Sunday Selections is hosted by Kim from Frogpondsrock and gives us an opportunity to post those photos that are lurking somewhere in some folder on your computer, almost forgotten. If you have folders filled with photos waiting to be shown to all of us, you can always hop over to the rocking frog ponds and join in.
Okay, maybe a tad too much of the same subject.
But I bet you feel all relaxed now.
First I’d like to thank you all for thinking of Hans and me and sending us good thoughts, prayers, positive energy etc. It really helps to know that so many people care. We’re Teflon coated by positivity now, so everything bad just has to slide off immediately.
THIS
Hubs’ case nurse, Jitty (who seems to be quite relaxed, even though her name suggests otherwise), turns out to be a little gem. She managed to twist some arms so hubs will have his MRI scan this Friday after all. In stead of a week later. So we will hear the good news (provided his Teflon coating works) Tuesday next week. The best news would be that the cancer hasn’t spread and that they’ll only have to remove a small portion of his colon to get rid of the tumour.
We’ll see.
THAT
And now for something totally different: salads. I had a salad on the menu for tonight. With some Nasturtium flowers from my vegetable patch I thought. And then this morning, or it could have been this afternoon, I visited Jabblog who had a post about a beautiful looking, and no doubt very tasty, summer salad. With Nasturtium flowers! And Pansy flowers too. Some people just exaggerate things. Anyway, I told her that we would be having a similar salad tonight and that I’d post some photos of it. So…
Salad leaves, toasted pine nuts and walnuts, Nasturtium flowers and a dressing made of extra virgin olive oil, Balsamic vinegar, mustard and honey. Doesn’t only look good, tastes nice too.
THE OTHER
Or should I say: the others. Some of the others anyway. This is part of our private zoo:
Tumtum, in half winter/half summer coat (summer coat = bald) is looking at us, Nufnuf is just in front of him inspecting the box hedge. Naloma is in the first stable, Evie in the second (from your left).
And next to Evie is Willem.
No you’re not drunk, or maybe you are, but if you were sober you’d also see the wall leaning. It’s not the wall. It’s the camera. Or actually; it’s not the camera either and I wasn’t drunk when I took the photo. I can honestly say I’m never drunk. But this is far too much information. I could have just Photoshopped the photo straight, but it is 30 degrees Celsius and I couldn’t be bothered. In real life the wall is straight. There. That’s what I wanted to say.
And look, we have a little chick. Its (we don’t know yet if it is a he or a she) mom is one of our brown chickens and she’s in there with him, just not in the photo. We’ve put the both of them into a run and their (con)temporary home is a travel box for the cats. They like it in there. Chick is too small to go up and down the ladder in the big coop yet. But when he'/she is a little bigger, we’ll put the both of them back with the rest of the family and keep them all locked up for a while in their coop and run. Hopefully it is a ‘she’, so she can stay with us. Otherwise I’m afraid he’ll end up in someone’s soup ;-(
Yesterday, when I was walking through our garden, I saw this little clump of Bluebells, bravely sticking their noses through their warm Winter cover. A definite sign that Spring is in the air.
Today I noticed that, like magic, next to the Bluebells these cute little Snowdrops had suddenly appeared from under their blanket of leaves. Can they grow that fast? I might have to get my eyes checked. I really didn’t see them yesterday.
Talking of chickens…
(Oh, I know we weren’t talking of chickens.)
These are our chickens. Six chickens and a cockerel. ‘Zes kippen en een haan’ in Dutch. I promise you they all have heads, even if they appear to be headless in the photos.
The two larger, black & white ones (right side of the photo) are silver pencilled (or silver laced?) Groninger Meeuwen. A local, rare breed, very recognizable because they have blue legs. They lay white eggs and are a tad on the neurotic side. I have never even threatened to murder them, and still they act as if that is my only goal in life.
We did have a beautiful Groninger Meeuw cockerel too, but he was murdered last year. Probably by a buzzard. We’ve lost a couple of chickens and another rooster/cockerel to buzzards, of which we have a breeding couple nearby. Still, we like to let our chickens roam free in our garden. They love rummaging around under the cover of shrubs and trees. Usually I open the door of their coop around noon to let them out. And when the sun sets they return to their coop again.
I’m not sure what kind of breed the three smaller, brown chickens are. They volunteered to come and live with us. Actually they used to belong to our neighbours, but every morning they negotiated the fence and ended up on our side and every evening they went back to the neighbours’ coop. So at one point I lured them into our chicken coop and then they were ours. A couple of weeks after I kidnapped them I asked the neighbour if he missed some chickens. He didn’t. So….
They are quite hard to spot aren’t they?
The larger, somewhat darker speckled black & white chicken is a cross between our late Groninger Meeuw cockerel and one of the brown chickens that used to belong to the neighbours (that’s why they used to hang around at our place; they fancied our beautiful Groninger Meeuw boy.) And our new cockerel is a .cross between those two breeds too. Both were hatched in our neighbour’s coop, but they didn’t want to keep them, so this time we legally obtained these two additions to our flock.
This is our coop. We used to have a bigger one, but they only ever used one of the nest boxes. And since they hardly ever have to spend their whole day in their coop, we bought a smaller one. That turned out to be too small, partly because of the (il)legal additions to our flock, so hubs built a nice run-extension. With a roof. They are pretty happy chickens and their eggs taste so much better than shop-bought ones.
Look Gertrude! That bone looks much tastier than this one…
Let’s try to get some of that. Be careful Gertrude.
If we just pretend to look for something else… Ooo, tasty little thingy we’ve found here…
I don’t think this one wants to share with us Gertrude. Let’s try the other dog over there…
Hi there dog. Wanna share?
Rude animals those dogs. This one just ignores us.
If I go this way…
…you might be able to sneak around him from the other side. Stay low!
Gertrude, I don’t think our plan works. Perhaps if I try from this side…
…or from this side… I’m getting close now…
Yep! Did it! Quick, come over here… Did you get something?
Yeah, but it wasn’t worth all the effort.
Let’s go lay an egg… (Did I hear egg? Ooo yummy!)
...oops...
...Willem is not going to give up the ball without a good chase first. Run Ruby! Run!
Meanwhile Nufnuf has made a new friend.
It's a crow that I've noticed in our garden before. He (or she, but I'm sticking with 'he') is easily recognizable because he has one manky foot and can't walk properly.
Perhaps you can see that his left foot isn't quite as it's supposed to be. He observed Nufnuf attentively...
...while our chickens kept a close eye on Tumtum's behind. Our chickens are very interested in recycling and they know that what goes into a pig at the front...
...comes out at the other end and is a culinary feast for a chicken, not to be missed.
But Tumtum's intestines were still busy processing, so they eventually lost interest and gave up the pursuit. Tumtum and Willem had a very intersting conversation about...
...oh I don't know what about. It was a private conversation.
