gwyneth

Gwyneth went in with the rest today in an atempt to make her live with them properly. She is refusing to come out of her house. She has been sleeping with them for 10 days now but has been in a seperate run in the day o she is safe and doesnt get pecked to death. She went to the vest a couple of weeks ago now ( didnt get round to blogging) and she had a bad leg which could be why she is not standing up for herself. Having had antibiotics, pain killers and rest she now needs to try to fit in. Trouble is according to several folk including the rescue she cam e from there are a certain proportion who are very timid and farmers would just ring their necks. I can take her back but do not want to so we are going to have to try and get her to live with the rest of the flock. They are ok when free ranging with her but not in the run. She is getting battered today poor little girl.

life is moving so quickly I have little time for blogging

Well this last month has been crazy. I am still making soap etc. I am also now writing freelance for a new magazine which is out in October - in time for halloween. Cant say the name of the magazine but its all about making natural cosmetics. I have always wanted to be a writer and never done anything serious about it. I did Brighton Eco-veggie fayre which was a complete disaster for Brackencraft but someone approached me there and asked if I would be interested in writing for a new magazine. I said I was interested but didnt really expect anything to come of it. Well I submitted 2 aryticles and they want to use both which is wonderful. I am hoping to write some more and they have sent me the deadlines for submission so they must have an interest in me doing this. I have yet to be paid - apparently will happen when the magazine is pulished and have to just take this as it comes I suppose. If it really does work out I will be in heaven! As for the rest of my current ventures: the doggy shampoo has been a huge hit and now is back on the market after a complete sell out of the first batch in record time.A close second is the coconut milk soap which is also now sold out and more in curing time so will be ready in about 2 weeks I would think. I was intending to discontinue some of the older soaps but just as I was allowing stocks to run out I have had a real run on camomile & lemon and if I reember correctly it was the same this time last year and now they are buying it with the camomile shampoo bar - they do match really so I am not going to discontinue that one. Similarly white cinnamon was meant to go but is selling too fast to get rid of. The slowest is the old best seller - cinnamon swirl. Still I suppose it could be a Christmas collection soap which would be better really. I have several new soaps which are safety assessed for this xmas so will be able to have a whole new collection just for Christmas. Including and really I am still unser about this a bath bomb with glitter on. It is not really natural but hell why not. Its for xmas after all and if it doesnt sell then I wil not repeat next year. And I am all for natural everything but I do love a bit of glitter! especially at xmas. I have been very slack blogging this last month but have been back out at markets and too be honest it is not going well. Rugby Crafts is a good one for me and I love it since its so small a town. other than that I am doing wellesbourne - one of the largest markets in the UK, Thorseby which is 72 miles away so a serious sunday treck and in between I have done a steam fair and it was brilliant. I am intending to do lots more steam fairs infact cos I loved the whole this. Steam engines everywhere, vintage cars, bikes, owls - rescued, wolf-dogs, you name it they probably had it. It was just wonderful. And there was a real ale tent as well! Leamington peace festival is next month and next week I am off to bristol eco-veggie fair. Not too sure about this one as it goes. I love to be in a vegan world where I can eat without worry and everyone thinks I am normal rather than awkard, attention seeking or just a freak, but the last 2 of these events have done we have made a serious loss so its very worrying. I habve also bought a caravan - well my parents bought ost of it for my birthday which is absolutely wonderful of them. I would have only been able to afford a complete wreck otherwise. My birthday is months away - July but they offered to do this for me and its great. The caravan we have is still very old- 1988 I think and is an avondale perle. Its possibly got a slightly rotten front window but was still the best of the bunch we looked at for the money it cost. Considering its age I think it is ok. Most of the ones we saw we complete wrecks and only really belonged in a horse field as a tea making room! Some even fell to bits while we looked at them. WE went all the way to mansfield to see one and when we got there M put his hand underneath to see what the chassis was like and a big bit of it fell off! And that was a £400 caravan!!! Anyway we added a bit of cash and bought a better one in the end and it was only a mile away at a local caravan dealers. Mansfield is 72 miles away as well so this was starting to be a real expensive venture in fuel! Other than this I have made some new products including a version of Tiger balm and a massage bar - for M. I think the massage bar is ace and if I can afford it will have to pay for safety assessment at some point but for now I am not intending to sell cos have yet to pay for the current new products assessment. Its due to be paid this saturday. I have yet to rais £100 towards it as well so slightly worrying but I suspect saturaday and sunday shoudl sort that small problem. Talk about living on the edge. Eating is the main problem. If I didnt need to eat and hence to buy food or pay bills the business would be a success but sadly I have to keep taking out money for living! I suppose thats the trouble for everyone tho. I can make enbough to replace stock and keep trading no problem. Mind you the safety assessment bill has nearly killed me. Its around the £600 mark so has been a serious drain on rescources but was much needed since I have "prettied up all the older soaps and added several new products some of which are already seeling really well so if I can hang on here I should be sorted I think. I need to find folk to try out the tiger balm now cos I have loads of possible improvements lined up but since its something I have not really used for years and never very often I need some help with this. Tiger balm recipes are everywhere online but they are all differents and the essential oil proportions stated are not legal in the UK so I need to try and make a legal version that will also be effective. People ask me for tiger balm nearly every week so I could do with having some available but I refuse to sell the petrochemical variety normally available. The logical conclusion finally occurred to me about a week ago in a flash of inspiration ( happens occassionally) that I could just make a natural version. Some tho have ginger, others have cinnamon, others camphor and oil of wintergreen so I need to do some serious experiments before this can be marketed! And will I make a good one that is reall worth selling?

