New additions.

As you may remember we have had chickens here before and loved them. When we lost the last ones to old age we agreed to have a year off and take a couple of holidays. The bigger abroad sort of holiday when leaving your pets is always a worry at the back of your mind, especially if you are relying on friends to keep them safe, with all the responsibility that involves. How awful if a fox should get into the run and other people had to deal with it and let you know, or if one should fall ill and decisions had to be made.

Anyway, holidays were planned, walls and ceilings fell down and a year was spent putting a part of the house back together. Then hubB hurt his leg and couldn’t walk, let alone explore. And then the bug to end all bugs hit and holidays are now a distant dream.Last weekend, after a bit of cajoling hubB built me a chicken coop with some left over pallet toppers. He also agreed that I could get a few hens, but mainly I think because he knew they were all sold out and the site was closed. Undeterred I put my name on the waiting list and prepared to wait until summer.It was therefor somewhat of a shock to receive a text yesterday morning to say that some rescued birds had just become available in my area and was I interested.I initially thought no, I’m in social isolation and it’s an unnecessary journey. The site had some measures for this though and after a huge tidy of the chicken run, when a big pile of drying winter wood, the patio furniture and various abandoned but possibly useful ‘tat’ found other homes, I was able to send some fairly decent photos of the run and free range area and agree to have a few.The hens were collected from the farm. I met the van driver in a large garage forecourt on his route and he transfered the hens into the cage in my boot while I watched from a distance. He was wearing full face gear which must have been a fright to anyone driving alone the main road beside us. The garage was open but the only other cars there was a member of staffs and a policeman buying a pasty. In a matter of minutes we were both on our way and I had a smelly cargo on the back seat.We stopped for chicken food on the way home, visited a small local shop to stock on some emergency milk and bread and are now home for another week.The chickens are in a great condition for rescues although a bit dirty. They are clearly free range but didn’t recognise greens when given them, although have now discovered they like them! They have an obsession with legs and run over to gently peck you whenever you appear, strange creatures!

Free as a bird.

Everything today seems to come back to birds.

Hubby spent most of the day building the hens a new coop. We used an old kitchen cupboard so that’s novel. I forgot to take a picture though so maybe tomorrow!

Later we realised the Gert who had been with us all day, getting in the way and generally being a pest, had vanished. Now last week I wouldn’t have worried as I thought the garden was secure. This week I know different.

Soon after letting the girls out early the other morning Miss C came downstairs saying she had heard our neighbour shouting my name over the fence. Turns out Gert had managed to get into his garden and had been caught by his dog. Fearing the worse he opened his car boot and I extracted a very frightened hen from amongst the paraphernalia. Seems the dog, a rather quiet Labrador had carried the hen to him very happily and he had put it in the nearest place. Gert was none the worse for the experience, her heart was pounding and she was a bit sucked looking but putting her down in front of the cats biscuit bowl soon cheered her up!

Anyway back to this afternoon and my missing Gert. I turned detective and basically followed the poo trail through the veggie beds.

Damaged tomatoes in the poly tunnel door…

Digging in the poly tunnel beds.

Chicken having a dust bath amongst the tomatoes. It was around 5.30 and the noise in the back ground is the start of the hundreds of sparrows coming in to roost in my Laurel hedge. Its bedlam in the garden at dusk each evening.

She’s right near the melons. ( Sorry I’m a bit proud of the melons and just had to show off AGAIN)

Lucky I had well watered the peas and lettuce I’d just planted. Wet soil is obviously not so attractive.

I left her, I’m nice like that! She repaid me by appearing minutes later and stealing the cat food.

Chickens in the house. Not actually allowed… but do they listen!

Later we found a rather dim but very cute Ring Collared Dove nesting in the tree.

It is a tree but only just.

She’s just above the lower of next door’s two roofs. Can you see it? The nest is smaller than the bird, her bottom is hanging over the edge. There surely can’t be any eggs.

The most exciting part of the day came as Miss C and I closed up the chickens for the night. We have been hearing a strange bird call for a couple of weeks but tonight after patiently waiting we finally identified it as it flew out of a tree and across the vegetable garden.

