Downshifting remedies....

Some remedies were needed by both plant and beast here this week and being Downshifting Week I was more than motivated to make them up yesterday. The "feathery(less) ones" appear to be having a moult and seem a little lackluster and eggless at the moment so treat time it was for them.

I made up a tonic by mixing together bran, cornmeal, skim milk powder, chopped comfrey and parsley. I usually like to add brewers yeast and seaweed as well but with none on hand in our pantry we happily made do.
The girls were pretty happy too. My chooky bible has provided great ideas and recipes for a long time now to care for my girls well. I'm looking forward to mid winter when I want to experiment with adding some black pepper to the mix as a cold weather stimulant. And....

My poor ever suffering cumquat tree was also in desperate need of some doctoring...suffering with some chronic citrus leaf miner and sooty mould it was looking quite sad and sorry..... so it received a liberal spray with some homemade white oil.
1tsp vegetable oil
1/2tsp soap
500mls water
Mix oil and soap with a little water first then combine with 500mls of water in a spray bottle. There are lots of little variations on this recipe but the ingredients are usually the same.

We will see how the little one picks up. I'm not that keen on cumquat's...they are not my favourite citrus but this tree has been a companion for many years, and any jam made from it has always tasted good to me purely for the fact that I grew it and made it. ;)