General Chat

It's going to be hot here again tomorrow :-D 25 C today

Tec , that certainly is an interesting article :-) especially the part about learning to wait for access to the food , I have noticed the one that hangs back ( because it is lowest in the pecking order) can browse about when the others go off and do something else , they are fascinating creatures :-) I'm not sure if they can actually count but they certainly know and recognise the people that look after them , our " girls" are not keen on strangers .

I think he is looking for food Sue

Does Mickey actually say "Good Morning" to you Sue :-D

Mickey the goat is clever too. He can tell the time. He knows when I am likely to open the blinds at the back door and he is always on top of his shelter waiting to say good morning :-D

I agree Linda, most shop bread is disgusting.

Sue somebody has to study chickens I suppose.

Some people study bugs and worms and things.

Caterpillers stripped two large gooseberry bushes of all leaves overnight in my garden - then the bushes died

Sheep are also intelligent you know.

I have often watched them trying to outwit a sheepdog, and they are very clever at anticipating the dogs next move - it's fascinating. They will also huddle in the lee of a stone wall hours before bad weather arrives from that direction.

I like sheep :-D

I do too, Linda :-)

Very interesting article, Tec but really - studying the behaviour of chickens for 20 years :-0

Yuk, yuk, yuk

I have just eaten a sandwich made with Hovis bread which I bought on the way back last night. It is soggy soft stuff, it is ages since I last bought a loaf of bread and now i remember why

I want to see Amanda's chickens counting

Sue , I hope your OH has been enjoying his gardening , it certainly sounds as if he has been having a lot of success . I have no idea what " pea straw " is ? but it sounds as if it is best avoided then :-S Every year brings success and failure with some plant or other , no matter how many years one has been growing . Everyone has had problems here with caterpillers this year , netting hasn't kept them at bay :-( but we did have the joy of seeing more butterflies than we have seen for many a year :-D

Hello Sue,
Hello Amanda,

Amanda........taken from the "Times"

Chickens tend to be low on the avian pecking order - but they are no bird brains. In fact they are capable of outperforming toddlers in some feats of mental agility. Professor Christine Nichol of the University of Bristol, has researched over 20 years of chicken IQ, and found they can have a range of skills. For instance they can differentiate between numbers up to five, and can also understand that if an object is out of sight, it still exists - something that babies don't grasp until they are about 12 months old. They have been found to have an inate understanding of physics, showing more interest in a structure that could be built, than one that defies the laws of science. And they exercise a level of self control that many parents could only wish for, in a study, chickens learnt to wait before eating, having worked out that if they held back, they'd be given access to their food for longer. It takes a chick just a few hours to develop its representational and numerical abilities in comparison to the months and years it takes a child to do anything comparable, said Nichol " On the other hand, we shouldn't go too far, No chicken has yet written a review of human intelligence"

I found that interesting anyway :-D

Amanda - we had a season when our tomatoes failed. Our late neighbour gave OH some pea straw to put on the garden and it must have had some nasties in it. The neighbour also lost his tomatoes :-(

That's the way Tec - sometimes we need to make a lot of noise. It certainly worked for you. Hopefully you should start to feel better when the antibiotics kick in.

I will make the coffee as Tec can't have his G&T

Good for you Tec< hopefully you will get better now

Our NHS is just falling apart at the seams, I have no faith in it at all

Hello Linda , glad you have a good crop of tomatoes , unfortunatly we lost most of ours :-( again :-| rather stupidly we planted two rows in the same place that last years potatoes inhabited , we lost the toms to the blasted blight :-|
We have still got the ones in the greenhouse at home as back up but it was still very annoying .

Tec , so pleased to know that you put your good foot down and have at last been heard ! I hope the new antibiotics soon kick in and that the strong painkillers do a good job in the mean time .

Hello Amanda :-)

Mmmmm.......Linda's tomato chutney :-)

I've harvested a load of broad beans yesterday. OH's first attempt at growing them. I had some for tea last night and they were yummy. I have frozen the rest.

Glad your water is back on - we do rather take it for granted until it's cut off.

The nurse did a swab, then said the result should be back by Thursday, when I could have the correct antibiotics by Friday.
"Not good enough" I said.
So she said I would need to see GP to get them quicker.
Off I go to the health centre to make an appointment,
"Nothing for a few weeks" said the receptionist, WHAT...................
at which point I told her, rather acidly, it was urgent, and I needed to see him today.
Bear in mind that by now I'm in agony.
Anyway I got to see him eventually. He was fine, even had a look, gave me a script for the correct antibiotics, and strong pain killers.

So at last, I may begin to get better.

Can't have anything alcoholic though.


:-D

Was Tec just a mirage???