Daydream thread... without the rose-tinted specs

moneyistooshorttomention

CTC - I have remembered the episode/s about your pigs and I'm definitely not thinking that those chickens actually "need" feeding. I'm just fancying making friends with a few chickens too, as I've not made the acquaintance of any to date and some people seem to like having them so much. Someone I know here is trying to "sell" me on the idea of having some myself...so I guess its a little bit of "try before you buy" on my part too. I'm not thinking "poor neglected chickens". They looked quite happy chickens and I'm curious.

Obviously, unfortunately, people can and do use chemicals on their gardens (unhappy-making, but what can ya do?). My concern is just that none of it ever comes anywhere near my land (particularly since I'm growing a lot of food there and don't wish to be made ill by someone else when I eat my own produce or find it keeling over and dying and me wondering why and having to stop it happening). The last thing I want is to have to spend time thinking "How on earth do I tell people they are killing my plants and might poison me and ask them to stop affecting me?" and sincerely hope that sort of scenario never happens. That's what my worry is, ie that other people will affect me. I've rather given up on campaigning over the years and just want to protect myself from other people having a bad effect on me personally. I will be livid if they affect my food, but as long as they don't do so...then I can manage personally.

Re roofs, I personally chuckle when I spot that birds have been up on my roof (this house or the last one) looking for food amongst the moss. I tend to get quite amused when I spot clods of moss obviously thrown down by birds who were busily looking for dinner and hope they found something of interest for their little stomachs:rotfl:I like watching all these birds around the place and think its nice if I'm helping their diet out a bit.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

money... people used to ask us when we first had pigs if they could feed then, and the answer was always NO....one of the reasons is it is ( in theory) it is illegal to feed any scraps from your kitchen to chickens, pigs etc...


You just cant go round feeding other people's animals without the consent of the owners....

moneyistooshorttomention

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

money... people used to ask us when we first had pigs if they could feed then, and the answer was always NO....one of the reasons is it is ( in theory) it is illegal to feed any scraps from your kitchen to chickens, pigs etc...


You just cant go round feeding other people's animals without the consent of the owners....

I've gathered that its a bone of contention that pigs cant be fed "kitchen swill" any more and it would appear to be ridiculous that they cant. Seems to recall that, during World War 2, that was precisely what did happen and for quite some time afterwards.

Have never been able to work out quite what it was that stopped pigs being fed this? as, as far as I've read, its perfectly okay to do so and helps stop waste in the process, but Someone Somewhere decided to make a law against it??

Without researching into it, that's my recollection of the state of play on this. I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that's the gist of it and cant for the life of me recall just why its currently deemed verboten to feed pigs "kitchen scraps".

As for the chickens, aw....they were looking at me so appealingly and with very beady looks in their eyes that seemed to boil down to "Dear Human, please feed us at once. We know we are getting plenty of food, but we'd like a bit more please....:EasterBunand my feeling was "cheeky greedy little wotnames clucking away at me asking for some food...but aw....keep them happy and do so".

Davesnave

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I've rather given up on campaigning over the years

Are you sure? :think:

You say things like:

"Obviously, unfortunately, people can and do use chemicals on their gardens (unhappy-making, but what can ya do?)."

That sounds like campaigning, or preaching. It seems neither obvious nor unfortunate to me that Mrs Boggs down the road may want to spray her gooseberry sawfly, rather than pick them off one by one! :rotfl:

But never mind that. You still haven't said what's wrong with washing the roof, and I want to know!

Davesnave

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I've gathered that its a bone of contention that pigs cant be fed "kitchen swill" any more and it would appear to be ridiculous that they cant. Seems to recall that, during World War 2, that was precisely what did happen and for quite some time afterwards.

Have never been able to work out quite what it was that stopped pigs being fed this?.

It's all about traceability of food in the food chain. The main worry is foot & mouth, but the down-side is that much of the soya now fed in place of swill comes from environmentally sensitive areas.

Pig swill might have been re-introduced in some form, but the horse meat controversy probably put any ideas people were having on the back burner for another decade.

Davesnave

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Afternoon all,

Davesnave actually got round to watching your panto dvd...lol.. you played her well...you lot worked really hard on the back drops etc...

Bloody hell, it must've rained hard..... and for a very long time! :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Thank you.:D

Don't worry, you don't have to view this year's.;) We just did more or less the same routine again, except that I was a bloke and Yvonne was a lady....and the lady always gets to do the hitting! :rotfl:

I_have_spoken

Anyone else finding that mildew is very bad this year? Even robust plants have their leaves showing a dusty coating. Annoying.

Rummer

:j:j:j It is pressure washer time :j:j:j

I love using the pressure washer, it is amazing how much it cleans and how fun it is :rotfl:

Money it would be worth checking the chicken owners are happy for them to be fed. One of our cats had kidney problems and had a special diet however neighbours thought they were being kind by feeding him and in fact they exacerbated his condition. It may be fine but worth checking.

Dave you have been keeping me busy :rotfl:

lostinrates

The reason I would say no to my chickens ( now no question of egg sales or food chain other than mine) being fed is that I don't want them encouraged away when they are quite free range enough!

Chickens , free range, eat disgusting stuff, so food chain issues for our use and dog issues our a little concerning but less that one would like to think.

Re pesticides and organic, you cannot know even when buying organic goods. We spray now sometimes, yet just the other side of our boundary the milk is organic. That farm is at times one field deep, roads either side. So.....how good is the protection really?

I've lived now in two organic valleys, and i rate organic certainly, but....it has limitations.

We were going to soil association very quickly on moving here, but decided the weeds were just too bad. I'm glad we didn't now. And don't care If we don't for five years or so. I'd rather have the right land than organic under any circumstances. I have also seen some miserable solutions on organic principals. And sheer bloody laziness at times too.

lostinrates

Well, we're making progress against the weeds.

I know this because weeding the beds used to be weekends and weekends of labour, then a weekend at a time. To day, we crudely and not that thoroughly but not too badly did all the main flower beds through. In ONE not that long day.


Obviously we'll need another to go through again sooner than we would had we been more thorough, but the idea we might have a life as well as a garden seems possible.


I even got time to pull some nettles from the wild garden.

The new wild flower sowings in the 'orchard' are looking very weedy though. Grr.