RIP Isadora

Sad to say that one of our hens, Isadora Duncan passed away last night. She looked a bit down in the dumps yesterday  but this morning she had crossed the Rainbow Bridge. She was 3 years old.

This was Isadora when she was young - only about 6 months old helping Crybbe do a bit of weeding in the garden.

And this was Christmas 2010 with two of her friends seeing snow for the first time.

This was me as a puppy - it looks as though Isadora is pecking my head - I'm not looking just in case!

Goodbye sweet Isadora - hope there are lots of good places to peck and explore across the Rainbow Bridge xx

Wordless Wednesday - In the Family Way

Visit to Fountains Abbey

Hello bloggy friends - Trilby here :-) I had a trip out with my brother Crybbe at the weekend to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Gardens. Crybbe has been before and but it was my first visit and so I've got a blog post all to myself to tell you about it!

Here we are setting off - me posing nicely for the camera and Crybbe more interested in rabbit pellets :-(

There is a stream flowing past the Abbey and an old mill there too. It is very fine to look at even though it's ruined. And it is e-normous!

You can see how tiny me and Judith look through the window arch. One of the windows had an angel carved above it:

After wandering round the ruins we set off for the Water Gardens.

This is view of the Abbey from the path towards the Water Gardens. Fountains Abbey was built in the 12th century (900 years ago!) It is owned by the National Trust and English Heritage now.

This is one of the ornamental lakes.

Here we are crossing the little stone path across the waterfall. It was quite scary as the water was rushing very fast.

Across the bridge there was a cafe so we all stopped for a bite to eat :-) There were quite a lot of peeps out with their dogs there as it is quite a dog friendly place to visit.

A sad looking border terrier puppy waiting for his peeps to come back.

Me smiling for the camera - and Crybbe looking grumpy!

On the way back we saw this lovely swan looking for food in one of the lakes.

As it's still cold and only early Spring here there weren't many pretty flowers but there were lots of snowdrops.Then after that good walk it was back in the car for the journey home but..on the road through the city of Ripon we saw 2 goats walking along a wall!

It was such a lovely day they must have decided to have a trip to town :-)

I hope you have enjoyed my blog post - Magic will be back soon with her big news!

Banana Joe - Monkey King of the Jungle

Aoife and Crybbe were so excited today when they heard that Banana Joe the affenpinscher won Best in Show at Westminster Dog Show in the USA. As you can see from this magazine photo, affenpinschers are very highly groomed in the USA - not so much here in the UK though.

Aoife wanted to send a special message because her great great grandfather is Banana Joe's father :-) so she is even more proud to have a family connection to such a fine dog!

OK Aoife - we get the message - Congratulations to all at Team Joey. 

We are looking forward to Crufts now here and our little family will be going to strut their stuff on the green carpet. Don't expect great achievements from any of us but it will be a fun day.More to come on that in future posts!

PeeS. The stray hen was re-claimed yesterday evening by someone down our street. She is named Emily and was a stray hen when they found her wandering in a car park. I think she is a bit of a professional escape artist :-)

The Stray Hen

This is me looking puzzled - we have a mystery. Yesterday we had 2 new hens in our garden - Leigh thought they had come in from our neighbours who also have a little flock of hens so she caught them and gave them back......BUT today one had returned. The neighbour said that one wasn't theirs so ..where has this hen come from?

Leigh managed to catch the hen and put it into one of our crates - while it was in the hall, Crybbe and Aoife came to say hello.

First Crybbe.....

then Aoife.

Crybbe trying not to scare the hen...

and Aoife trying the same.

But Leigh thought it would be too hot in the house for an outdoor bird so she moved the crate outside into the garden and put some hen food and some water in for her and a cover on top so she wouldn't get too cold.

Aoife came to check out the new visitor again.

And Crybbe decided to keep guard.

Crybbe has always liked hens, here he is a few years back with Darcey Bussell:

If we can't find out who owns her we might have to keep her but Leigh doesn't think our hens will be very welcoming to an unexpected visitor. They are not fond of strangers :-( I will let you know what happens to her in my next post.

Canine Massage

The other week Leigh went on a Canine Massage Course run by Dani Paizis who is a chiropractor for dogs and horses. You can see her website by clicking here. She is very good at making you feel better if you have pains when you are walking or jumping. Leigh took Crybbe with her on the course as she thought he would be the most laid back...BIG mistake. There was a young affenpinscher girl there and Crybbe couldn't take his eyes off her so not much relaxation there! He was pretty chilled when he got home though.

Anyway Trilby enjoyed some massage this morning:

and I was happy to oblige as well :-)

and get in a sneaky lick on the nose!

And then me and Trilby posed for a photo with little Aoife.

Imbolc - Spring is Coming

Hello again blog friends - hope you hadn't forgotten me :-) Leigh has not been well so no-one has been around to put up my posts but things should be back to normal again now. As you can see from this photo the snow has gone and the sun is shining and today is the Celtic festival of Imbolc - the beginning of Spring.

The bulbs are pushing their way up to the sun and the garden is all coming to life again. Imbolc is a Gaelic word and it means 'in the belly' - not as in scrummy snacks but more like 'pregnant'  as this is the time of year when animals are having their young....and maybe I will be one of them (but that's supposed to be a secret :-))

Quickly moving on....some more interesting titbits about Imbolc - it was the ancient festival of Brigid who was a pagan goddess of the Sun, fire and the hearth and among her symbols are the snowdrop - bringing the hope of Spring coming even while winter is still here.

Another of her symbols is the swan which mates for life and represents loyalty and faithfulness (I think it could have been a dog myself as we are pretty loyal too :-) And her colours are white, silver and green.

It is so warm today that Lace thought she would come out to enjoy some sun too.

And here I am gathering up some seeds that the birds have dropped as another tradition of this festival is seed cake :-) I just knew there couldn't be a festival without some food there somewhere!