I’m a dad! Three chicks hatched so far, two yellow ones and a black one (or two Light Sussex and a Cuckoo Maran to give them their official titles). Hopefully by the morning there will be even more.
We’re leaving them in the incubator for a while to dry out and fluff up, and then they go into the brooder where we’ll be able to get some better photos of them without having to shoot through a tiny foggy window.
It’s all very exciting indeed!
Greg and I have been having an email conversation about the fact that it’s Pancake Day over here in the UK today. He sent me a link to one of my very first posts, written on Pancake Day 2006.
That post took me on a trail of “previous post” buttons until I came across my announcement of Kerry’s pregnancy with Evan.
And I started to get a little moist behind the eyes. What a big bloody wet lettuce.
But it reminded me why I should push past any blogging block that I might currently be going through. Because as vivid as my life is in my consciousness at the moment, in three or four years it will have faded into dim pastel colours, and in ten there will only be the bright highlights and the dark shadows left.
I’m very much a Mr Toad. I develop a huge overwhelming passions for something and allow it to over run my every waking hour. Until suddenly and without warning my interest wains and without even a backward glance I move onto the next thing.
Photography, power kites, walking, chickens, ukulele, role playing, writing, the accordion, model trains, DIY, blogging, cultural theory, gardening, breeding budgies, computer gaming, birdwatching, sci-fi, comics, filmmaking, amateur dramatics, juggling; the list of my one time or current enthusiasms is almost endless.
I like it like this. I like being a geeky equivalent of a renaissance man. I like knowing a little bit about a lot of things. If nothing else it means I can often find something to talk to my “punters” about (hello Rachel!). But I need to make sure that I protect the things that bring true value to my life from being expunged by the next big thing.
As usual, there isn’t a point to this. If anything it’s just a continuation of my previous whinging post, but this time from the more optimistic side of my brain. Sometimes it helps to write things down just to see what you actually think about a topic.
I promise that this will be the last of the navel gazing from me for a while. I’ll get right back on with subjecting you to pictures of my children and wild ramblings about my most recent craze (I’m guessing either windsurfing or 18th century art).
Neither Kerry or I managed to get any decent photos of the Moonraking festival this year. Mainly because as part of the procession we were jigging around too much to get a steady shot.
The kids did really well, walking the mile long route without complaint or tantrum. We started off in the middle of the procession, but due to Evan’s frequent diversions and escape attempts gradually fell towards the back. We nipped off home before the very end in order to avoid the firework display, but we all felt like we’d taken a part in the coming together of the village.
Here are some of the slightly less blurry photos. None of them convey how lovely 200 odd home made lanterns look winding their way through the village on a cold February evening, but there is always next year.
Amy and I have just been down to collect our Moonraking lantern, and so as promised here’s a photo:
I hate to admit it, but Kerry did a fantastic job of papering it. While we were collecting Amy’s lantern we threw together a mini one (without a candle) for Evan. The willow and tape stage of the construction was easy enough to an old hand like me, but my efforts to paper it resulted in it being more wrinkled than Peter Stringfellow’s scrotum.
Plus 80% of my body is now covered in PVA glue. Although fun at first, peeling it off soon becomes more than a little tiring. My hands look like they have some sort of horrific degenerative skin disease (again, a bit like Peter Stringfellow’s scrotum)
But now we’re all done lantern making and so all that’s left is for us to join the procession on Saturday night. I’m really looking forward to it.
What’s the betting that we manage to drop our lantern and set fire to the entire village?
It’s Moonraking week in our village. I went into detail about Moonraking last year, but in short it’s a week of family based activities held over the winter half term holidays which culminates in a big procession of home made lanterns through the village on Saturday night. Here is the official site.
These are a couple of my photos from last years Moonraking:
The Moonraking festival was one of the reasons we chose to move to our village. I think these little traditions and events are fantastic scaffolding on which to hang a childhood; and they also foster a real sense of the importance of community. The Holmfirth Torchlight Procession looms large in the memories of my own childhood, and I hope the Moonraking festival will have a similar presence in my kid’s consciousness.
