Eggcitement

IT'S HAPPENED!  ONE OF THE GIRLS HAS LAID AN EGG!  I got home from work and went into the garden for a bit of a chat with the chickens.  I was giving them a little bit of corn and we were having a pep talk about when they were going to start producing anything other than poo.  The husband was displaying his chicken whisperer technique to great success.  Although I had already checked the nest boxes in the morning I decided to have another look prompted by a eggquiry from hubby.  And lo, look at this little beauty...

And the key word here is little.  Spot our egg amongst this lot...

In other news the Salad Queen has been busy.  She has harvested her first cucumber (tasted great despite manky leaf disease) and created a bread roll spider for our last rainy barbecue.  Don't ask - its just how we spend time here at Chateau Madhouse.

One last question: any suggestions for splitting one egg five ways?





Black Dog

Churchill used to call his depressions his "black Dogs" (and, indeed, I believe Led Zeppelin have a fine track entitled Black Dog too).  Sadly, our Bix is currently in his own black dog, or funk, or depression (whatever you will).  At the weekend something happened - we are not sure what - and he ended up with a nasty puncture wound in his tail.  Chances are that it was his sister in a bout of play fighting, but I could not say that with any certainty.  Here he is:

He really, really, hates that collar and since Monday has been in the most almighty "I'm fooken pissed off me" funk (to be said in a Geordie accent to ge tthe full effect).  Meanwhile, things continue to develop in the garden, irrespective of the rather indifferent weather we have been having.  In particular, the sweetcorn is coming along:

As I understand it (hah!) the top picture is the man bits and the lower picture is the tassel (for those who get the joke:  ya ya Rug Man give me some Tassel).

Elsewhere, the blueberries have being doing well, but are showing signs of being assaulted by the chickens (who are in robust health), the tomatoes are bushy but a bit short on flowers and the pumpkin is running rampant:

The Salad Queen has discovered the true flavour of radish:

On a less crunchy front, the Love in the Mist has finally begun to bloom:



And that's it for this week, I would post more, but much as I try to scale back the business of my life, it seems that there is never quite enough time for either me of The Wife to really get around to doing all the things we would like to do as opposed to all the things that we have to do.  The good thing is that time will come at some point :)

The chickens have just been ushered off to bed and I am going to go and listen to Radio 4 on a momentous day in UK politics with the BSkyB bid being pulled.  Long live democracy, even our cock eyed version of it.   The girls are on the sofa eating crisps and watching the Apprentice.  By some bizarre serendipity the task is something to do with pies.  Now (and she does like to keep her talents hidden) The Wife is an expert on Pie, and I have been saying to her that when Mastermind comes on again she should enter with Pie as her specialist subject.  She is not so sure, but watch this space.  I can just see her in that black chair in her diamond studded Jimmy Choo high heel Wellies waxing lyrical on Pie down the ages.

And the chicken names are...

I realise that readers out there (hello Els, Caroline and Welly) will be anxious to know the girls names. The youngest chose Paxo, the Salad Queen went for Versailles and Big Al went for Blucher.   The offspring are an electic bunch as you can see. 

Blucher

I'm sticking with The Girls.

Chickens in the House la la lalahhh!

Sorry it has been a while since the last post, but to put it mildly, there has been a lot going on.  First of all, last weekend, we went to the Smallholders Show at Ardingly.  It was a lovely summer's day and there was a great deal to interest us.  Besides the goats, sheep, rabbits, Llamas, ducks, geese and turkeys there were, of course, chickens.  Not just a few chickens, but hundreds of chickens in every conceivable shape and variety.

When we went over to Middle Farm a few weeks ago, the Salad Queen set her heart on Blue Haze (or Blue Belle).  Naturally, when we came across five fine looking Blues it was inevitable that we were going to go home with chickens that night.  So we set to buying feed and water hoppers, sawdust and hay.  Fully laden, we had our 3 chickens packed up in a box, carried by Big Al, and set off home to the accompaniment of gentle clucks (and occassional squawks as we went over sleeping policemen).  Safely home and tucked up in their coop for 24 hours, they became the focus of attention for all the other animals in the house:

As you can see, Big Al decided they needed a watchtower to protect them overnight.  Sunday morning, we let them out of the coop and into their run.  They were reluctant to emerge at first but they eventually plucked up the courage to come out:

Leaving them in the run, we went out for some lunch (as it was my birthday) and to get a Rhubarb and Blueberry plant for our fruit border.  On Monday evening, after we got back from work, we clipped their wings (one wing on each bird) which was a lot less dramatic than I thought it was going to be, there were some mild complaints from the hens at being picked up, but nothing more than that.

Having been clipped, last night they were able to get out and roam the garden:

As you can see, they are not adverse to getting up on the raised beds, which we shall have to so something about or else some of our precious veg will be dissappearing at a rate of knots.  They had a good roam about last night, although they were not keen on the squally showers we were having.  They tried a few grapes, pecked at the gravel, were not much interested in a snail and showed Ruby Cat who was boss.  All we then needed to do was then round them up at dusk:

Their combs are starting to colour up nicely and hopefully, in a couple of weeks or so, we shall have some eggs.  Today I have some jobs to do to tidy up the coop by hanging up their hoppers to stop them from making such a mess.  Other than that, they are settling in nicely.  So far, so good, as they say.

