Hen news - life, death and movement.

Nutmeg is still broody. And even more "in the zone" of broodiness than before. I got severely pecked today when I was getting her to go out and have a drink and some food. And I shall draw a veil over the GINORMOUS poo she did; lets just say it was VERY smelly!

I think she is going to stay this way, so I am investigating what fertile hatching eggs are available from my local sources. I fancy some more Cream Legbars. So, I have moved her tonight into the Broody Ark. She is furious and despite moving her after dark she is still trying to peck her way out through the wooden sides back to her Rightful Place in the Compostman hen house nest box.


This move has caused a Major Shake Up in the pecking order of the other Ginger Girls; having lost (temporarily) their Leader, there has been a coop ( no I didn't spell it wrong, I was being funny!)  and Babs has seized power. She is now ensconced in the Compostman built house and run ( where all the Ginger  girls were living and where Nutmeg was malevolently squatting, broody,  in a nest box) . She has Bunty as her deputy and side kick.

Titch (still mourning her friend Tiny Hen) took one look at the new dynamics and was having none of this so has joined the new girls in the Mega Hen Pen and Flytes House, along with a subdued moulty Marjoram.

Apparently the new girls are ok with all this, but sadly,  in other news,  Treacle the Partridge Hen was taken by something tonight - don't think it was a fox as it was very fast and right by our House :-(   The feather pile looked more bird of prey -ish than fox attack, and the other hens were not alarmed by whatever happened.

RIP Treacle hen, pretty and nervous and soft feathered. And too young to be dead.

All the girls are on "only out when I am there to watch" duties, as a result.

Busy in the garden doing...stuff.

 Reminder! RHS Hampton Court Flower Show ticket give away. To enter you must  leave a comment on the original blog post. Do this before midnight on 30th June please. Good luck!

So today I started out with some mowing



but then the belts jumped so I had to stop. Compostman fixed it for me :-)


 
Compostman then got out the Allen Scythe and cut a path through the flower and hay meadow area.




The-place-where-the-greenhouse-will-be-one-day looks very lush with wild flowers;



I have seed bombed that area



and today I seedbombed this area



Ginger hens menacing Pearl ( the white pullet)



but they sorted it out peacefully in the end and shared a dust bath



My summer, outdoor potting bench :-)



I got a lot of plants potted on



HSL Asparagus lettuce. Note the arty late summer evening side lighting



The Cucamelons are thriving in the porch, as are various peppers and aubergines which are waiting to be planted out in the polytunnel



and yet more composting



I hope you have all had a good day :-)












 

Meet the new girls!

This is Pearl, she is a White Star.

meet Pepper, the Speckledy

Amber, the Amber ( you can see a trend, here, can't you?)

This is Treacle, she is a Partridge Star.

Meet Marigold, a Marigold. She has already started laying and she is only 18 weeks old. She is very sweet and gentle.

We moved the hen run and house again today, the third time in 6 days.

- see how much damage five hens can do to grass in just 2 days!

More sunshine! more gardening! (and Cat shenanikins in the middle of the night)

The cats kept us awake a lot of last night as it was obviously a hunting night - all three took it in turns to catch various unfortunate prey ( not Rats, sadly!) and then bring them in and shout to the other cats to "come and see what *I* have caught" VERY LOUDLY INDEED

I was awakened at 2, 4, 5 and 6.30 am  and Compostman also in between, he woke me when he got up  to sort out yet more cat antics - so we are a bit shattered, here!

Nevertheless today I have written a couple of articles, investigated an on line selling web site for a review post, done several loads of washing, pricked out yet more tomato and pepper plants and sowed more seeds in the polytunnel (oh, how I LOVE my polytunnel - it is my cheap version of a fabulous wooden potting shed - not that I would not like a fabulous wooden potting shed, but it just is not going to happen so, I love my polytunnel!)

I have also dusted all the hens with Barrier lice powder AND Diatom as they have lice (yuck  - on a par with head lice in hair)  I hate any sort of lice or flea infestations and dealing with it makes me feel quite queasy, but hey ho if we have animals we have to do this sort of stuff for them. :-(  I am not at all squeamish about blood and guts and gore, but lice ugh.

Anyway I sorted out the feathery (now lice less) girls and then, being liberally dusted myself, went and had a shower and washed my hair. At least I am lice free, also!

I know it is now OFFICIALLY SPRING as I am now having to open up the polytunnel window and door before 9 am so my precious plants do not cook during the day and  I am now watering the plants every evening. Also the porch plants need daily watering now and a window opening to stop them frying.

I need some form of automatic watering system in the Polytunnel - will have to have a bit of a think about that.

Shutting up the hens tonight at 8.30 there was a fabulous sunset - the first of many I hope! I also saw my first Swallow of 2013 today :-)

Now off to settle down to wine, food and the Great British Sewing Bee final on BBC 2 HD, I love it and can't wait to see what happens - have logged off Twitter and Facebook so I don't find out in advance who won!