Last year we were just spectators at the parade, but this year we’re intending to be part of it. Yesterday Amy and I went down to the community center to begin construction on our lantern. The theme is “lunar landings” to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, and so keeping with the astrological motif we’ve decided to make a star. The fact that a star is probably the easiest lantern to make has absolutely nothing to do with it and I’ll sue anyone who says otherwise.
It might be the easiest lantern to make, but that doesn’t mean I found it easy to actually do. The framework for the lantern is made from willow sprigs bent into shape and taped down. It’s an exercise in methodical working and manual dexterity. However unfortunately both of those traits are solely lacking in my skillset. While I was taping one bit down the other end would invariably spring up, causing much gritted teeth and muttered profanities.
Amy was a big help in restraining various twigs while I frantically slapped tape on them, but her attention was being competed for by a large slab of chocolate cake I’d bought for her; and so twig wrestling often took second place.
Some of the lanterns being made by other people were simply fantastic. I was particularly impressed by a Dalek being made by a family a couple of tables over from us. Next year I might be a little more ambitious in my plans. I took some photos of the workshop on my phone but they didn’t come out too well:
We didn’t have time to complete our lantern yesterday (by covering it in tissue paper) so Kerry has taken Amy down to the village this morning to finish it off. She is under the deluded impression that this will somehow give her a co-creator billing but as we all know, any fool can glue tissue paper to a willow framework; it’s the bending and sticky taping them which takes the real skill.
I’ll try and get a decent photo of the finished product when we bring it home later this week.
The past week or so have seen a steady succession of rather exciting parcels arriving at our house. One of the most recent has been this:
No it’s not a bomb. Or at least I think it’s not a bomb. Come to think of it I keep catching Kerry thumbing through my life insurance policy lately. But that’s ridiculous; my life is worth more to her than the mortgage paying off and a series of Caribbean holidays surely?
Perhaps I should invest in a bomb disposal sniffer dog or two.
But until I know different I’ll assume it is what it was advertised on ebay as being: It is a home made egg incubator.
Yes I’m going to hatch my own chicks, and I’ve even got the eggs to prove it. Six Light Sussex eggs and six Cuckoo Maran eggs bought on Monday from a rather eccentric Chinese man in Lancashire who had about a hundred free range chickens sleeping in four or five caravans dotted around a field behind his house. Evan and I got to collect the eggs ourselves and some of them were still warm from the chickens bums. Bloody marvelous!
The breeder insisted that I put his telephone number in my diary labeled “Chicken Man” and to call him if I ever had any problems, which was very nice of him. He also told me all about when he used to breed ostriches for a living. I really hope he didn’t slip me an ostrich eggs by accident or I’ll get Jeff hanging around my house all the time.That man is obsessed I tell you.
Anyway here are the eggs:
They are due to hatch on the third of March, which is coincidentally the birthday of my friends Paul and Becky’s daughter Layla.
Whether they do hatch or not remains to be seen, as I’m a bit of a novice at all this poultry malarky. They’ve been in the incubator for two days now and I’ve already dropped about five of them. It wasn’t intentional, they slipped out of my hands while turning them over. They only fell from a height of about a centimeter or so, but it can’t be doing much good I imagine.
Perhaps I’m not really cut out to be a mother hen.
Once they are hatched I’m going to move the chicks to a brooder I’m planning to build in our coal cellar. I’m desperately hoping that they are all going to come out hens rather than cockerels, as I’m yet to work out how I’m going to deal with any males that arrive. I realize however that is extremely improbable. theoretically I don’t have a problem with dispatching the cockerels and sticking them in the pot, but in practice I’m not sure I have the stomach for it. Time will tell I suppose.
Anyhow, it’s all very exciting, Now if only this bloody snow would melt so I can get on with building my coop.
We’ve had a bit of snow recently. About twelve inches; and that’s real inches not man inches. Ok, so it’s not very much by international standards granted, but let me assure you it was certainly enough to bring the entire of the UK grinding to a halt.
Amy’s school was closed due to the weather for three days last week, and as a result we had plenty of time to go out and experience the snow in it’s full wintery splendor.
