Adventures In Curing Chickens Of Red Spider Mite

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In the days when I had chickens, I could watch them for hours.

One time I noticed that they were pecking at each others’ bottoms. I knew that wasn’t good and could lead to much worse, so I spoke to the vet.

He told me that they might have red spider mite. The problem with a mite infestation is that it causes a raw patch that attracts other chickens to peck at it.

The vet suggested a spray to eradicate the mites. That was good in principle, but how was I going to administer it?

I guess I could have asked someone what was the best way to administer the spray, but I didn’t.

I pictured myself running around the chicken run trying to spray the chickens’ bottoms.

I had an idea though. At night when they are roosting, they sit on the roost on their haunches. They bend their legs and lower themselves, and their feet lock in place.

I figured that would give me time to spray them before they stood up and freaked out.

So I decided to spray them at night while they were in the wooden shed where they roosted. The shed had a wooden branch crosswise a few feet off the ground in it, and the chickens roosted on that.

Around dusk they would walk into the shed and walk around a bit inside and then fly up onto the roost.

The shed was what was called an ark – a low building with a pitched roof like a tiny house.

At one end was the box where they laid their eggs and at the other end was a small ramp where they entered the ark and a door so that I could get in from time to time to clean it out.

So after they were settled in for the night I crept into the ark and got my aerosol spray can ready to go up and down the line of chickens’ bottoms, spraying.

I don’t recall but I guess I had a torch with me so I could see what I was doing.

What I do remember is what happened.

I was lucky in that they were sleeping in a line all facing the same way, and away from me.

I figured I had a minute or so while the chickens woke up and stood erect so they could release their grip on the roosting branch and fly up in the air. I pictured a shed full of panicking chickens with feathers flying everywhere.

What I didn’t take into account was that the spray was ice cold when it came out of the pressurized can.

Nor was I ready for their reaction. Those chickens couldn’t have been more pleased.

They each raised their bottoms in slow motion and waggled them into the path of the spray, emitting the chicken equivalent of a low moan of pleasure.

And I worked my way along the row, working to the tune of their little moans.

Understand How To Vote In The Forthcoming Scottish Election

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On the 5th May, the people of Scotland will vote to elect Members Of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs).

Every registered voter received a leaflet from the Electoral Commission that explained the voting system.

If reading the leaflet left you with unanswered questions, read on.

There are eight regions in Scotland, with seven MSPs for each region, giving a total of 56 regional MSPs.

Within thoses eight regions that are 73 constituencies, divided roughly equally across the regions.

So the total number of MSPs is 129 (56+73)

Therefore, everyone in Scotland is represented by eight MSPs – one constituency MSP and seven regional MSPs.

MSPs serve currently for four years, and the last election was in 2011 – hence the election on 5th May. That’s changing and those elected on 5th May will serve for five years to keep in line with European Union terms and the rest of the UK. The idea is that it will help cut costs by not having elections in different years.

At the polling station everyone will be handed two voting slips – a lilac voting slip for the constituency MSP and a peach-coloured voting slip for the regional MSP.

The lilac constituency ballot paper lists the name of each candidate along with their party name and party logo.

The peach regional ballot paper lists the parties and any independent candidates. It does not list the names of the party candidates.

So in essence and leaving independents out of the picture, you vote regionally for a party, and locally for a person.

Constituency candidates are elected on a first-past-the-post system.

Regional votes are counted using the Additional Member System. The system attempts to ensure that it is unlikely that one party will dominate the seats or that any party that gets less than 7% of the vote will get a seat.

A party can list up to 12 regional candidates in each of the 8 electoral regions and could get up to seven members voted in at the election. The remaining people on the list are there to fill in any places that become vacant during the next five years due to death or other cause.

The City of Edinburgh Council has a link where you can download the Lothian Regional party lists for each party.

The Scottish Regions

The Scottish Regions for the election of MSPs

Guilty Men

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Guilty Men is a slim book – just 125 pages – written in 1940 by ‘Cato’ – the collective nom de plume of the journalists Michael Foot, Frank Owen, and Peter Howard.

It is an attack on the governments of Baldwin, MacDonald, and Chamberlain of the previous ten years, arguing that they had failed to prepare Britain for an inevitable war and describes how the actions of these governments led to the debacle of Dunkirk.

The book cites Churchill as the man who had consistently warned of the dangers and who was the right man to be in charge of Britain’s future in the war years.

It was a runaway bestseller and the principal author, Michael Foot, went on to become the leader of the Labour Party in Britain.

I bought a copy from a second-hand bookshop after learning of the existence of the book while reading Nehru’s The Discovery of India. I zipped through Guilty Men in a couple of sittings and more or less believed every word of it.

The benefit of 70 years hindsight is pretty good at testing the truth of what was said in the book. I recommend it to anyone who wants to read the story of Britain in the lead up to its darkest hour.

Where The Title Of the Book Came From

The Preface to the book states:

On a spring day in 1793 a crowd of angry men burst their way through the doors of the assembly room where the French Convention was in session. A discomforted figure addressed them from the rostrum. “What do the people desire?” he asked. “The Convention has only their welfare at heart.” The leader of the angry crowd replied. “The people haven’t come here to be given a lot of phrases. They demand a dozen guitly men.”

Who was Cato?

There were several people named Cato in Roman history, but I think the one who fits the best description was Cato the Younger. He is described in Wikipedia as being remembered for his legendary stubbornness and tenacity, as well as his immunity to bribes, his moral integrity, and his famous distaste for the ubiquitous corruption of the period.

The Bladders In Turner’s Paintbox

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In June 2014 Tamara and I went to an exhibition at the National Gallery in London entitled ‘Making Colour’

It examined the way artists have used the distribution of colour in paintings to bring out their brilliance. It is a science; a science of the colour wheel and of primary colours and complimentary colours.

One of the exhibits that caught my eye was Turner’s paintbox. It was divided into square compartments and in each of them was what looked like a small bottle.

However, each ‘bottle’ was misshapen, as though it had been squeezed and deformed. And the neck of each container was bound with twine.

I asked the staff whether they knew what the containers were made of and left the question with them, and subsequently received an email answering my question:

Thank you for completing a Comments Form on 19 June 2014 regarding Turner’s paintbox in the Making Colour exhibition.

I have been in contact with the Director of Collections and Curator of the exhibition Ashok Roy who has provided me with the following response:

The traditional method for storing prepared oil paints before tubes were fully commercialised from 1841 was in ’pigs’ bladders’, by which is meant a bit of intestine (like a sausage casing), tied off with twine.

The paint was squeezed out through a hole made by a metal tack, and re-sealed with the tack. This is the form of the paint container in the Turner box.