Rain, rain, rain

Over it now! It's been raining for days and going by the weather forecast we've more days still to come. It was incredibly dry up here so we needed some rain desperately, but that's enough now.

My main work is outside in the garden and the farm. It's so miserable that I just don't want to go out in the torrential rain and weed... or cut the grass! However, if it keeps up for much longer I'll just have to. And it's making a right mess of my roses, which is just not on!

Also, sadly, this morning one of my chickens, Gertrude, died. She'd had a virus for 5 days and I had put her in a nice warm house on her own and had been giving her probiotic yoghurt to try to fight the bug but, I think yesterday, I really knew she was getting no better, so if I'm being honest I wasn't surprised that this morning she had died. I was sad though. I kept thinking, should we have put her out of her misery a couple of days ago ( when I say 'we' I mean poor Lloyd) but then I kept thinking what if she gets better. Anyway, she'll be buried in the orchard.

On a happier note, Mavis and her babies are all doing so well. From what I can tell there only appear to be 2 boys out of the 8 - if so this is great!
 And! this morning Mavis laid an egg. Back to laying already - what a good girl.

One good thing about this terrible weather, it actually does make it feel like a Scottish Christmas! Pelting rain and a howling gale ( ok it's not actually windy at all) we just need it to turn to snow and get rid of some of the humidity and it would be perfection. To get into the spirit of the whole thing we put up the Christmas tree. I love our tree. I have the same lovely glass decorations I bought about 20 odd years ago, it's a lovely feeling unpacking them every year.
Lloyd and Lulah both helped - if you look closely you'll see Lulah has her teddy in her mouth, she obviously thinks it would make a better fairy.