I have been absolutely useless in posting recently but I do have a few genuine excuses. The weather in France has been one long spring of rain, and although it is exactly what creates this beautiful scenery, meadows and cow pasture, it’s almost June for goodness sake and should at least allow me to remove three of my four winter layers for a day! I bundle a woolie jumper, woolie hat and wellies on every morning to head for the coop, these ontop of a thick green jumper, jeans and a t-shirt. Once summer hits and I can skip out in shorts and a skimpy top, the chickens will wonder who this new chicken lady is and I will probably scare the living daylights out if them!

So rain has meant jobs that I would have done, I am doing now, like extreme mowing with my petrol mower. My ride on has a burst tyre and needs fixing, but we just don’t get round to it. So the hectare has been systematically cut in small doses.

I lost three chickens this last two months to ovarian cancer. I want to do a post on this as its a subject close to my heart and I have learnt a lot over the last three years keeping poultry and especially this last year, performing an necropsy, the bird version of an autopsy, after every death. I wanted closure, as I love my birds, and resolving why they passed has helped, including the realisation that man has genetically failed animals in so many ways.

Renovation as always continues, I need to update on Thistle Cottage Studio, where I run my illustration and fabric business, as there has been progress. The business too has its on-line shop and I will post about the pros and cons of some of the well known platforms. It’s been a swift realisation that online is as fraught with errors as a manufacturing plants data base!

I have been working on my Instagram posts and Facebook too, promoting my Pipi Pintade products and contributing to the poultry forums re health, necropsy findings and guineas. I lost Toots to a horrible accident. Sake our Jack Russell attacked her and although the bite to her back seemed feasible to treat, our French vet couldn’t even begin to know where to start. There is little Avian training here and unless it can be fixed with a simple antibiotic, then unfortunately we had to let her go.

There are many more projects going on, but today the sun shine and I spotted my batchelor troupe of geese, Bonnie, son Pip and uncle Bumble in the long, lush orchard grass. They hate being disturbed, so I grabbed a shot through our mosquito netting, but it’s not altogether too unclear and I loved the saturated greens. Bonnie left with his head tuft, Pip right. He is a little thin right now, as going through a hard molt, a juvenile feather change. Bumble was for once, sound asleep. He normally acts as sentinel and overeggs the role, glaring at everything and everybody. The sun must have had its affect on him too.

Enjoy any sunshine you have. Watch out for a few posts which I hope will be informative and if you can, visit my little shop:

https://www.judicastille.shop/http://www.judicastille.shop