Meanwhile, our other project on the go is Roger, our VW Kombi.  Roge has been sat on the drive for the last 8 weeks going nowhere as his servo brake has done West.  After much to-ing and fro-ing, Roge is in the garage today and should be roadworthy again by the weekend.  Now then - do you think we can get  a coop in the Kombi for when we go on holiday?

Amber, the puppy (well, 7 months) was spayed yesterday, so is not quite feeling herself this morning, so it will be a gentle walk for her later (maybe once the rain has passed).  I also want to go and look at some vines - I read last night that grapes can prosper inside a conservatory (The Wife is not convinced) and to get some sand for the hens for their sand bath.  So, another busy but positive day.

Countdown to C Day

The exciting news is that the chicken coop has arrived after much deliberation and internet research.  We looked at all sorts of chicken houses; plastic (eglus and eco houses) and wooden.  Plastic was the early front runner because of the cheerful colours (yes aesthetics over substance every time if you are going to ask me to make the decision) and the easy cleaning factor.  However we couldn't find an eglu with a separate nesting box and one of the jobs that we envisage for the youngest and the Salad Queen is egg collection. A nest box with a separate lid seemed to be the most child friendly solution.  The eco hen houses were great but all appeared to have the nest box in the wrong position for where we wanted the house to go.

So then we went to middle farm and had a good look around the wooden coops on offer.  Eventually we decided the chicken shack was for us.

The girls have a nice bedroom with perch and the nesting boxes are at the back with a a separate lid.  They also have a run for to keep them safe when we are not around and cannot let them into the garden.  Youngest is fascinated with the ramp which I am sure she envisages as some sort of chicken slide.  On the floor we (that's the royal we you understand) have dug down and placed some wire (to stop foxes digging under) and a liner covered with wood chip. 

All we need now (apart from actual chickens) is names.  So far Simon has suggested Kiev and Nugget.  Against our better instincts we have decided to hand the chicken naming over to the offspring (on the basis that they were banned from naming the dogs and the cat due to our reluctance to yell Fluffykins in the park or back garden).  Watch this space for breaking news on chicken names...

Guests in the Garden

Wednesday rolls around again, which means another glorious day in the garden for me.  First up though, we took Our Youngest over to (potentially) her new school.  We are immensely proud as she, rather than throwing a wobbly, is genuinely excited about her assessment day.  We head home to a bit of light weeding and watering.

Now that the garden is broadly settled it has started to attract all sorts of guests from the insect kingdom.

A welcome guest in the shape of a Ladybird

A butterfly on the Den windowsill

Ants on the face of a Sunflower

A Hover Fly takes off from the Broad Beans

Meanwhile the rest of the garden is making the best of the mixture of sunshine and showers we have had.



A corn kernel emerges

 

The cucumbers are coming along nicely

Sunshine

It's extraordinary what two days of sunshine can do to the garden.  Even the courgettes, which have not exactly been happy for some time, look happier this evening.  Yesterday, for the first time since we started cutting up the bottom half of the garden, we were able to actually just sit in the garden, just enjoying it for its own sake.  The Broad Beans are starting to be generous in size, the Salad Queen's leaves are blooming in productivity and the tomatoes are positively running wild.

Since I last posted, it has mainly been work that has taken up my time, and I was very disappointed on my day off last Wednesday to have spent much of my time eliminating a virus from the Salad Queen's PC.  This weekend, however, allowed me to catch up and more.  First thing Saturday I was in the Southern bed eradicating yet more bamboo, and it is while I was welly deep in roots and ivy that The Wife tottered out on her high heeled, Jimmy Choo special diamond encrusted Wellingtons to ask if I fancied a trip to Middle Farm http://www.middlefarm.com/ to have a look at Chooks?

Now, forgive your narrator's scepticism, but he knows the difference between a genuine enquiry and a de facto order, so I set aside the spade and fork and off we went.   Middle Farm is a great place to look at Chickens, and they sell Point of Lay, so it was not an entirely academic visit.  The Salad Queen took a fancy to Blue Haze and we also got a good look at some coops.

Back in the garden on Sunday, we enjoyed the fantastic weather.

I don't know what this tree is, prior to cutting back the bamboo it was hidden in a dank, dark corner of the garden.  Since we have cleared that corner out, it has come into its own, we lovely dark glossy leaves and little yellow buds.





It is good to just appreciate being outside sometimes.  We made ourselves comfortable in the shade at the end of the garden:

Anyway, all this frantic cutting back of bamboo and general clearing up of the area is because this is the area that we have been planning to place the coop in.  It was in the afternoon of Saturday that The Wife went on-line and now she has done it - the chicken coop and run are ordered and will be, all being well, with us this week.  After that, it will be the chickens - Blue Haze or Speckeldey?  We don't know yet, but we are all very excited.

Goodness knows what Ruby will make of it all.