Wednesday 1 December 2010
I have had such fun this evening, its been very cold and I mean very cold over the last few days, the snow that came a couple of days ago, only about 3/4 of an inch is still here, I love the crunchy noise it makes when you walk on it. We have been very worried about the birds, particularly now we have a freezing north wind, and so we have put up plastic sheets over all the north facing enclosures. It makes a huge difference inside, I went into Delectable's enclosure and Hemp's, and the temperature difference is amazing, so we are going to do more tomorrow.Richard has been working very hard on the heated perches, we tried one system with a mat that is supposed to heat floors, but it was not man enough for the job. So now we have cable that Anabelle has laid down to strict guidelines (!) on a four metre bench made by Adam and Mark, Tom made the first one!
Now we are going to do a couple of other things to it and then plug it in and see if it give us the temperature we want for the tethered birds. If it does we go into production. I seem to be spending money all the time at the moment, which is a little scary. I have had to order two new deep freezers, which seems a little odd in this cold, but we don't have enough space for back up food supplies if the snow increases. I also had to order a new oil tank because getting oil in time for heating is increasingly difficult and we were down to the last dregs over the last two days - Cold weather is expensive! We had one pipe burst in the stables and I caught that one, although not before we had an ice slick on the concrete, why the people who had this place for four years put down concrete instead of the perfectly good gravel yard I will never understand, in this weather it is lethal.
The birds seem to be coping, we are closed now and have grounded all those that would be vulnerable to this unusually cold weather, but the others are flying really well. Although it is not much fun flying them in the field!! The pond is full, completely, thanks to the mains leak in the field opposite. However the down side of telling the water board that they had a leak is that we ended up with no water for about 15 hours!! That wonderful saying I learnt on my first trip to Africa came into play with the loos. 'If its yellow let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down!!' A wonderful saying and very apt at times like these.
Henry is coming back on Friday, a little before I expected him, but his stable is ready, and Dante will be back the following day I expect.
I seem to have a huge number of appointments this month, I hope I can find the time to get some writing done as well.
But to go back to this evening, there were a few people in the village I needed to invite to an Owl Evening. So I hopped into my Landrover and drove up the snowy road in a crystal clear night in December, what could be more wintery and Christmassy. My first call was some people I did not know well, but whom had supported the Centre, they were in and so I invited them to come, and I hope they wil
l, I was given a glass of wine and a Corsican Beer to take home and try. Next call was up the hill and through the snow which was starting to fall, to a friend who used to do my accounts, as I walked up to his house with Christmas lights in the trees, he arrived home and I was invited in for a glass of wine! I invited them to come and after a chat left for my last port of call. This was to a house I have known since 1966, and now belongs to the son of the old old friend who lived there, it was lovely to go there again and good to see John and his wife. So a Sherry later and an invite from me and a bottle of wine to take home, I drove the Landrover down the track towards home, with crisp air, snow on the ground, and the right feeling for the time of year and a grin on my face, it is so very good to be home.
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