Mash for the girls

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. I decided to to treat the girls too and gave them two dishes of mash to start off their day.

The girls gather round the mash out on the block

Dandelion and Apricot find the dish on the patio

Rusty joins them

Emerald joins them

Rusty and the three amigos

My lovely husband bought me a new camera for my birthday. He liaised with Steve, my eldest son, to pick a good one. My old camera is about ten years old and recently the shutter keeps sticking and it often says “card error” and I then have to remove and replace the card. I have been feeling, for a while, that it would only be a matter of time before it stopped working. It was also incredibly slow to load on to the computer.

Yesterdays photos were taken with the old camera, before I had opened my birthday gifts. I have tried the new camera and it loads to the computer in an instant. I am hoping that the future quality of my photos will be better. I was so surprised and thrilled with this gift. I use my camera every day for my blog so it is a lovely gift.

Yesterday there was a moment that made us realise how close Speckles and Emerald have become since Peaches and Barley have left the flock. When Emerald goes in to the cat box to lay her egg, Speckles has taken to shouting for her. Speckles and Emerald have never been very vocal and only usually shout the alarm when there is a cat in the garden.

My husband said he wondered if it was because she had looked in the nest boxes and couldn’t find Emerald and perhaps thought that she had gone. I went to investigate and sure enough Speckles looked in each nest box and then stood on the nest box calling out.

I opened the shed door and hooked it back. I guided Speckles into the shed talking to her to reassure her. I showed her Emerald in the cat box. Speckles stood guard by the cat box for a few moments and then came out and quietly went about her business. I think my husband was right, she was upset because she couldn’t find Emerald.

I hope that now she realises that Emerald goes to the cat box to lay her eggs that she won’t worry when she disappears. I will see what she does next time. It was a really sweet moment to see how she instantly calmed down once she had found Emerald.

Today we have a busy day with a wedding, afternoon tea, to cater and serve. I will experiment with my camera tomorrow when I will have more time. It will be interesting to see if my photos improve.