Saturday, March 17, 2007

This Other Eden















In anticipation of the chickens being fenced off soon and gripped with enthusiasm for the summer, I decided (perhaps a bit prematurely) to get some new herbs for my raised herb bed in the garden. Following the chilli plant debacle (see earlier blog) I have taken precautions and created what I hope is chicken proof defence by covering upturned hangining baskets with chicken wire and placing them over the new herb plants to prevent them being eaten. The finished results reminded me of something....

Operation Grass Reclaim #3 (BEFORE)



Here are the before pics to show the state of the garden before the chickens are fenced off (hopefully in a couple of weeks time). There is practically no grass left and they poo absolutely everywhere! We are hopeing to have them fenced into their own section of garden and new turf laid on 'our' part of the garden, so that we can use the garden for usual liesure activities during the summer.

Operation Grass Reclaim #2


Right, realising we are out of our league as far as being out witted by the chickens, we have called in the professionals (or rather a professional) named Shaun who is kindly going to fence off our chickens. Shaun has about 10 chickens of his own, so knows the score. In preparation for the fencing off operation we have dug the stump and roots out from a cherry tree that passed away a couple of years ago. This was quite an operation requiring a spade, a fork and enthusiastic wielding of an axe (that was my job). Molly (the chicken) and Abi (the daughter) were very interested in the whole afair and we were very lucky to have no injuries! The result was a rather large, loosely back-filled hole in the garden which Molly and Kiev spent the whole afternoon wallowing in, they don't normally have a dust bath that is in the sunlight and obviously really enjoyed it!

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Operation Grass Reclaim #1

With Summer fast approaching and the majority of our back garden scratched away to oblivion by the chickens, we are considering what we might do to reclaim a portion of garden for use during the summer (to sit and play on a bit of grass). I suspect this will be a battle of wits, cunning and determination between us and the chickens and am not at all certain of our chances of success. Round one comprised sowing grass seed on a 'trial' section of the garden. We did so this morning. The chickens thoroughly approved and can be seen heartily feasing on the seed. Fencing them off is clearly going to be the only option and I suspect they will not be too happy about this!

Laying again

One of the chickens never stopped laying, all through the winter, not sure which one but they are all back on lay now, so 1-3 eggs a day again. Have discovered how to make lemon merangue pie (thanks Sue!), this uses 7 eggs (for the curd and the merangue) and is very yummy!

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Operation Grass Reclaim #4


So, first we need to get rid of the rotten apple tree (to make more room for chickens in the part of the garden that will become theirs). Shaun makes rather light work of this!