Peace

I've been occupied with all sorts of things today and haven't had a chance to look at or comment on many Blips. Hopefully there'll be time tonight and tomorrow morning. 

My delightfully abundant hens continue to provide six delicious eggs each day. However I continue to stage war against at least one rat and flocks of starlings and sparrows. The latter seem to find new and inventive ways every day to gain access to the feeder. 

The hens - while laying bounteous eggs - still haven't mastered the treadle on the feeder. Just occasionally I spot one that dares stand on it and open it, but most of the time they parade round it like circus horses and go without. I am content to leave it half open so that the cowards can access food and the braver ones can stand on the treadle, but only during the day, and only so long as the feeder isn't smothered in birds which aren't hens. 

Consequently after I watched seven (seven!) starlings going in and out of what I thought was secure netting this morning I gathered up garden twine and the stepladder and set to, finding and fixing tiny holes. Then I discovered one entire side of the netting was easily pushed aside, so some extensive fiddly twine-sewing ensued. 

Once I'd finished I stood back and immediately spotted a long hole in the wire-netting fence, which required baler twine and some dexterous weaving. I stood back again and saw a further three holes in the roof netting. And so it went on for another 20 minutes. Now I think it's starling-proofed. 

As for the sparrows: they seem to be able to squeeze through the wire netting in places, so eliminating their presence is well-nigh impossible. But I feel slightly less paranoid about them because they are so much smaller than the starlings and don't eat as much.

As for the rat/s. I am closing the feeder at night now, to prevent losing more feed to them. But since I started doing that there has been one broken and mostly eaten egg on the ground and evidence of other eggs having been rolled towards the rat-exit. So I've taken extreme measures and placed a poison bait station in the shed which backs onto the hen run and where I know from the droppings that rats hang out. I prefer not to poison anything on the property, but I've mislaid my surefire rat trap. When I find it I'll lay it and remove the bait.

What a shermozzle. I needed a walk with Bean after all that. My energy levels aren't quite back to normal, so we took it slowly down to S&N's property where we sat quietly side by side next to the pond for a while. 

A small world unfolded in front of us. We watched tiny nymphs lift off from the water, flying up only to be snapped up with acrobatic ease by the Welcome Swallows and Piwakakas that were cavorting backwards and forwards across the pond. 

It was a peaceful few minutes of wellbeing.