And as a result I can now tell you that I’ve revised my opinion about snow. Whereas I used to gaze at the February sky longing and wishing for just a few flakes so that my kids could experience the same snowy playground that I did during my own childhood; now after two weeks of the stuff I can’t bloody wait until it all melts and we can get back to trudging around in the drizzle like a proper British winter should be.
Still, it does make everything look pretty.
Today Evan and I ventured into enemy territory. Lancashire. The chronically foreign amongst you may not be aware of the enmity between the two Northern England counties of Yorkshire and Lancashire. On the face of it they have a lot in common; dramatic hilly landscapes, shared borders, large industrial cities born of the industrial revolution, and of course a healthy distain for the fancy ways of those Southern Jessies from London.
But never-the-less, the animosity runs deep.
I’m no historian, but as far as I’m aware it dates back to the War of the Roses (1453-1487 if you’re keeping count). As far as I can work out the whole thing centered around conflicting claims to the throne from the Duke of Lancaster and the Duke of York; but to be honest I’ve been trying to make sense of it on the Mighty Wikipedia and it all reads like an episode of Desperate Housewives to me.
But even then that’s probably not true. After all, as any fule kno, the Dutchy of Lancashire actually spreads throughout Cheshire, Gloucestershire, and North Wales; and the Duke of York probably had no greater links to the area than the inbred parasite that currently holds the position does. In my extensive research on the issue (i.e. looking at the first result that came up on a google search) I found the suggestion that the rivalry between the two counties was actually a creation of the ruling classes during the industrial revolution in an effort to slow down the development of working class movements throughout the North of England. The bastards.
I have an entire series of poorly researched and inaccurate posts in my head surrounding the development of social movements in my area. After all, I livejust acouple of miles away from where the Luddite movement reached it’s crescendo. But that will have to wait until another day as, quite frankly, i can’t be arsed to drudge it up from my brain at the moment.
But it is interesting how much that invisible boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire has an influence on me.
I was born and raised in Yorkshire, and am as proudof that fact as my self depreciating nature allows me to be. However genetically I’m very much a southerner. My dad is from Hampshire and my Mum is an Australian (which, lets face it is about as southern as you can get). I have lived nearly all my life on the border between the two counties. Formatively in Holmfirth and more recently in Slathwaite (or Slawit as Rol would have you believe).
In days gone by the route into Lancashire was difficult and treacherous. The boundary between the two counties is a low rising mountain range of the Pennines (the same mountain range incidentally that my brother intends to walk the 268 mile length of, the bloody idiot). These days however the car, modern roads, and the creation of the M62 have all but eliminated any barrier that once may have existed. While once physical, the barrier between Yorkshire and Lancashire is now purely psychological.
Actually the creation of the M62 is also a badly researched post in itself too. Perhaps I should be making a list or something.
I live roughly equidistantly between the major cities of Leeds and Manchester. The former in Yorkshire and the latter in Lancashire. Arguably you could say that Manchester is the more culturally rich of the two cities. It has bigger venues, more theaters, and generally more going on. It even has it’s own edition of Time Out. However it’s a rare day indeed that we make the journey over the Pennines to visit it. Of course since we became parents we don’t get to Leeds much either, but the point still stands.
It even goes further than this. Due to various things going on at work I’ve been keeping half an eye on various NHS vacancy bulletins for the last six months or so. It only occurred to me last week that I should bee looking at jobs in Oldham and Rochdale just as much as I am in Wakefield and Bradford.
I just have a mental block when it comes to straying onto the other side of the hill. Like in my mind the roads just come to a full stop or something. The whole thing is just odd, and it fascinates me.
But all that is beside the point. What I was saying before i so rudely interrupted myself was that Evan and I took a trip into Lancashire this afternoon on a highly top secret mission. It involved Chinese men, caravans, and a polystyrene box with wires coming out of it. And I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.
Wasn’t that a bloody long post for basically no information? Well, as Whit would say, that’s just the way I roll man, just the way I roll.
Through the wonders of facebook the following photo has recently come to my attention. Here’s half of the Dales/Cumbria Way crew back in the good(?) old days. Can anyone say geek?
There were a few photos of me in the set too, but for some reason my computer keeps crashing every time I try to upload them to flickr. Yeah, that’s it, my computer keeps crashing.