It was supposed to be about the dog

This post was written yesterday morning, I hadn't put it up as I wanted to see if I could find some other photos to go with it. Yesterday afternoon something terrible happened and my little dog managed to get out of the gate as some people came in and ran straight out into the road, a car hit her, the car had no chance to stop in time, it was no-ones fault really just a tragic accident.  The vet did what he could, but he couldn't save her, so last night she was buried in the garden.  Everyone who met her loved her, she was a really special little dog, and I loved her dearly, in fact I am starting to cry again as I write this. She was such a happy part of our lives, although we had only had her since April, it will be very sad in the sewing room today, without her helping or sleep on the material. She even sat on my lap when I typed up these blogs. 

Rest in Peace darling Gabby.

Hi Folks

Today I think I’m going to tell you about our little dog, Gabby, as she will appear in lots of my photos for these blogs as she helps me with my sewing.  She does like to get involved when she's not sleeping.

We have had a large variety of animals, since I am a fairly soft touch and the kids can usually get their way with these things.  At present it is 1 dog, 1 cat and 1 bearded dragon, but we have had all the usual types of pets as well as some others.

The chickens were one of my favourite pets.  They were extremely clever and curious animals and there was the added bonus of eggs, 2 a day, 1 each, all summer and even all winter, which apparently was quite unusual, but just showed how much they liked it at our house. 

I had converted 2 old rabbit hutches, remember the indoor rabbit, well he and his family had started off outside, but one bit of side tracking is enough; so the chickens lived in a pink and blue pretty house with a lovely run and the rest of the garden too.  This was where the problems arose, you see I am a very keen gardener of veg and the like, no real room for flowers, but lots of beans and cabbage, which the chickens loved. They ate the lot, and also scratched up all the grass for any unfortunate bugs, how quickly they could gobble down a slug was amazing; I really don’t like slugs; they ate all my veg too.

They had grown quite a bit since their arrival, I should also point out that they had their right eye missing, both had been rescued from other hens who had bullied them, so when they both faced one way it looked a lovely idyllic country scene, but when they turned it was little like a scene from a horror film, 1 with a strange lump and the other with just a hole.

This is were I feel rather guilty, but I do get my just desserts. The father of a friend of my daughter kept a variety of birds and had several chickens at that point, very cute little blue/black birds that didn’t upset his grass at all, and were too small to reach the raised veg beds.  Having several though, he wanted shot of some, so we agreed to swap my two for two of his. His were still young and had not started laying yet, so we said good bye to our lovely, but a little ugly layers and took in the two pretty young things and waited…. And waited… then something strange started to happen in the morning we started hearing a strange call, the pair of them practiced and practiced this call until a few weeks later it became apparent it was a crow. We looked this up on the internet and found that sometime young lady hens could make the same noise, so we hoped and kept checking every morning for an egg, nothing, just a stronger more masculine crow every morning from both birds, and they were getting a lot larger than we had expected too.

Well I expect you have guessed by now, yes the pair of them were not ladies at all, but little boys, becoming bigger louder boys everyday.  They had to go sadly, living in Birmingham suburb; we could get away with quiet hens, but not noisy cockerels.  I should point out that we found out at this stage it is very hard to sex hens when they are young, so not really anyone’s fault, just one of those things.

Well since then, my original hens being totally out of the picture by now, the daughter’s friend’s father have done several more swaps by this point, and we were starting to look at moving house anyway, replacing them was put on hold and still is to be honest, although I do hanker for a freshly laid egg now and then, they are so good, but I have never explained the garden aspect on the new house. To put bluntly, we don’t really have one at present, the house has no back only a side, which with the right fencing will become a garden, but at the moment is more like something from shameless.  That will be a whole different story….

And I guess the dog will have to be a different story too now.

Thanks for reading.

Ally x