Poultry auction

It's been lovely to hear from boaters, or read on their blogs, that they've seen nb Parisien Star in the last week.  Tore and Kirsten had a week aboard.  We had a wave of missing PS terribly today and to make matters worse we spent some time watching a slide show of our photos.  By then we were definitely hankering for our old floating life.  We wanted nothing more than to go and buy another boat!  But, we are forging ahead with life back home so it's not an option to try and wind back time.  We have Klara and the chooks to think of now.

Speaking of the chooks.... we lost one a week or so ago so decided we should look out for a couple more to bump up the numbers.  We have been making enquiries to see if anyone has some Barnevelder pullets for sale.  We did find a couple of places selling the same colour as those we already have but we had hoped to find a different colour.  Looking in a regional newspaper at work the other day I saw there was a poultry auction in Kyneton on Sunday.   Tracey, our neighbour, said she would like to come along so she and I had a great day out.

The auction was a silent one where bids are written on a list attached to each cage of birds.  In the last five minutes there are a flurry of bidders trying to get in a last minute win.  We went in at the beginning of the 90 minute bidding period and I wrote a bid for the reserve price on four pens of young "blue" Barnevelders.  I hoped I would get one or two of them as they each had two hens.  We went to browse some of the lovely shops in Piper St and returned for the last 20 minutes or so.  To my dismay nobody had bid above me on any of them.  I didn't want that many!  The last five minutes brought salvation and I ended up with four pullets about 4 months old.  Three of them are blue and the fourth is double laced black/gold like those we already have.  They're settling in well.

With the weather so mild and the sun out all the time, the veggies are growing at an amazing rate.  We have lettuce, rocket and radish ready to go so last night's dinner had a home grown salad.  I was given a couple of mature kale plants that were going begging and plonked them in an empty pot of soil that was down the side of the house.  They looked pretty sad the first day but by morning had perked up.  Enough, obviously, to attract Klara's attention as we glanced out to find her cuddled up to her kale plants chomping away at them.  There was soil all over the ground in a trail from the empty pot to her mat where she lay with the ragged plants.  We have potted them up again but they look rather sad now.