Egg Wonder

As it seems to be for much of the lower half of WA, it's been cold, wet and windy.  The fire has been keeping us warm, and we are not venturing outside much at the moment.  My morning chore however, come rain or shine, is to tend to our feathered friends.

 Here is Puddles, with the white feathers on her head, and below is Spuddles, checking out the food bowl while one of the chookies looks on.  You can see their lovely blue clamshell pool in the background, full of muddy water from their muddy feet.  The brick in the middle is in case a chook decided to fall in.  We're down to three chooks at the moment, the biggest one was suddenly unwell a couple of weeks ago, and was gone within 36 hours, I'm glad she didn't linger.  We've been getting a small but constant egg supply over winter which is great.

 Da-dum!  I am a little OCD and keep a tally of eggs, and a few days ago the 2000th egg was presented to us over almost the last three years, aren't they clever girls!  Thank you chookies.

 I had a surprise a few days ago, on the floor in the chook house I saw what at first I thought looked like a potato, but no, it was a different egg, a sort of pale dirty grey/green colour.  Curious!  Then for the next five days I've been finding, in one of the nesting boxes, 2 chook eggs and one duck egg, yes, it's a duck egg!  I don't know which one out of Puddles and Spuddles has been the clever clogs, maybe both and they are taking in turns.  I am mega impressed that whomever it is has jumped up into a tiny hen sized nesting box which is 40 cm up off the ground. 

 This is what a Muscovy duck egg looks like.  The shell is very hard, it needs a good whack to crack it.  The white is absolutely clear and the yolk is big, there is a lot more yolk to white compared to a chicken egg.  With trepidation we hard boiled a couple, having heard from other people that duck eggs are a bit strong, but we both really enjoyed hard boiled duck egg.  The yolks are richer and thus have a lovely cream texture, and they didn't taste strong at all.  So, how about that hey!  :-)

The poor roos are wet and bedraggled most of the time, but they revel in the odd sunny afternoon and lounge contentedly amongst the citrus trees.  If it rains they duck underneath the citrus to keep as dry as they can.

 I call this young fellow Frog.  Steve can't see it at all, but his markings remind me of the back end of a frog, like its back legs are straddling the kangaroo's nose.  Allow me my insanity okay :-)

Speaking of Steve, he has been keeping dry by pottering in the shed, doing woodwork.  He wanted to have a go at making a wooden replica pistol, using only wood and nothing else.  He even made wooden screws!

 I like that he's used different types of wood to produce different colours.  Well done dear, very clever, it's beautiful!

After three years of looking at unpainted doors and door frames in the house, I have picked up a paint brush.  God doors and frames are tedious to paint, so fiddly.  But it is a necessary evil.  Thankfully the paint has sat in the shed in good condition, we were worried it would all be dried out.  Steve has set to work filling and sanding the many screw holes in the frames.  Slowly but surely it shall be done.

Mum, this photo is for you ha ha.  I know you will be thrilled to see that the guest loo door and frame are now painted and look spiffy and magnificent.  xx

 The magnificent sunsets continue, colours of the skies, lovely.

On a more personal note, you may be wondering why I have been so lax with blogging of late.  I do apologise for this, I feel bad when I don't feel like blogging or feel like I have nothing of interest to say. 
I've been through the many depths of hell over recent months with a condition that has caused me to have hardly any sleep.  Finally I have a diagnosis, it's called Willis-Ekbom Syndrome, or as more commonly known; Restless Legs Syndrome.  And what a pain in the arse it is.
I was spending up to three hours a night kicking my legs, stretching, walking around, riding the exercise bike, exercising, trying to sleep on the floor, the settee, the spare bed, the chair, until for some explicable reason, the creepy crawly or sort of crampy or electric shocklike or numb sensations in my legs (that are only relieved by constant movement) decide to settle down again, and in my exhausted state, after staggering around the house in the dark, I could finally sleep. And because it all seems so bizarre, it took me a while to go to the doctor, but as soon as I started stumbling over an explanation of what was going on, he knew exactly what was wrong with me. 
So, I am now on a trial of different medications, and for the last ten days I have been on a low dose of a Parkison's drug, a type of dopamine, and it is an absolute miracle.  From night two all the horror stopped and I have slept! Slept long and well.  It's amazing, and wonderful.  I just hope now that the drug, called pramipexole, will continue to do its magic for me.  It has a list of side effects as long as your arm, but thankfully I don't seem to be being troubled by any, apart from a mild headache in the morning, but even that is getting better.
So, I am feeling so much better, so much so that I have decided to paint the bloody doors!  It is an insidious and erratic condition and I hope it will stay under control.