Gwennytoo and Gwyneth

I have 2 new hens. Gwennytoo and Gwyneth. WE did a steam fair and right next to us was a stall rehoming battery hens so we brought 2 of them home. Gwennytoo and Gwyneth are terrible to look at. they have no fearthers just stuppy bits where they should be. Gwennytoo has beaten up all my other birds so should be fine and Gwyneth will not come out of the hen house. Hopefully in a few days this will change

Gwen-death of my beautiful girl

Gwen is a chicken or hen. Gwen died today. She had freedom less than one year. She came from a battery farm via the Little hen rescue. I had her in June last year with 2 other girls and then 3 more a week or so later. Three weeks ago I took her to the vets convinced she had gapeworm. She kept opening her mouth. The vet said the wormer I had been giving her was fine - she had it once a month as directled on the bottle and the vet looked down her throat and saw nothing so said I was wrong and she had a mild infection. She gave gwen antibiotics. Gwen got better. She wen back in with her friends having spenst a few daysin my kitchen. Then she was suddenly ill looking so I tok her out this morning. By lunchtime I was very concerned and phoned the vets. Instead of going to the local office who I was sure had got it wrong and I was still convinced gwen had gape worm so we took her 40 miles to warwick which is teh head office of our vets. We saw a vet who knopws about chickens. She confirmed I was right - me who knows nothing about chickens!! Obviously previous vet must have been incompetant- and gwen has a chest infection. Gave er antibiotics and this time a new wormer since the one I was using DID NOT kill gape!!!!! I was using vermX. The new one is flubenvet and states on it it kills gape amongst other types of worms. Its a white powder you mix into their food. Gwen had an injection - all in all these 2 visits cost over £70. We get home and are there about 2 minutes wne gwen has a sort of fit and just dies......................
I am so upset..............

