A School Free Life

Yesterday we set up a little experiment with Nikki, Luke and Emma. We were basically just testing to PH of some stuff around the house. It was pretty interesting to see how acidic some stuff was, for example, I mashed up a raspberry and it turned out to have a similar PH to lemon juice. We had some stuff to test Alkalinity, it seems that its mostly man-made stuff that is an alkaline. It went pretty well though, we had fun, if fun is trying to explain PH, acidity and alkalinity to a 7 year old.

On June 12 I woke up to find little barley dead. This caught me off guard as she wasn't ill, the night before I swapped her and robin over into each others cage, which I do quite often. She was eating and drinking fine and was moving without a problem. But the more I think about it the more it made sense, she was, after all, over 2 1/2 years old, which is quite a long life span for a rat.  I was extremely shook for the first couple hours but I calmed down quickly. I had to get rid of the weeds in the front bed in the garden so grandad could dig a hole (that's right, we don't put our pets in the bin), this led to me clearing to bed completely and planting some flowers, I've now done the same thing to the bed nest to it where Lemon was buried. I am very glad she went how she did, as far I can tell she died of old age, the best way to go :) She's a lot luckier than the other 3 who didn't get to go as quickly. Now there is only Robin, he lives in barley's ca...

When you hear that you're going to York for a 'Behind the scenes' at a museum, you would think that you're going to the 'Backstage' of a museum and learning about how to did everything there. But that wasn't at all the case. Instead we were stuck in a room for an hour learning about writing from an Inanimate  objects point of view, like 'The adventures of  a pincushion'... It's an exciting adventure about a pincushion!!! Yay!!  As you can definitely tell, I was THRILLED to learn about a phase in the 18th century where people started writing about random objects, instead of learning about the Fairfax house. But don't worry, we DID get to go to the actual Fairfax house! Because it was arranged as a Home ed trip, we didn't have to pay to get into the house itself, this lead to a very rushed, not even complete, tour of the house. This didn't impress me as Fairfax house is one of the few preserved houses that I actually liked. ...

On Friday the 6th of April our Freda gave birth to 9 little puppies! She had the first at 10:54 and the last one 20:00. All together we've got 4 Boys and 5 Girls.  After the 7th was born we thought that's was it, mainly because it was a whole 4 hours and nothing else had happened. I turned round and BOOM, one popped out. The next 5-10 minutes was chaos because we were just told that if anymore came they probably wouldn't survive, and also because he was in a awkward position so it was quite difficult to get a hold of him.  About 45 minutes after that we saw contractions so at least I was prepared, this one popped out easily and for a second I wasn't sure if he was breathing, but luckily he was. So far they're all looking good, cute and healthy. Even little Runty is fine. Someone is watching Freda 24/7 so we shouldn't lose any. I've been pooped on quite a few times and my slippers are covered in I don't know what. But its worth it :D.

A few days ago we went to Chester zoo, which is a pretty big and popular zoo here in the UK. Fun fact: According to Trip Adviser, Chester Zoo is rated 3# in the ENTIRE WORLD! It was alright, except for the fact wherever we went there were animals pooping, and there were school kids everywhere. Oh, and not forgetting the monkeys with haemorrhoids, or at least it looked like it. That was something that I could've lived without seeing... SO, moving on from that. My favourite part was the bat cave, which my coward of a sister didn't go anywhere near. It was really cool, I mean, it smelled terrible but it looked really cool... 300 bats flying round your head and you're bound the get hit at some point, which I did. The parks there are really good as well, it's just a pity that we didn't get long on them. It was honestly pretty good, still debating whether or not it was worth getting up at 6 for. Here's a small collage of photos. This is a bear, who has foun...

2 Days ago I had to put down Lemon, my third Rat to die. A week or so prior she had fallen ill, and we knew it was only a matter of time. For the her last week she got better and as even eating and drinking on her own.  But then, on Friday, she went from the best she had been in a while to the worst, in a matter of a few hours. I hoped it was just an episode so I put off taking her to the vets, until the following day where she was worse, way way worse. But the vets had already closed so I couldn't do anything until Monday. Nothing much happend on the Saturday, I lay in bed with her all day. She was only just able to move, basically dragging herself. On Sunday I made the decision to put her down the next day, she had a violent seizure which was horrible to watch, and since then she made bad twitching movements. I had really hoped she died over night, but she chose to carry on fighting. That makes it sound cruel of me to put her down while she is still fighting. But we all knew,...

Yesterday I had to get up way too early to go to York. 07:00-08:15 We get up, get dressed, get out. A 35 minute drive later we get to the train station, where we wait for 10 minutes trying to figure out where our train is. We finally get in York and then we wonder around a park feeding squirrels by hand with some monkey nuts that a lady gave us, (I ended up eating to rest of the monkey nuts). We go to our first museum, Yorkshire museum, wasn't overly interesting (wasn't at all interesting) so... moving on. York Castle museum was a bit better, If it wasn't for the 55 steps leading up to the the actual castle and then realising we can't get in without a pass it may have actually been a nice experience. We took a break and went back to the park to feed more squirrels... It was then that I was crowned Queen of The Pigeons . When a flock of pigeons descended and decided that I was to be their Queen... from that day forth, I was known... as the Vermin Queen. Armed with...