A Little Owl. Roosting and hunting in our garden. What a thrill.

Bad news in chicken land.

We’ve has chicken problems again. Peggy Pecker has been off colour for a few days and once or twice we feared the worst only to come down in the morning to find her up and about again. Unfortunately not only did she succumb to old age yesterday but Flash also managed to die, totally unexpectedly,  this week as well.

The chickens are ex battery and we’ve had them for 14 months or so. They’ve given us eggs every day until the last few weeks when they have all had a full moult and succumbed to and beaten the dreaded chicken mites caught from the wild birds. Peggy and Flash have both struggled with laying recently, with Flash in particular being egg bound on a number of occasions, so I guess we knew their time was coming.

The remaining two are getting extra spoiling. Being allowed to come into the main garden where they dig up the gravel and poo everywhere. We’ve even been mixing extra vitamins into cat food for them, much to the cats disgust.

The question now is whether to get more now or wait until the Spring.  Rescue hens only seem to be available then so if we want to do our good deed that’s the answer. Miss C has her heart set on a couple of  black fluffy hens and I fancy some blue egg layers, so who knows!

The joy of chickens.

Lice. I probably don’t need to say much more!!

I’ve commented each morning this week on the amount of baby spiders in the garden. Each morning when I go to let out the chicks my arm is covered in them. I mention this to Miss C who says. ‘ No, they are living in the nest box.’

She was right, hundreds of tiny little creatures everywhere. To small to photograph but covering every crack.

We quickly used everyone’s favourite search site. Not Google, that’s old hat. Pinterest is the place to go, 20 opinions at the touch of a button, with pictures. We have chicken lice.

Treatments… many and varied. Spraying, dunking, feeding. You can apparently attack the little demons from all directions. It also explains why the chickens have been roosting outside the coop on the bench and why we have no eggs. I just thought they were getting even older and it was a bit warm for them. Hot flushes style!!

Causes… wild birds. Which is our problem. The local robin has raised two broods totally on our layer pellets. He hops in, eats one, takes one back to the nest. Lots of squarking and back he comes again.

So, first we blow torched the coop. Beekeepers do this to all their equipment after cleaning it kills everything, but not lice it seems. Then I dusted the whole thing with some obnoxious chemical from the pet shop. The chickens were next.
2 buckets, one with warm water and washing up liquid, one with warm water and apple cider vinegar.

This is Hetty. She was to shocked to put up a fight and the job was easy. Lolled into a false sense of security I grabbed Gert and dunked her in. That’s when the job went south. There are no pictures of the resulting pandemonium but needless to say I was soaked, the lawn was soaked and the neighbours probably thought I was slaughtering chicken for tea.

Having taken their punishment the first two shouted encouragement as we chased Peggy around the picnic table. She was quick but no match for hubby who gently grabbed her by her throat and extracted her from the chair legs. Three down, one to go.

Now the last one was Flash. She did not get the name for her speed, she’s a gormless bird who stopped laying months ago and generally just keeps to herself and avoids the others. Basically she, and we, feel they would eat her given half the chance. But she’s a friendly thing and gets all the extra treats and benefits as befits the underdog. She’s been bathed before when egg bound as a way to relax her. It worked then but clearly she didn’t fancy repeating the experience. That and the fact she probably thought we were filling the freezer, with all the noise.
But having chased her around the vegetable beds for a while we did what all good parents do. We bribed her with food. Problem solved!

She actually really loved it.

What a sorry lot they looked. We left them to dry in the new clean run and mollified them with cat food with cod liver oil in it. Their favourite treat.

Last night two roosted back in the coop and two stayed out but that’s a good start. You never know, perhaps there will be a few more eggs after all. As an added bonus they now all look lovely. Fresh and brown and fluffy. What more can a garden need!

Sun + rain = crazy growth

It’s summer in England and that means rain, sun, thunder, lightening, more sun, more rain. You get the picture.

It’s been very mixed this month. Very warm and muggy mixed with cool and windy, all watered down with lots of rain. The bees might hate it and blame me ( no I still haven’t managed a full inspection this month. More a dash in, do what I can and then a retreat to nurse my stings. The top inside of the leg and under the arm are both very sensitive to venom it seems!)
The plants however seem to love it.