A chicken in my kitchen

Well I realised yesterday I had a sick bird. She was not eating. I had horrible ideas about gape worm - I have read all sorts about it. Its a worm chickens pick up from the soil and it blocks their throat so they cannot eat or drink. Anyway we took her to the vet - costs us loads tho we did manage to get some doggie toothpaste which is impossible to find in Rugby and we normally go 20-odd miles to get. Anyway chicken is not infested with gapeworm ( vet looked down her throat. Chickens have pointed tongues I discovered) but some non-descript illness and she is now in my kitchen in a rabbit cage on antibiotics since the rest do not need antibiotics and it goes into their water. She still didnt eat and I was very worried by 11am this morning. Then my resident cockateil Ben(Ben-Jamima - shes a girl but we didnt know till she started laying eggs about 3 years after we had her) decides to sit on the kitchen door and talk to this huge birdie. It was very funny when Ben suddenly realised there is a huge (relatively) bird in the kitchen and she was so shocked. She started squarking as she does and the chicken started to cluck which is brilliant since she had just made this wining noise for all of yesterday and today until then. Ben is just brilliant. I explained chicken is ill and not eating and normally lives in the garden. No idea what she said to the chicken but they seemed to have a chat ( this is for real honest!) and the chicken starts to eat. Then she ran out of food and I have given her more and she is definitely better since she has preened her feathers. She will probably have to stay in the kitchen for 5 days yet tho. Not good.

legal vehicles and lots of hope

I am doing really badly and then today I had an order from someone for over £200 ( wholesale so not really that much but much better than I have been doing recently). Its looking good. Also a publisher has offered me free advertising in a vegan trade mag which I cannot afford to pay for which is totally unexpected and very generous of them. Maybe all this small amount of good luck is going to make it work after all. I managed to MOT the van and pay for the tax ( today) and I did ok at Brum vegan fair which was brilliant fun as expected. Sadly I will stil be struggling to pay for Bristol Eco-fair but who knows maybe it will all just fall into place. The tax man will want the tax return soon too so I had better get round to doing the books up to date in the next week. I have had to buy some new candle supplies which is a pain to fullfill the new order - its good to get it tho dont get me wrong but its for 16 candles so I have to make more and when weighing available candle wax I do not expect to have enough. Still with luck there will be other candle orders so the money wont be tied up too long. Then this weekend we are back at Wellesbourne market - in the rain by the looks of things and there is a new ( for us!) market in Sherwood forest which we are going to try. The woman I spoke to on the phone about it seemed really nice and not at all like the usual Toby( market manager) so I am hopeful this may be a good one. I should be back on Rugby craft market in May too so not too long to survive. This so they say is the year that decides if you have infact got a viable business. Most companies go under in the next few months timewise. I just hope I manage to make it work. This is real make your dream come true thing for me and I am tryng everything now that I can think of. There is no point doing the tiny local markets tho- tempted as I am since I hate sitting round waiting for it to work but I just lost money last year doing them. WE are still seriously financially knackered but maybe at the end of April we will be getting there again. We managed to spend just £60 on food last month ( we do have loads of dried pulses in stock) and I am off to pick some nettles now to make nettle soup from the recipe emailed to me by the Vegan familly house
http://www.veganfamily.co.uk/soups.html
worth trying I think. Also the Redditch veggies and vegans have a talk on soon which sounds really interesting on picking your own wild foods as follows:
Wild food for free talk & demonstration, On Wednesday 7 April, a talk in Redditch offers the opportunity to explore nature's free wild food larder. You can pick up lots of ideas for foraging, cooking and feasting on the wild plant food that is freely available to us all. The talk will be given by Mary Green, a wildlife writer from Alvechurch and is hosted by the Redditch Vegetarian and Vegan Society(RVV).
Using freshly picked samples from the local area, Mary will show us what plants are edible, where to look for them, how to safely identify them and how to prepare them. She'll even tell us how to cook wild foods, so you'll have all the info you need to make the transition from pathway to plate! The meeting will take place from 7.30pm at St Georges Community Hall, St Georges Road, Redditch. Admission is free, all are welcome.
As it happens I currently have no idea where St Georges Hall is but I am intending to try and go to this since it sounds just the type of talk I will like. Also all the other talks of this type I have seen advertised include killing and gutting animals and personally being veggie this really does not appeal so I never go but I do want to know more about wild foods so this could be really good. Its quite a long way from me but I will see if I can make it.

