160 Snails

This dog that doesn't want to eat her food is driving me up the wall! :P She's a happy, healthy and playful 8 month old pup, but even though she's getting a super meal with specially cooked chicken mince and very nice looking Woolworths pets mince (plus rice, lentils, little veg etc) twice a day, she still doesn't really want to eat it!?? Not even if I put milk on top?! I really have no more ideas regarding her food preferences. And sometimes she'll eat it later in the day, so it's not something she deems inedible... ??? I weighed her at the vet's the other day and she's already 27 kg, now probably even more. I thought the breed (Irish Red setter) only weighs in at about 28 kg as an adult bitch? But clearly I must be wrong... this means that I have actually been feeding her slightly too little. She often doesn't eat all her food though, so feeding more wouldn't have done any better. The amount of Royal Canin pellets she should get is calculated according to her expected adult weight... the breeders haven't got back to me about how much her mom weighs, so I can get a better estimate. I had one last plan in mind for puppy stew, which I cooked last night, and if that doesn't work she's just gonna get straight pellets every day.

This morning while doing my round in the garden I came across the aftermath of Tuesday night's massacre. I wanted to serve the freshest peas for dinner that night and so, headed out with my raincoat and torch in hand to discover a gazillion snails all over our wonderlawn, then all over the cabbage, the stairs, the walls - basically everywhere! The snails were out having a feast on all my hard work and so I decided to squash all of them. I lost count at around 160 snails and I am quite sure that there will still be more of them. With so many snails in our garden I am VERY surprised that there's anything edible left in our garden!! Clearly the other tricks/gimmicks (beer traps, copper steel-wool, egg shells... etc.) don't quite work. Yesterday I saw the most cutetest little chicks ever! I so almost bought them, I'm sure they'll be very entertained by the fine dining on my snails;) I had specially gone out to buy Organic snail bait yesterday but now I might not need it ;) I think I'll put the bait around my next lettuce and cabbage beds, those seem to be the biggest target for our slimy friends. But WOW! I was really dumbfounded by the amount of snails out in the drizzle! Definitely the easiest way to get rid of those buggers.

I have to admit that even though I love growing, cooking and eating food, I find breakfast to be much of a waste! It's fine and recreational if you have the world's time and can make something really yummy like poached eggs with hollandaise, but on a normal, busy "work"day I would much rather have slept that extra 20 minutes!! ;) It either takes too long to make or is the same old boring sandwich/rusk/porridge (which I don't really like unless it's REAL porridge - which once again takes more time to make). I've gone through the yogurt phase, where all I eat is yogurt every morning, I had a toast phase, a muesli phase, instant porridge, etc and am now on a rusk phase, but it is becoming boring too...?

At least this morning, for a change, Jenn is gobbling up her breakfast. I made her puppy stew with Free range chicken necks and giblets and I think I discovered the magic ingredient! Whole pieces of something she can crunch on... I also left out the usual lentils (coz I've noticed they're not digesting properly anyway) and added some sweet potato. And Violla! Clearly the puppy stew is what makes or breaks the meal. I also made a little hole in the middle for a lick of milk, now I just hold thumbs that she keeps finding this recipe tasty enough.

The other great excitement is that our horse, Shala, is moving outside to a small paddock at night in stead of the very cramped little "stable", more like small stalls, where she became very unfriendly at feeding time. Stables are less than ideal for a barefoot horse, since the soft footing does nothing to stimulate strong hoof growth and they inevitably poop and wee on the floor where they have to stand all night and that breaks down the protein in the hooves - which sort of works against you if you're trying to condition the hooves to ride happily over tough rocks and stones. Her feet are not looking to bad, but with barefoot trimming they can only get better and better and the move to the paddock is much more productive, since she at least has the opportunity to walk around and graze what little grass there is during the night and the footing is harder (even though it's grass) and she doesn't stand in her own mess. I am SO excited about this and can't wait to see how the feet will improve. Madam is also a little on the fat side, so a little more motion and few night out in the wind and rain will do her good. 

So all Happiness here today :D  

Now, I'm off to go find out about them chickens ;)