Some parts of the garden now look like a jungle.

These self sown sunflower seedlings swamp a fuchsia.

Blackcurrants are covered by top growth and I have no idea whether they need cutting back to let in the sun to ripen or if to leave until after picking as usual.

White currants abound.

Grape and fig thrive on the side of the chicken run.

Hostas battle slugs and snails on a nightly basis.

The clematis on the summerhouse is a picture!

Autumn raspberries fruit early after I left a few canes from last year rather than cutting it all to the ground as you’re meant to. A rogue borage has sneaked into the row. It must know it has weeding immunity as the bees love it so much.

Best year ever for the blue hydrangea. Even a piece that accidentally broke off rooted after being pushed back into the soil underneath and covered with a coke bottle cloche.

The sweet corn experiment might be struggling. I think the corn is to close so the courgettes planted underneath are a bit swamped. Probably doesn’t help that I surrounded the corn by French beans that have gone crazy.

The poly tunnel is thriving. Not to hot yet which is helping.

I’ve planted the tomatoes in 2 rows with chillies in pots between but behind. Rocket and pak choi in the gaps. The cucumber is still in pots, still a bit slow but only sown less than a month ago. No idea where that will squeeze in. There’s still peppers and melons to come as well!

While taking mum supermarket shopping this week I brought these 3 little clematis for £1.77 each. Miss C then repotted them into these bigger pots for me. Clematis like to be planted deep so she placed them right to the bottom of these pots and refilled all up the length of the stem. I lost a gorgeous clematis to wilt during just one afternoon many years ago. Luckily it had been planted deep and a couple of years later it just suddenly appeared and is now growing a treat again. Hopefully by the autumn, when I have the space for them, these will be big healthy plants. A total bargain.

Mange tout. Note to self, better pea sticks needed next year.

Miss C grew a pumpkin seed at her Home Ed group. She has plans to carve the fruit so let’s hope we get at least one. If not perhaps I could smuggle one in later in the year. While she’s in bed perhaps!

Celery. Self blanching which is lucky as I have no space for earthing up.

The carrots, swede and turnips are a bit slow but perhaps that is normal.

Kale is to close but I think I’ll get something from it.

Leeks, next to the French marigolds. I planted lots of marigolds between rows but I have to keep taking them out to make space.

The onion tops fell over weeks ago when they were still quite small. I left them, even though the book said to lift, and so far am glad I did as they are already much bigger. They need weeding, it’s a constant battle.

Contribution to tonight’s tea. Not the wax obviously, that’s just to show off!

Talking of hive products. I helped the bee buddy today and he sent the chickens some left over drone comb. He said they would love it and he was right. They had a fine time picking all the larvae out to eat. Drone comb removal is a way of removing varroa from the hive so aiding hygiene.

The chickens don’t care about science they just like meat. I think they would eat each other if they could. I love them but they are mean, very mean.

April showers

Rain seems to play a large part in most of my posts, so it will be no surprise when I say it is pouring here today. However we have actually had some lovely weather recently so just to remind myself I am including lots of pictures I have taken this week.

There are hundreds of primroses, polyanthus and cowslips in my garden. They all inter pollinate and make strange colour combinations. Sometimes I dig them up, split them and move them around but mostly I just leave them be.

Tulips are just coming into flower. Flowering currant and daffodils are still flowering and just this week we have 2 white Christmas roses flowering for the first time ever. Definitely better late than never!

Some of the beds are overfull and should probably be contained but although I keep digging out this bluebell, that is ruining the shape of my box balls, it is so deep I never get it all and back it comes.

This was a huge lavender that I cut down after flowering last summer. It started shooting straight away but I didn’t expect it to survive the winter. It’s looking OK so far though, so it gets a reprieve for now.

The Rosemary’s reprieve only lasts until the flowers finish then it gets chopped right down. It is getting to woody to be useful as a herb now.

The seedlings have all gone crazy and space is running out.

Potatoes are doing well in their bags outside so in went the lettuces, interspersed with radish, carrot and parsnips. Hopefully they will be ready for pulling by the time the root crops need the space.