Hope you all have a lovely evening :-) xxx

Snowy Saturday at Compost Mansions

Day two of the snow and the hens are STILL disgusted by it all and won't come out of their run - which is fine by me as I don't want to have to worry about where they are, out in the snow!

I opened the run door and brave Titch stepped into the strange white stuff - of my seven hens only Nutmeg has ever seen snow before - the others were either still inside the polytunnel when it last snowed here ( Feb 2012) or were still in prison in the cages.

She was followed by Babs and Tiny hen but they only stepped out a few inches then went back inside.

Titch ventured a bit further - about 12 inches out of the run door and then climbed up onto the feeder.

But she decided she, too, did not like this strange, cold, white stuff and so she turned tail and went back inside the cosy hen run.

They have had lots of corn and mealworms and warm mash made of pellets, so I hope they are reasonably content.

We have had lots of hot drinks and apart from outside essential jobs we have been sitting by the woodburner keeping nice and warm :-) and reading and crafting.

Hope you are all ok, wherever you are.

A busy day in the garden

A very busy and hot day in the garden - the composting area needed a lot of work doing as I have managed to mow the lawn , but not fill up the compost bins.

So Compostman and I got to work after breakfast and morning routine chores, while it was still relatively cool outside.

I had several bins needing the compost digging out and storing before I could refill the bins.

As always, we had henny helpers!

Compostgirl helped a lot, but then sat down in the shade,  to read for a bit.

Several of the wooden bins need replacements planks and uprights - a job for another day as I will have to remove 4 bins worth of compostable materials to get to the rotten ones and it was far too hot to do that today! Still, an advantage of the Recycle Works wooden modular bins is that you can just replace the individual boards and uprights as needed, and these are at least 7 years old so have lasted very well, considering that they have been buried in decomposing compostables!

Much tidier! And a bag full of finished compost to add to the collection.

While moving assorted mats, buckets etc around in one of the leaf mold bins I came across a pair of Wood mice.

One ran away down onto the ground...

While the other ran up the side of the compost bin

on to the top... and away. I felt sad I had disturbed them, but there were no young in the nest so hopefully no harm was done.

We also identified our mystery visitor to the bird table, a Nuthatch. Well a pair, actually but only the one came to the feeder today.

It took nuts away, so I don't know if there are still chicks in the nest somewhere in the wood. We have been hearing the call of a Nuthatch in the wood for a few weeks, so maybe there is a late nest somewhere? I hope so.

I finally went into Hell's Sauna (aka the Polytunnel) to water the ground in an attempt to cool it down in there - NOT a pleasant experience - I was wringing wet with sweat afterwards and had to have a cool shower to recover - far too hot to do anything in there after about 10 am! I am watering in the evening just before it gets too dark to do so. Harvest is good from inside it, though - loads of lovely tomatoes now and the peppers and cucumbers are looking very good.

Thanks for dropping by :-)

Punk hens

 I have some VERY disgusted hens at the moment. They do NOT like being sprayed with Purple Spray. But I do not like them with pecked feathers - or pecked skin - so purple spray it is, to stop which even naughty hen is doing the pecking

 Poor Titch is still bald.

 Babs has some nasty peck marks on her poor head.

I strongly suspect Tiny Hen ...she has no pecked feathers now at all and has become top hen of the ex barn girls, despite being so tiny and recently so poorly.

A sunny, busy, morning in the garden

Well we actually had a SUNNY day today ! at least until 5 pm, when it started to rain .

I did a fair bit of work in the veg garden. A few of the shallots are still growing

But most needed lifting and sadly a lot had rotted away.

The parsnips are doing well -

You can still see the loo roll tube I grew them in :-) Must add this shot to the "How to" guide!

And when I carefully excavated the soil - look! A parsnip!

We stopped for a tea break and, as usual, were joined by cats and hens. This is Babs, she wanted a drink of Compostman's tea.

This ought to be a carrot bed. No carrots grew.

The broad beans have all failed - covered in chocolate spot:-( so I pulled them all up and harvested the few beans on them.

The very pretty Purple Flowered Broad beans got it as well.

This is one of the beds containing early potatoes - I have had to lift them all, even though the harvest is rubbish, because I need the space for Kales AND the haulms were showing signs of Early Blight - not surprising really, considering the wet, humid weather we have had. I am on constant alert for Blight in the Early main crop beds.

This was the result of digging up 5 roots of Orla . Not good!

I had a delivery of plants from Rocket Gardens, today - they come packed in hay :-) What a very good idea!

 

 I am hoping the courgette plants I purchased will produce something as all my outdoor courgette plants were smashed to bits by heavy rain.

 So, not a great yield of produce    from the garden, but at least we have something to eat - I was beginning to worry we would only have tomatoes and lettuces!