rain with me to work on them out there.  I'm hoping the field will dry up a bit over the weekend so that I can practise lunging and riding.

xx

xx