The strawberries have been tidied and fed with blood,fish and bone so just the onion and garlic bed to weed. They have survived the winter under fleece and are thickening nicely.

The chickens have enjoyed the lawns first cut, both in their run and from the compost bin. I do provide clean water but it seems muddy water caught in waste plastic is more tasty. This is a hole Miss C is digging for a pond. Every time she leaves it the girls get in and dig away causing the sides to collapse and half fill it again. They are all having a great time!

Just pottering.

The early bird catches the worm so I’m told but quite honestly this bird would rather lay in on a Saturday morning. Today was not to be. With the car in the garage first thing we were up at 6.30 as usual. Breakfasted, car delivered and drinking coffee in front of morning TV just after 8.
A couple of hours spent on my  community voluntary project, car collected and lunched by 1.30.
Hubby popped off to visit Great Nana. Miss C escaped back to the stables. I escaped to the summer house.
The sun was shining. The seed potatoes sitting on the dining table were calling, and getting in the way at meal times…

I needed to do something with them and although they are destined for special vegetable bags, it is still to cold to put them outdoors. The bags have holes in the bottom, the summerhouse floor is carpeted, so not waterproof, and the trays I had intended to stand the bags on have seed pots in. 1 litre pots are the answer, I can drop them into the bags later on.

Some went into the last tray. The rest went straight onto the shelf. They will have to wait until Monday to be watered in after hubby goes and gets more trays. How lucky that he works in town for all my shopping needs!

Beside them you might be able to see the peas I’ve sown in toilet roll tubes. They stand on a shelf from Miss C’s toy kitchen. Everything is reused in my garden, and abandoned toys are fair game!

I nipped down to check the chickens and rescued this little fellow from the run

They wander in through the chicken gate to steal the pellets and then get stuck trying to fly out.

This one might be the same one I rescued yesterday as he seemed very calm about the whole experience.

Visitors are always welcome in the hen house it seems.

This is ( from left) Flash, Gert, Peggy and Hettie. The bench was a wedding present 15 years ago. It is past its best but I’m to sentimental to throw it away so the chickens got it instead. They love to roost on it looking in their mirror.

Our lovely new chicken run

The novelty of our new chickens hasn’t worn off yet here at Acquest. We had 4 rescue hens from Basingstoke Hen Rescue at the beginning of June. A friend had shared their page on Facebook. The site address is this.. http://www.fsfh.org.uk/

We collected them in the pouring rain and what bedraggled little things they were. By the following morning they had settled in fine and were free ranging throughout the garden. I had every intention in calling them all Henrietta (it seemed an easy idea) but Miss C wouldn’t hear of it and instantly started thinking up names. Pecking Peggy was an easy one. Even with only half a beak (they burn them off it seems!) she was definitely boss. Hettie Bettie is the pretty one (but only I see it!). The other 2 became Chesty (her chest is totally bare of feathers) and Dirty Bum (she had a very unsettled tummy it seemed). Now you try calling the last 2 at bedtime. After a few days even my giggling daughter felt a bit silly. They soon became Flash (white bar on head) and Gertie (well it does rhyme!!)

The coop had been made from the old dog kennel and the run from a cage we had kept the cat in for a short while during a house move some years ago. It has been stacked behind the garage all this time just waiting for a use. We were very pleased with our cheap chickens and free run.

It soon became clear though that when we were out all day, and they were shut in, it was just not big enough. The ground became dirty and during a bad storm the roof started to collapse under the weight of the rain. Something posher was needed.

Along came run No 2. A super-duper design once again using up some bits that were laying around but also costing us some new wood and posts. This week on his holidays my lovely hubby has spent 2 days building it and very nice it is too…

It has a clear roof to allow the light in but keep it dry. We have planted an Escallonia bush to one side to provide something to sit under. We under planted that with violets as we noticed the girls loved rooting out the bugs in the huge clump in the garden. They loved it so much however that I don’t think it lasted the day. It has a little decorative shelf on the outside because my hubby has an odd sense of humour, but I’m thinking a chicken ornament might look good there.

In short it’s not quite finished but we think we, and the hens,  will have great fun changing and modifying it over the coming weeks.