Botanical blunderings on a budget - good life starts here.

Triciaxx

Pippilongstocking wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:I'm so far north the time difference is really obvious - or I might have got the day wrong!

*Strokes Pippi, soothingly* Of course you didn't get it wrong - if you really squint sideways you can see that West Yorkshire is way out to the west of you. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Have a great time with the Cheeries, AKA the Daffs.

MrsMoo2U

sorry to hear about the Old Lady but I guess that she will be helping out over at Rainbow Bridge with all the gone ahead pets. After all somebody has to keep the meadows blooming over there.

I will let you off ironing linen trousers for a funeral. There are only two occasions when ironing must me done. Weddings and Funerals. X
Waves to Daffs

Pippilongstocking

Ok I'm awake, um been awake since 6 due to Einstein

Off for a cuppa and a catch up.

Then I'll deal with accusations of flattening stuff (there were no witnesses) and chickens.

Kc not a rocks in pocket kind of a day today, but I hear the weekend might be, eek! Glad your mum liked my inane blobby rambles...

The cheerys are very cheery indeed, lots of yummy grub, watching of cows, bunnies and chittering, galore........

They are also bonding nicely with peedie, which is ace, as they will be his parents for the weekend whilst I do the mercy dash to the airport doon sooth.

Right, chooks to feed, cuppa and banking to do, catch you in a mo

Pippilongstocking

Lemon_Tree wrote: »

how much space do chucks need? how many are enough but not too many? how often do you clean them out? what do they eat?

OK in real life, first thing to ask yourself is how many eggs a week do you use, thats a start.

I clean them out once a week.

They have both scraps from the house, garden scraps and weeding stuff, lawn mowings and also posh food (£7 a BAG which has the extra minerals they need if not completely free range, which lasts me, for 10 hens about 2-3 weeks) they eat everything except lemons and onions, unless they are bunged in the slow cooker with all the other scraps and then they eat them too. Otherwise we keep all our leftovers/peelings etc and we use them either cooked or not for the hens

Oh, and they (obviously) don't eat chicken or any chicken products - that would be bad, whilst this sounds quite simple, trying to remember NOT to put the chicken curry in the hen bucket, if there is some left over, is often needed to be remembered. But I do crush up thier egg shells and put them into the feed to give them minerals back, they can be raw, but I like to bake them, they crush better and some folk think its better for them, this isnt a faff, the egg shell tray lives in the bottom of the oven until it goes on for something else.

A run doesn't have to be big, and it can be moveable, or fixed.

In the town before remember I had two, that gave me two eggs a day, which was more than enough. Here we have 9 hens, one cockeral, and get 6-9 eggs a day. Whlist laying the general rule is you get one egg per day per hen. My hens cost £5 each, they have more than paid back thier purchase price and are self sustaining, I sell enough eggs to chums to pay for thier 'posh' food. For you, you might initially want to just have enough for your own use which will normally give you a bit extra for giving away/swaps for stuff.

I have several books, lots of info and if and when you think you might want to get hens (in your area you can probably get ex-battery hens)

Triciaxx wrote: »

*Strokes Pippi, soothingly* Of course you didn't get it wrong - if you really squint sideways you can see that West Yorkshire is way out to the west of you. :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Have a great time with the Cheeries, AKA the Daffs.

All splendid and i'm looking west, only seeing Canada though.....................:rotfl:

cherisong wrote: »

sorry to hear about the Old Lady but I guess that she will be helping out over at Rainbow Bridge with all the gone ahead pets. After all somebody has to keep the meadows blooming over there.

I will let you off ironing linen trousers for a funeral. There are only two occasions when ironing must me done. Weddings and Funerals. X
Waves to Daffs

Indeed! The poor flowers won't know what hit them.

Funeral was very hard going (catholic), found it a bit difficult. Alot of non-human related stuff going on there and a few minutes about her life.

Without wishing to offend those with faith, I wish that sometimes the folk involved in the church would focus on the person you are there to celebrate, not use it as a platform for other things.

I'm *not* religous, so maybe I am often just missing something.

Banks!

Morning all, today is a *day off* hurrah. A cheery-longstocking type adventure is planned for today involving beaches and tea rooms.

