Meet the Hatchlings

I've been a bit under the radar recently as a blogger and indeed in real life too. 

My health hasn't been at it's best, plus hospital visits, helping mum to move off the island and general life stuff has meant my writing muse had upped and gone on holiday.

The only exception has been my introduction and subsequent addiction to Instagram where you can find me under @madmadammel, I have also added a widget to my sidebar.

But during the past few weeks one of the exciting developments here at home has been out first brood of baby chicks hatching in the incubator.

The plan this year is to raise our breeding stock, this our first hatchlings include Large Lavender Auracana, Cream Legbar, Welsummer, and the pale yellow one above is one of our own mixed breeds most likely a Rhode Island Red.

At over 4 weeks old now the hatchlings are huge, around the size of pigeons, they will be out in the big wide world before you know it, ready to be joined by a soon to be hatched second brood of chicks.

A Year of Great Change

The past few years have felt as though we are constantly creating change in our life and lifestyle, purchasing the smallholding, moving 600 miles away, moving to an island, renovations on the cottage, getting married, in some ways it has felt a bit of a whirl and has certainly flown by.

This year appears to be heralding yet more big changes for us with the first being the final phase of the renovation. Last week we finally submitted planning permission for the conversion of the barns, but after having no kitchen for over five years I find myself wanting to hold back on actually getting started.

It feels too big and overwhelming a project, scary unknown territory and the unknown element of not knowing how much the job is going to cost due to doing the work ourselves.

It is easy to fall into the trap of putting up with how things are even if they are not perfect, and then holding back, resisting jumping into the scary unknown.

But change is inevitable, we cannot stagnate or we risk going through the motions in our lives.

So we pause.......  breathe...... and then we jump.

Imbolc Activities - Creating New Candles from Old

The other day on the blog I mentioned that the season of Imbolc, or Candlemas would begin in a few days, and I thought yesterday to make a brief video of one of the activities I would be doing as part of my preparations.

So if you would like to see a rare video of me chatting about candles feel free to click on the video below :)

Spring comes a peeping

A quick nip into the garden during a break in the weather and we already find evidence of mother nature waking up from her winter slumber, although it is still a slow sleepy waking, like a cold weekend morning when there is nowhere pressing you need to be.

The festival of Imbolc, or Candlemas is only a few days away now and after a couple of weeks of slowly getting back into a routine and enjoying the hibernation feeling of that post-holiday madness, I feel ready to start putting forth my own fresh new growth.

Like the snowdrops just peeking through the snow

 it is time to begin.

A fresh and Marvellous New Start

 Often the longer it has been since you have done something, the longer you then leave it to begin again, making it even longer since you did it and even harder to start and so on.

I'm not sure what happened to my blogging, I sort of took some time off during the summer months when the boys were visiting, and then found it really hard to get back into the flow of writing again, it seemed so much easier to just do something else all the time.

 Sort of like when you haven't exercised for a while for whatever reason, and then it seems like so much effort to begin again.

Also I kind of felt like I had lost my blogging way, my purpose, till I remembered that blogging had simply been a way to share with the world my musings, what we are doing in our little corner of the world, and what I am currently creating.

Also I felt as if I wasn't really being me online, not really sharing the stuff we were doing as much as I had been, and also avoiding talking about certain stuff, not out of any sense of lack of privacy, more just because it didn't fit in with what I thought the blog's 'content' was about, hmm.

Well stuff that, it's my blog and I will share whatever speaks to me, inspires me and what I am thinking, warts and all.

So here's to a fresh New Year, lets make it a Marvellous one !!!!