Waterfalls, Wet Fowls and Thunder Thighs

I loathe having to go to town in the rain. That feeling of water running down your neck every time you get out of the car, having to scurry from shop to shop and the mad dash to get all your purchases into the house before they turn into pulp is not pleasant. However Thursday I needed to go to hospital for heart tests so had to brave a terrible rain storm.

The shingle section of our road is now just one long succession of pot holes. If you try to go round one you just drive straight into another. The rain had gouged great chasms across the dirt which saw mini waterfalls pouring into the paddocks. Even the sealed section wasn't much better as the water began creeping right across making driving quite dangerous. The road beneath Te Mata peak was obscured by four or five slips where the clever powers-that-be had decreed all the trees holding the banks together along the roadside be felled. Bet they're feeling a bit foolish now considering all the times workmen are called out to clean up landslides.

We didn't suffer as badly as the Wairarapa though who are still cleaning up after extensive surface flooding. Today we are expecting 120 km westerly winds but I for one will welcome them as we need something to dry up the mud.

In the midst of all this I decided to shift the mother hen and her three month old chick into "the big house". This proved quite simple as I just held the chick while Mum followed me yelling abuse. Unfortunately the chick wasn't too sure if she should be in the shed with the others and I found her standing bedraggled at the hen run gate Thursday morning. I washed out the old plastic rubbish bin that was in their hutch in the hope she would recognise it and stand in there out of the rain but she didn't want a bar of it preferring to get soaked instead.

Fortunately she's settled in a bit better now. When I let the chickens out at lunchtime I catch her and put her in the shed where I feed her. I will do this for another couple of days till she realises that is her new home so that she'll happily return there in the afternoon when I put everyone to bed.

Piper is doing well. Her "Thunder Thighs" have gone back down to a normal size so the heart pills are definitely working. She gets annoyed with me for keeping her inside at night and sits on the window sill looking out at all the mice, rats and other prey she'd normally be catching as they file past giving her the finger in defiance. It's a tough life being a cat!