Kailyn

Where to start…

So. 2020 was fun. There was this pandemic thing that is kinda ongoing. Caused a bit of a ruckus.

Trump lost the election! That was nice.

I took a PT job as I was unemployed for 2-3 months due to Covid which was fine the first time (I bought a hammock) but not ideally repeatable since money is finite. I still locum on the side but at least I have a reliable income for now. My practice is a good one – best in the country. But my feet itch so I keep locuming on the side.

I have a new nephew as of September 2019. He’s adorable – like a little penguin, he potters about. First year of life in lockdown and none the worse for it. Ding and I took him to Destination: Star Trek – note, babies are amazing talking points. Do recommend.

Got a new car. Still emotionally attached to the old Saab so doesn’t matter how good new car is it can never reach what my old black smoke billowing Saab was.

Up to four cats, two guinea pigs, three quail (Boy still going, I had to buy him two new girls as he’s defying all ravages of time). Took on a surrendered cat, rehomed to a friend. Took on a white dove, rehomed to my hairdresser (that was unusual).

Parents helped me drag house up to scratch – got more to do but floored my bedroom and got a new mattress, the soggiest wreck of a mattress you can imagine. It’s perfect.

Got my front garden done – really pleased. The chaps are coming back in April to do my back garden. I need to decide what I want to do before then. New front garden meant I went slightly bananas with lights at Christmas.

Worried about the virus. Still working covered in plastic but secretly would rather hide in a hole. Can’t see my family, don’t want to until we can get vaccinated. Nan got her first dose. Very pleased.

Bought a robot vacuum with a Christmas Amazon voucher gift. He’s called Walter. I love him.

Magical Trevor is ten times as slick as the last time; the last time you saw him.

Today dad came up and we defeated the Front Bed Of Doom (FBOD). Previous owner had made a ‘rockery’ which was basically alpines amongst chunks of crazy paving and lumps of concrete/aggregate. This is not sustainable unless you a) really love weeding and b) really love glyphosate (Eg Round Up). I had previously tried to defeat the FBOD by glyphosating it, removing almost all of the ‘rockery rocks’ (I have a very useful pile of crazy paving now, we only found three chunks today that I’d missed) and covering with some very substandard weed membrane from B&M (who knew weed membrane could be basically biodegradable?) and not quite enough discounted shale from Homebase before it closed. And I planted a cherry tree. Who is still mildly offended to live here but is getting over it.

Fast forward to today 18-24 months after my first attempt and we now have a thin layer of shale on top of degrading shreds of ridiculous fragile weed membrane ranging from fragments 1 inch square upwards, with weeds happily meshing the membrane into their root systems. All on top of the most disappointing soil I’ve ever encountered (note- I grew up in Essex. Our soil there is damn good clay based stuff. My frame of reference is narrow, I expect a lot. But I’m fairly sure that sandy soil 4 inches deep on top of 4 inches of building site crud (sharp sand and gravel) is Not Good Soil. Even my Lavender is sad. Luckily below all this rubbish we discovered some decent clay, albeit so firm we needed a mattock to make a dent. Go Clayhall).

Today we turned it from the first image (which I think is even then a little while in; photos courtesy of Dad as I forgot to take any) to the above image, the end result, including planting an Adam’s Laburnum (I’ve always wanted a Laburnum and the Adam’s hybrid is crossed with a broom to make it a mix of purple and yellow) and two brooms (which I bought before I discovered the hybrid Adam’s Laburnum existed). We also disentangled two pots of and a large pile of shale from the weeds, ‘weed membrane’ and said most awful soil in my existence.

Very good post Father’s Day day. Spockie was also happy as got to sit with one of his favourite humans after the work was done.

Today I have done 4 loads of washing, cleaned the hob, including removing the knobs to clean behind them, and pulled the cooker out to clean under and behind it (which was horrific, I think the first time it’s been done in 15+ years), ordered woodchip for the garden to complete the killing of the lawn, been shopping, picked up some more tiles so I can think more about tiles for the kitchen, am partially through defrosting the freezer so I may get to two drawers of food which have frozen shut, and cleaned and polished the suite.

After all that adulting I decided to do a crafting project I’ve been meaning to do for a while – decoupaging (is that a word?) the polystyrene heads that old my fancy dress wigs. I had bought some posh wrapping paper, had PVA glue which I watered down, and a brush which I eventually abandoned for hands.

