Tidying up the garden

It has been so wet and dull here recently :( I loathe days when there is no sunshine, I don't mind rain but gloom makes me gloomy.

 














So I decided to get outside and have a bit of a tidy up.

This bit of path is flooding so Compostman  lifted the slab and dug out a gravel filled soakaway underneath it. We also cut back all the dead plants and swept up the path.














 The lean to was in a right mess, full of all sorts of clutter. I cleaned out the double hutch and re instated Juniper the guinea pig in there for the winter as it is insulated and has a cosy cover to keep her warm. The Seramas were in there originally, but now live in the polytunnel

 I also put things away, threw things away and did a lot of recycling to make the lean to a tidy, workable space again as we do work in it out of the rain a lot.

 Much better!

 Then it was onto the chickens, I cleaned out the big girls house and put down more wood chips in the Mega Hen Pen. I also cleaned out their drinkers and feeders and topped them up with fresh food and water. I also gathered the eggs  - thank you girls :)

The Seramas live in the polytunnel now; I did have them free ranging in there in the day and shut in the Broody Arc at night but it is a bit small so I decided to move the smaller hen run and Eglu into the polytunnel so they would have a more spacious run and  the Eglu to sleep in to keep warm. Juniper also has her run in the polytunnel and so can have a run around undercover.

But first, I had to make some space!

Algy the Serama cockerel always wants to see what we are up to, he is such a friendly little chap :)

As you can see in an earlier photo the big girls are laying well but the littlees had not provided any eggs for a few days and here is why!

Someone has been creeping into this tangle of old plant to lay :)

Much tidier and now the Seramas not only have a warmer house to sleep in but a much bigger run.

I felt much happier after doing all this work :)

Yuck what a fowl day

Ha ha did you get my pun in the title!?

Today was really horrible weather but the feathery ladies and the cockerel brothers needed cleaning out so, despite it  being only 3 Celsius mid afternoon and pouring with rain I set to,  to make them cleaner and more comfortable.

If we have animals we have to look after them, despite the horrible weather and our deep desire to just hide inside and drink hot tea and do crochet in front of the wood burner

Mud and water every where

So I togged up in waterproof coat, wellies and a lot of layers of clothes underneath.  As I normally am mostly impervious to the worst the weather can throw at me and wear a t shirt and jeans in the most wet and horrible weather, this will give you an idea of howreally horrible working outside was today.

After a lot of mucking out, the contents of the hen run and hen houses were added to the compost bins

 Creosote the cockerel was not impressed!

Normally I am much tidier with the bedding, but frankly in this weather I could not give a damn about spilled straw!

And the chickens were very pleased with the clean arrangements!