May 8 2001

We got our free-range eggs on Sunday. The hens are Rhode Island Reds. I verified that. They spend all day out in the fields eating spiders and worms and seeds and anything else they can find. But they get some sort of supplementary feed as well. Then they are brought in at night and presumably lay a few eggs before they go out again in the morning. That one on the left looks vaguely familiar. No, it couldn't be. I bartered the eggs for some lovely hydroponic tomatoes. The plants are grown in water, with no soil at all being involved. All the required food is added to the water in a controlled way. They really come out good with a lovely tender skin and a good flavour. Thanks to Newcastle Ray the blackbird is going in and out more often now as the pangs of hunger have to be satisfied on a more regular basis. There's definitely 4 chicks there and all of them seem to be OK. I must say it's very difficult to tell by looking at them. They look so miserable. But the fact that they are all eating and are all still alive must mean they are OK. I wonder will they all make the grade. The question is relevent. Yesterday (Monday) I found a chick from unknown quarters on the ground outside the front of the house. I spent quite some time looking for the nest he might have come from. But alas agus faraor I could find no sign of one, so I guess he had to go by way of the cold and starvation. Nature, with all it's benevolence has a very hard side too. I see I have had two new visitors to my guest book. Hello Clodagh. Hello Francine. So now I have had 4 visitors. One of them was me myself and I. Another was Clondalkin Ray. And then we have Clodagh and Francine. The biggest problem with web sites is to get people to them. You can have the best site in the world but if people don't know it's there you might as well not have it at all. That's why sites are continually advertised on television. So having a site doesn't mean that your advertising bill will go down. It might well go up!!! However, once you have got people to your site via your advertising, you can tell them an awful lot more about your products and services than you ever could in your TV ad. And again once you have got them there you can do business with them there and then.