:T

Pippilongstocking

Bank/Money update

OK

My grocery shopping needs to be curtailed, I know I'm a stocker upper, but I need to reign it in, rather than save £200 grocery budget each month kids were away i've spent at least that much, actually if not more. Its a comfort thing. Very normally I guess some spend for shoes etc, I seem to do it for food. OK none of it is wasted, but seriously, the tall 6ft freezer is bursting full, the chest freezer is 3/4 full and the large larger fridge, well its bursting as is the peedie juice fridge. I'll update my grocery spends in a mo, I think I'm almost at or over my limit again this month................. must do better...............

OK

fat controller has £240 left of OD, rent due in 12 days - not saved any yet, so need to put some into saver, although I'll have more WTFC before the end of the month, need think about that one
Paid £30 to the captain one and need think if I can pay more off that card

smurfette has £300 left of OD
Lucifer is at £800 - want to pay more off that, might put a lump to that when I've worked out what else I need to to

All dd's out and we're not over the limit, woo hoo



Only the rent to sort, then the months payments start all over again.

still slightly unsolvent but afloat


Very seriously cool, is that standing ground with ex has worked. He actually paid money for travel into bank (£275) however, I've panicked about it all figured he wouldn't pay and have done some serious crawling wiht chums and managed to borrow a car to pick them up, organised free sleepover for me (therefore don't need car when go south) and organise a train. Ferry will then juvt be for me (return), and kidlets one way and a train, I should send him the extra back, but I think I might use it for school clothes - bad mummy?

Karmacat

Definitely not bad mummy! Don't you dare send that money back! Its because you're you that you've managed to scrape up a free sleepover and whatnot, and you've organised cheapest-available tickets .... you need that money much more than he does.

And its a good point about your freezers .... Pippi, you have to take control of that! Have at least one storecupboard month, stop buying stuff, thats a huge amount to have spent :rotfl::kisses3:

More seriously, I'm sorry the funeral was hard for you - light a candle yourself, to remember her by, maybe ....

redsquirrel80

Beaches and tea rooms sound fabulous! Loving the chicken advice

Not bad mummy at all, it could easily have cost you that much, and just because you worked hard to make sure it didn't, isn't really the point when he was so silly.

greenval

Hi all
Nice day here for once, no rain but a heavy dew this morning.
I let the dog out and 7am this morning and suddenly thought, 'it feels autumnal' and yet it's still ,only August.
I've got a lot of confused plants, some of the azaleas and Rhodedendrons have a couple of flowers on them.My spring flowering clematis which I cut back have regrown and are flowering and some stuff seems to be going over early. All very strange.
Is anyone else experiencing the same thing.

Keiss_21

Morning all, hope you all have a wonderful day visiting beaches and tea-rooms...Birsay dare I ask?!

Great info about the chooks...not sure if DH and DS2 still want to have some now...think Einstein put them off ...DS2 woke up every day with him!! I did point out that we wouldn't need a cockerel...people are still thinking about it

Right, the rain hasn't reached us yet, so DS2 is already out in the garden weeding. I am pottering about in the house, getting some of the lasty odds & sods boxed up and out of the conservatory so we can clean it down. As usual things are taking ages to do, but we are getting there.

As for ironing things...I have been very lax in this department. No matter what I do, things always get crushed, so I have to iron them...eventually, by then they are really crushed! Sorting out the HUGE pile into individual ones for each of us seems to be working. Whoever is ironing is expected to bits for each of us, so all the piles are going down!!

DS1 is off camping today with GF and friends (he left for GF's last night). The forecasted heavy rain hasn't arrived yet, but looks like it is on the way, hope they can get their tents up before the downpour happens

Have a great day all xx

Keiss_21

greenval wrote: »

Hi all
Nice day here for once, no rain but a heavy dew this morning.
I let the dog out and 7am this morning and suddenly thought, 'it feels autumnal' and yet it's still ,only August.
I've got a lot of confused plants, some of the azaleas and Rhodedendrons have a couple of flowers on them.My spring flowering clematis which I cut back have regrown and are flowering and some stuff seems to be going over early. All very strange.
Is anyone else experiencing the same thing.

I have had a hellebore flowering for the past few weeks and the crab apple has fruit and flowers atm!! :eek: