Chicken and herb.

 

No, it's not what u'r thinking... I'm referring to our "free range" pet chickens. I eventually found a new young Pekin hen advertised and rushed over to get the last one. She's a little red mix and looks like a "boshoender". She will be fondly known as Katrientjie ;)

 

So Friday, just after Katrien's arrival, the "in-laws" came to visit and I proudly picked up our older little black Pekin hen to show of her soft, fluffy feathers. 5 Min later my skin was crawling with the speedy migration of a few hundred minute little lice - yuck!! When I checked in on our new arrival and after a hilarious little chicken chase around the coop and imminent escape to the outside, I checked on Hettie to see if I can see the lice on her. Boy! Could I see them - her whole face and body was teeming with these little buggers! It was actually disgusting how I have neglected her needs.

 

So, Saturday morning at the crack of dawn, I jumped out of bed to search for organic remedies for these little pests: Consulted my chicken book and all I could find was the conventional wisdom of lice powder (which will surely not be organic) and a few other ideas but no solutions. I decided that I will do a proper scrub down of the entire coop with a strong herbal spray (yet-to-be-determined), put a few drops Apple Cider Vinegar (organic and unfiltered) in the drinking water and provide a suitable sand-pit for dust baths plus some oyster shell grit. I will possibly also have to reconsider what I feed her because I see she doesn't eat all her food and I don't like wasting! I made up my own mix before, but will have to figure out what is best to feed the 2 of them, especially since Katrientjie is a little younger and probably needs more protein.

 

Welcome back Home

Sometime after 11pm on Saturday we arrived back home from a 3 wk trip to Italy. It's a pity that such a beautiful country is so far away from us, since it would be wonderful to go there more often, but without the tedious 18-hour transit back to the Southern tip of Africa. We were up at around 3:30am and had to check our luggage in 2 hours before our 6:30am flight from Rome to Amsterdam, then rush from one terminal to get our connecting flight to Cape Town, which landed at around 10:30pm... without our luggage of course :P

Yup, no awesome holiday is complete without delayed luggage and I only so hoped that we would get it all back in one piece! There were a couple bottles of red wine (Brunello, Chianti and other Tuscan gems) and a brand new pair of Italian leather boots that would certainly have 'disappeared' should any SA staff have decided to 'inspect' it. I unpacked our cute new espresso saucers on the counter with excitement, only to realise that the cups were still in my suitcase. 

International flights are always exhausting, but this one was even more especially so, because it was a day flight and even though we never really think so we do get a little bit more sleep on an evening flight, which makes it seem just a little shorter. I think next time I'm taking some mild sedative to help me get some Z's, because no matter how cheerful, thin and friendly your passenger-next-door is, it's always irritating to sit so close and cooped up next to a stranger. All I wanted for 12 hours was to be back home

 with my pets and without the horrible turbulence (which did provide some good extra effects for my in-flight movie, Kung-fu Panda 2).