nominated for Eco-vaggie awards 2010

Its been too long since I wrote anything for the blog so sorry for that if there are any readers left out there after this extreme slackness. I have been really busy though. This weekend we are at Brighton Eco-veggie fayre and I could not believe when I saw it but Brackencraft has been nominated for the Eco-veggie awards. When you see who else has been nominated we have about zero chances of getting anywhere but just to be nominated is amazing. And in the second year of trading too so very promising really. I was so excited when i saw it. No idea who nominated us or how many people but thank you so much if it was you. I was starting to be really worried how I am going to mamange to pay for everything - MOT for van, safety assessments for new products which perhaps I should not have done but I will not do any more for a few years after these I think - tho already have 2 new things in experimental stages! still may just keep them for friends! and also I now have to make a real living since all savings have run out. Infact they ran out a few weeks ago now and its surprising how little you really need to get by on but life right now is hard not fun. So getting nominated for anything would be pretty fantastic but the fact I have been trading such a short time it is just like a dream. How it has happened I really do not know. I need to find out who choses and how many votes are needed etc but either way its brilliant for the business since if nothing else its publicicity and rght now I cannot afford to advertise at all. The 2 adverts I went with were a waste of money - one just gets me invites to school and brownies events which is very nice and they tend to be enjoyable to do, but small things like this are not going to make me a living. The other - Midlands green pages is proving to be a complete waste of money. Well both were really. I need to put an ad in Off the hoof I think but have no money right now to do this. Its a catch 22 situation so getting listed in something like the Eco-veggie awards and for my soap!! is brilliant since if nothing else sme folks will read about me/brackencraft. Well spent yesterday getting a local lady to look after the chickens when I am away and tomorrow poor dogs go in kennels - hopefully they will behave themselves! And its just a lonely cockateil in the house poor girl till sunday midday. I am worried about the chickens to since I think we have a Rat!. No definite evidence other than a tunnel that keeps appearing in their run but I think its bigger than a mouse hole so I have ordered a humane rat trap off the internet. I actually asked the local garden centre if they sell them or can get them intending to go to the local business and support local trade etc. I got a lecture on how it was wrong to release rat back into the fields and not fair on farmers! As if there are no rats there already. Its not like I intend to release it into a barn or something. Finally when explaining to nasty woman behind counter that I do not want to kill it since had 2 lovely pet rats not so long ago and "there but for the will of god go I" etc ( not that I am at all religious but it seems this particular expression does work on church types when talking about the murder of such creatures as rats.) Anyway I may just have to boycott that garden centre from now on. They cost more than places like Homebase and B&Q and if they insist on being so nasty then whats the point of supporting them - after all this rat trap has cost me £23 on the internet with shipping so they could probably have charged me £25 for it and made and kepts their nasty gobs shut. Besides surely if you want customers you should keep your stupid out of date oppinion to yourself and if they dont its fair they lose me as a customer. Since they are closer than anywhere else - just about any shop infact- I have been a reasonably regular customer despite things like compost being a fraction if the price at big stores like Wickes which is 10 miles away but this is unreasonable and she was quite nasty and very disaproving and I reckon from now on I shall save money and use slightly more fuel but still save overall and buy from the big stores where infact they will probably also stock humane rat traps. Yes I may have to resort to poison but if at all possible I want to attempt to release the unfortunate animal into the wild - just well away from where we live and in the middle of some fields. Apparently if you release too close to home they will find their way back. I feel bad enough depriving the poor creature of its familly since there are probably quite a few of them and since it will probably never see its familly again once released and do not see that it will achieve a great deal to murder the poor animal just because it decided to make a meal out of the food my messy chickens throw all over the floor. And also I could end up poisoning wild birds, my dogs, moles etc if i use nasty murderous chemicals to kill it. And after all this ranting does this small creature have less right to life than anything else just because it happens to be a rat?