As this is the first time I’ve ever done this and as I couldn’t be bothered to actually research how to do it, I started with the one that only has two papers on it; a black and white bird design similar to adult colouring books, and a coloured bird print that’s more psychedelic.

Gathering the materials

Assistance, whether I wanted it or not

In progress, eventually abandoned brush for hands so no further WIP photos!

Finished article, drying on a jam jar

So, as I sit in the lounge typing my previous post, lamenting the fact that I had eaten my eggs and so couldn’t show you the comparison between the egg types I was getting, my two girl quails (who’s cage I cleaned out 4 hours ago, so these are brand new) have each laid an egg.

Eggy comparison (just washed)

Speckle was nesting them, but with quails that means nothing I believe. Mine are a little unusual in that they even bother to sit vaguely near their eggs on occasion; Japanese Coturnix are known to be appalling mothers. These are typical of the eggs I’m getting at the moment. One quail is laying beautifully smooth, strong, marbled eggs that are slow to go off and look smashing when wet, and which have included two double-yolkers so far. The other is laying faintly blue-green eggs with lumpy brown bits on (which was the norm for both quails up until recently), often larger than the other quail’s eggs but so fragile they are often broken before I collect them.

So – when quails on layers pellets from PetsAtHome – all eggs were blue-green with brown lumps. I assumed two were laying as more than one a day collected… but perhaps I wasn’t collecting them as often as I thought I was?
When quails switched to unbranded pellets from PetsCorner – 1/2 eggs blue/brown lumpy, 1/2 Eggs of Beauty.
5th Feb – The Great Mealworm Dispenser tries to get them to eat egg shell. Results pending.

They ate the mealworms and left the shell. I added the shell to their food (before they commenced the National Shell Powder Throwing Championships of 2017) , much to their dismay.

Hello! I still exist! So an update. I have a new job that allegedly gives me a better work-life balance though tbh I have yet to balance the sleep-life balance. Much sleeping when not working. It’s a work in progress.

I lost one of the quails 🙁 Not the one that tried to decapitate herself on a feeder – she’s doing fine, didn’t even lose an eye, though she did damage the ligament between ociput and spine. However the brown one (“Brownie”) was found deceased suddenly. She was never right, had her feathers in a bit of disarray since I had her.

As a result the other three moved back indoors over winter, as although they are obviously hard working livestock, and not pets, they are also prone to killing themselves by walking 30 inches, so having them indoors means I keep a closer eye on them. They spent 4-5 months in the utility room quite happily trying to see who could throw poo up the wall highest (3 foot was the record), and have now moved into the kitchen in a larger cage that has high plastic walls to reduce their poo throwing success rate. I was worried that either this would prompt the cats into a frenzy, or cause the quails to have a heart attack about the cats. Reality? Absolutely no reaction from either party. All my animals fail – the carnivores don’t recognise food when it moves into their home, and the prey animals have no survival skills.

It’s working out though. Boy still thinks I am a giant terrifying beast he needs to protect his girls from (when he’s not busy abusing and neglecting them – he’s such a cock) but Heart and Speckle have realised that when I approach the cage, mealworms often fall from the sky.

Anyway, I am now a mad cat lady with house quails. Witness my breakfast today. Poached quail eggs and salmon, on Ryvita crackerbreads, which is the closest thing to bread in my house. With mayo instead of hollandaise. It was very filling (this was I think 14 eggs worth, and the picture is after I’ve already eaten a third of the plate…)

Breakfast – mock Eggs Royale, 1/3 eaten

Now, of my two remaining girls, one is laying the most BEAUTIFUL marbled eggs. Smooth, strong and perfect, she’s a winner. The other however is laying the original blue and lumpy brown eggs that break if a quail walks over them (which they regularly do). I can’t show you a comparison as I have sadly eaten them all, so that will follow. Anyway, solution? Grind up the good egg shells and feed them to both girls (since I have no idea who lays what).

Grinding good eggs for bad.

I knew the spice mill bit on my food processor would come in handy one day.

An alternative form of powdered egg.

I put dried mealworms on top to encourage them to eat it.

Mealworms?! NOM!

