Cheery's country living adventure

themadvix

Only in academia would you even consider that longer term career planning could be called work, Cheery! No one else would be allowed to do it at work, as far as I can tell, so I think you’re fine to do it while striking! 🙂

 Glad to hear that Beaky wants to be with her feathered friends - it sounds positive. But agree about the vets appointment, definitely worth keeping.

 Good luck with your plotting!

Cheery_Daff

Ha Vix, you're probably right. That's probably why we never have time to actually do any of it! (Although some of it is stuff we're *supposed* to do but still don't get time for, hence the strike I suppose...)

Anyway, most of the morning has been taken with taking Beaky to the vets. Poor thing - she was pretty relaxed until a giant dog started barking in the waiting room... But she behaved herself in with the vet, even when she had to have FOUR injections, poor thing. Another £69 - she's now cost over £100 in vets fees, eeeeek! I thought chicken keeping was meant to be a thrifty endeavour! I suppose in the old days we would probably have just eaten her or something, but no chance of that round here... 

Anyway, she's currently tucking into some mealworms - barely eaten anything else so right now she's having whatever we can get her to eat. Rusty is inside too, having wandered about in the rain and sleet while we were out and now being soaked through. Pesky little things. The other three are wisely staying in the porch - although as soon as Rusty's dried off a bit I'll be shutting them (except Beaky) in their run - far more room in there than in our porch!

Anyway. Got some useful stuff done this morning, and meeting a friend for lunch in an hour so all cheerful. Just wish it would stop raining!!

themadvix

Ouch to four injections and the bill! Poor Beaky and poor you! I hope they help though.

Jessy103

Aww poor Beaky! Hope she's feeling better soon

Cheery_Daff

Thank you for all your kind wishes for poor old Beaky. She's pulled through before and I hope she will again. If not, vet said she can refer to specialist for MRI scans, hormonal chip and other expensive sounding options, eek! 

In other financial news, Mr Cheery's pension forms arrived today with the correct calculations on, so he's signed everything, assembled the photocopied documents, and I've just sent them recorded delivery now so hopefully they'll get there by Monday. Hooray!!

themadvix

Wahoo! Excellent news about the pension forms!

edwink

Aww poor Beaky, bless her and "ouch" to the vets bill Cheery.  Did the vet explain what the injections were for?  Sounds like a lot of injections for a little hen.  As the vet has mentioned a possible MRI or other options did he/she explain more about what they thinks is happening to Beaky?.  I do hope she will be ok Cheery.

Good news about the pensions forms arriving and you sending them back promptly.  That is certainly something to look forward to.  Well done both of you.

Edwink

Cheery_Daff

Waffled on the chicken thread about Beaky's ailments/treatments - looks like she's got another lash egg in the making, so antibiotics, anti inflammatory to make her more comfortable, calcium to help with future shell formation, oxytocin to (I think) help women contract to push it out. Poor thing. Did seem like rather a lot but she dealt with it admirably. 

They were only talking about future options as a similar thing happened in early December, and if it's going to repeat fairly regularly, they can do things like stop her egg producing cycle rather than dealing with symptoms each time. But we'll deal with that if/when necessary....

Cheery_Daff

Possibly this that they were talking about, or similar?

https://www.chickenvet.co.uk/news/post/hormonal-implants-for-chickens

Cheery_Daff

Evening chums! 

Beaky has been looking ok today (probably just full of drugs) - we're keeping our fingers crossed.

Had a nice day today. Friend stayed over so leisurely breakfast then took her to get the bus from local market town and had a wander round there too. Gave Beaky a bath, and I've just run one myself (after a thorough cleaning!)

Been pondering a few things today... first of all about using up toiletries- we have SIX opened tubs of body lotion in the cupboard! Six!! So I've stashed five of them elsewhere and will be focusing on using them up one at a time- kind of like a body lotion snowballing thing if you like 😂 starting with the one that's closest to empty to make me feel like I'm getting somewhere!! 😂

On a bigger scale... we've been thinking about using some of the pension money to get the roof of the stable block repaired. We identified this as a bit of a road block a while back - Mr Cheery would love to use the garage as a workshop, but can't because it's full of spare furniture, wood etc, so he ends up doing anything workshops rather awkwardly in the house and getting in the way. We have this ludicrous stable block just sitting there with light, power and water, and the most glorious views (better than the house!) but can't really use it for anything as the roof is leaking in so many places. It's asbestos too so not really that easy to just strip off and replace (and we'd need scaffolding too). 

However... we got a quote for someone to take the asbestos garage away (£650, not too bad), and at the time we didn't even bother asking how much to do the stable roof but I might give them a ring tomorrow and see. Obviously we'd not do it til we'd found someone to sort a replacement. Not going to be cheap, but actually might be a really good use of some of those funds - would make a hugely useable space which we could insulate and kit out and Mr Cheery would be in a much better position to make all our kitchen units etc... 

Hmm.

Also been pondering matched betting lately. I was doing it because we weren't saving anything out of normal income, but obviously we'll now have this extra pension income. I don't mind it - but working full time, doing an hour or even two of MB of an evening, wasn't really leaving much time for anything else, and right now I'm thinking that time might be better spent getting a move on with the decorating.

But I'm wary of just saying 'yay, got this extra dosh, here are all the ways we're going to spend it and all the reasons I'm not going to earn any more!' So lots of thinking to be done I think...