A pair of parakeets

Dear Readers, today I noticed that the pair of parakeets who’ve been visiting the peanuts have swelled to four. At this rate of exponential growth I won’t be able to get into the garden for small green parrots by the end of the month, but they are most welcome at their current numbers, especially as they prefer the peanuts to anything else, and they are the only ones who eat them. Even the squirrels prefer the sunflower hearts. Go figure.

Today I have mostly been involved in writing up my assignment for my cell biology OU course – it’s due on 24th January but as it’s my birthday on the 20th I didn’t want to spend all of next weekend plugging away when I could be sitting on the sofa, sipping champagne and generally being decadent. To be frank, my brain has pretty much exploded with all the new things I have to learn on the subject of enzymes and DNA and mRNA and tRNA but I have enjoyed pretty much every minute, in spite of having to work like billy-o to catch up after my illness before Christmas. One more push and I’ll be on top of everything, I reckon.

Anyhow, this is a short one today as it’s been pouring with rain and I’ve barely  looked outside the door, except to note that the Christmas trees have not been collected yet and so they’ll probably be cluttering up the place for the next week. However, my lovely readers have contacted me to tell me of some innovative ways that other places are using their Christmas trees – Anne Guy tells me that her local wildlife reserve was putting old Christmas trees in the lake to act as a refuge for the fish, and Kaydee Rouge tells me that her local yarn producers Whistlebare have been feeding the trees to their angora goats, who seem very happy with the forage.

Goats enjoying the Christmas trees at Whistlebare farm

I just hope that no one has sprayed their trees with fire-retardant/fir perfume/any of the other strange potions that you can use these days, but I’m sure that the people collecting the trees will have asked. And, in the case of the goats, what a great way to convert plants into soil nutrients!