Jay and feathers and surprise prize

A couple more photos of my jay on the garden wall and on the bird table. 

My jay is still safe in the next door garden.  I can see him up in one of my neighbour's trees.  However, this afternoon I drove to St Nicolas du Pélem and unfortunately saw a dead bird in the road.  It looked like a jay, but it was hard to see as a car passed just as I reached it.  On the way back home I stopped on the verge.  It was a jay, quite badly squashed, but I photographed one of the wings with it's beautiful blue barred feathers and plucked some of them to take home as they are so attractive.

The blue is so vibrant and it's the thing that always draws my attention to the jays when they are flying about.

I had some luck last month and having bought two euro tickets for a draw organised by the SPA, animal rescue organisation here in Brittany, I was told that I had won a table.  I went over to Malguénac yesterday afternoon and collected not just a lovely timber table, but also four chairs.  They now have pride of place under my pergola as my usual table and benches have been removed for sanding and preservative painting.

It's a good size and good quality table with an extending section which pops up in the middle and I'm very pleased with it.  I don't remember winning anything in a raffle for years and years so it was a lovely surprise.

Harry's original owners, J & B, came over for the afternoon and he sat on me most of the time just to show them that he was beginning to take over and rule the house.

And here's when Harry met Daisy ...

Daisy and Purrdy aren't entirely happy with Harry being here, but he's here to stay so they'll have to get used to it won't they?

Three things I like:

1.   Finding four eggs in the hen houses today, slightly more than usual, but still nowhere near what I should be collecting.

2.   Going to the tip this morning and getting rid of the big stock trailer full of stuff I had no use for.

3.   Getting my table put together and put in under the pergola.

Jays, Harry, poppies etc.

I hadn't realised how long it was since I'd posted.  It's been quite an exciting week for me having reached my first anniversary since my mini gastric bypass.  I've lost 66.1 kilos and am very pleased with myself!  If you want to see details of my year then check out http://minigastricbypass2011.blogspot.com

This photo is a reflection of me in my sitting room window which is shadowed I presume because of the double glazing.  Strange how my black and white striped top appears to have blue stripes as well.

When I was driving through my local town last week I had to stop to take a photo of this cardboard heart tied to a down pipe at the crossroads.

I'm not sure whether it was for anything special or just a different way of doing the heart with arrow drawn on a wall or carved into tree bark.

The poppies in my garden have been wonderful again this year in spite of the rain.

I am saving seed as usual for me and friends.

I have a jay who has started coming to my bird table.  In fact yesterday there were two of them, but I couldn't get to my camera fast enough.

This one is of him on my oak tree on the driveway at the bottom of the garden.

This afternoon I went to Malgenac to collect a lovely timber garden table and chairs which I had won in a raffle last month.  There were wonderful wild flowers planted at the edge of the town which I couldn't just go past.

Harry, my newest cat, has settled in pretty well now, apart from a few spats with my girls, Daisy and Purrdy, and has taken to sneaking in behind my back while I am leaning forward using the laptop.  Here he is after I had given up trying to sit in my own chair.  He's a gorgeous boy and I already love him to bits.

And here he is lying on the windowsill which he has taken over from Alfie.

The rain has ruined most of the roses and I've had to prune them all, but managed to save one little spray from against the pergola, which I brought in to finish opening indoors.

The hedgerows are clothed with bramble flowers and promises of lots of berries later this year - I can't wait.

Three things I like:

1.   Seeing the sunshine again after so much rain, and being able to read outside.
2.   Celebrating my first year anniversary of my mini gastric bypass.
3.   Collecting some free roofing felt and tacks for my hen house from a generous person.

More bats last night

Last night, after I'd published yesterday's post I found this really tiny bat on the floor by the door.  I photographed it next to a lipstick to show the scale - it was very tiny. 

Then, when I came back from the field there was another bat in the house, this time on the floor in the kitchen area. It was much bigger than the other two and after taking some photos I put it with the other two into the little hen house.

 I've been playing Short Mat Bowls all day and went up to the field on the way home.  Today I collected five eggs from 15-16 potential laying hens.  They have really dropped off laying and I can only put it down to the weather which is alternately very wet and very warm throughout the day and it's been like this for weeks.   Although five eggs is not a number, it's the best for ten days.  Hens seem to like everything to stay the same.  They like their nest box in the same place with the same hens - hate it when new ones are introduced, the same weather - they don't do well with change. 

No more bats so far today, so I hope it stays that way.

Three things I like:

1.   Getting a really huge bag of stale bread from the supermarket for the hens, ducks, goats, and rabbits for the princely sum of three euros.
2.   Cutting slices off the lovely boiled collar bacon joint I have just cooked - it tastes delicious.
3.   Whizzing home in the sunshine with the hood down on the car and arriving just in time to put the hood up again as it starts to rain.

Bats, hares and new black chick

It has been a week for wildlife in St André.  I have been thinking that they could have filmed Springwatch here.

Over the last seven or eight days I have had three bats in the downstairs living area and one in my bedroom.  I don't have any doors or windows without flyscreens and the only opening flyscreen is on the door, so how a bat got into my bedroom I have no idea.  It was 5.15am when I woke to find it flying around and it took me half an hour to get it out of my bedroom and a further half hour to get it out of the landing window after it had perched on the top of the towel I was holding in front of my face.  This morning I moved the shoe box by the outside door and there was a bat asleep on the floor - here are two photos of it before I set it free.

The next photo I took was of my new little black chick - the only survivor from nine eggs which a broody Lavender Pekin was sitting on.  The egg hatched on Tuesday evening and this photo shows the chick today at six days old.  Today was the first time her foster Mum took her down the ramp from the house to the run and the grass.  She's so lively and running around all over the place.  I wonder what sort of hen she'll turn out to be.

When I went up to the field this afternoon to sow some more lettuce seeds in the polytunnel and beetroot seeds in the veggie garden I saw these.

At first I thought they were rabbits and then realised because they are so angular rather than softly curved and had such long ears that they must be hares.

I can't believe I was able to take these photographs as hares are usually really nervous and run off at the slightest movement.

I went to Writers' Group before I went up on the field to garden, and as we turned off the N164 to my friend's house, there was a garden on the opposite side of the dual carriageway with the most wonderful wildflower front garden.  As we came back home I took my life in my hands and crossed both lanes of the road and took these photos.

The bed along the terrace against my house has a wonderful clematis against it with nasturtians at it's feet.

Unbelievably, I was just going to publish this post when I saw something peeping round the edge of my fireplace.  It was another bat, but a really, really tiny one, with tiny weeny teeth compared to this morning's example.

I took it down to show some guests staying with me and took a photo.

I've put the two bats together in the little house and run which the chicks were in to keep them warm and hopefully they'll fly off when they want to.  I'm off to put the hens and ducks away now and then to bed - hopefully no more bats today.

Three things I like:

1.   All the wildlife I get here, but I'd prefer not to have bats in the house please.

2.   Sowing more seeds for veggies which I shall be eating in a few weeks or months.

3.   It hasn't rained all day in St André, and I haven't been able to say that for a long time.