We shall see if shell quality improves. Or if they just bathe in the egg dust. Note Boy on the back right, looking at me with suspicion… >.>

So, One Of The Twins (specifically twin with heart shaped spots rather than speckley twin) today was found minus one right eyeball. Quail are second only to sheep regarding unfortunate accidents. Said twin (who we shall call Heart for future ease) has a badly damaged right eye, suspected to be caused not by cannibalistic tendencies (entirely possible, see chickens re: seeing red), but by misadventure regarding a wire feeding ball. Heart is on pain relief and antibiotics, so finger and talons crossed.

Quail. Tiny tiny sheep.

That said, I’m doing well in regards to intermittent portions (given that about eight quail eggs are needed for one portion) of scrambled egg on toast.

It’s taken a few years but finally one of my life aims has come true! I own livestock!

Quails – living it up in their hutch

Quails! I have 3 girls and 1 boy. They’ve been here about 2 weeks now, and moved outside on Friday. They are settling in famously, and today marked an important event…

First Meal!

First full quail egg dish! Took 9 eggs but no chicken eggs required to have enough for breakfast!

Egg quality is improving – someone is laying nice orange yolkers and I haven’t had an error egg for about a week now they are on layers pellets instead of chick crumb.

No yolking… these shells had egg inside.

No names yet, though the brown one gets called Brownie, the boy is The Boy, and the other two get called the Twins.

Quails – poor Brownie, often on the outskirts

The boy is in the far corner.

And I clipped their wings! Thank heavens for YouTube. They aren’t big flyers but the hutch isn’t ideal in that the main access is through the hinged roof, and I don’t fancy chasing flying quails around the garden on cleaning day. I had to buy the hutch in a bit of a rush as they were in the house in a guinea pig cage but they attracted flies. They will be upgraded at some point.

Also – with 3 girls and a boy I can breed them… O.O

Today I tried to adult and failed.  AnM and I have started snowboarding lessons, so today, on day off, I decided to go and get boots. I went to 3 shops in my town, and they were either closed or rubbish. So I drove 45 minutes to AnM’s town, and her shop was open (yay) but the guy was waiting for someone else to come in (boo) so I failed to achieve boots. I was so proud of actually leaving the house as well, let alone going to another town. Usually I just sleep on my day off. To cheer myself up at this adulting fail, I went shopping for a feather duster so that I might start cleaning my bombsite of a house. I specifically wanted a real feather duster so I can dust without disturbing things and get good haptic feedback. *nods convincingly*

I bought:
– the wrong feather duster (I wanted a small handheld one, got a 4 foot long overpriced one but that was all they had, eh) Alf thinks it’s a giant cat toy, Spock thinks it’s a demon. Kiz has no opinion.
– an expensive mattress topper (my bad back means I sleep on the sofa at the moment, I need to solve this, lady in shop spoke convincingly and made me coffee which cheered me up after adulting fail)
– some white wicker shabby chic baskets (to put things in)
– a mop (I gave in – I hate them, dirty things that they are, but they are perhaps necessary. I draw the line at owning an iron though. That’s what hair straighteners are for.)
– wooden spoons (can you ever have enough?)
– some jars to put tea and coffee in (I did not need these)
– and some scotch (…)

Put topper on the bed, dusted the ceilings (I get a point for that) but then drank the scotch, watched two episodes of Buffy and played Kingdom until 1am. It is now 1.30am.

So today I am experimenting. I am curing fish. I have never done this before, so we’ll see how it goes! I have taken a lot of salt and some sugar… bog standard, nothing special…

I had some fish on the turn (brought cheap from the reduced aisle mostly, other than the trout that was from the fish counter). The fishmonger man said “It’s boney…” o.O I felt like answering “Yes. It’s fish.”

I have cured rainbow trout with Talisker…

Sea bass with a random cucumber and dill oil I had and garlic…

And my favourite idea, fish and chips, hold the chips! Plaice with malt vinegar and lemon…

They are now sitting in the fridge for a couple of days. I’ll let you know how I get on!

Dated October 2001 this fanfic was my first and only attempt at a fanfic. I submitted it to the Sugar Quill and there is an element of Mary Sue about it, however what stopped me continuing it was that the beta replied with “oo another Snape angst fic!” or something along those lines. Whilst this may be viewed positively, my mind focused on the word ‘another’, read it as ‘yet another’ and ignored the enthusiasm; filled with the sense that what I was doing had been done before, I abandoned it.

I think I write fairly well for a 20 year old undiagnosed dyslexic. All tipping errors are left intact for posterity:

Continue reading →