A Very Productive Weekend..

..which frankly would not have been as productive if I hadn't had the help of my wonderful family!! On Saturday Papa O and Tracy finished putting the new chicken pen for me, I'd like to say with me - but I actually didn't do much other than making brews and trying to straighten out the weather vane on the top of the shed with about 10 roofing nails!   For the record its now straight!

Saturday afternoon, Duck (AKA mum) helped me go get some new hens!! I drove over to Lucky Hens in Wigan for the first time with ducks direction (I have an aversion to Motorways, so the A roads it was!)

So here's Saturdays round up in Pictures:

The new Pen has added another 6x6x6 foot onto the existing chicken run.  There are now three seperate pens that have access pop holes that can either be open or closed depending if some hens need segregating.
Spot two of the newbies?  Im getting to them in a minute!

And here we have four new hens (now when you look at the picture, don't think they live in an old kitchen cupboard, because they dont!):

Here we have Flora, Freida, Frankie and Fern.  It's not their best picture, but they wouldn't stand still!  They are currently living out in the back in the secure walk in rabbit run, just until I can get their strength up a bit and then they will go down to the allotment.

This little lady below (Fern) is turning out to be a right character!  Last night I was having a little snooze on the couch (before the kids sleepover started - thats another story!) and I could here knocking.  I looked out the window and there she was knocking on the window to come in!! I have no idea how she'd got out the run!  After a good 5-10 minutes of chasing her around the decking I caught her and put her back in! 

As I said I got them from Lucky Hens in Wigan, you can find them here: Lucky Hens If you're thinking of getting hens, then honestly rescue hens are undoubtedly the way forward.  The difference that a free range home can make is unbelievable.  I'm going to blog more about Lucky Hens in this next week when I can get dedicate a full post to them and I'm going to add a link to their page on here.

Last night was finished off with a well deserved glass of wine (or three) and staying up until 2 to make sure the clocks changed.

And so to today,  I got up checked the girls, we had two eggs.  One a complete softie and the other a hard but thin shell, so I'll add shell to their diet to see if we can get those shells a bit harder.  I had intended to take all four to the allotment today for a mooch in their new pen, but  I couldn't catch two of them and rather than causing them any distress they stayed at home whilst two came with me.  So here are Fern and Flora in their new pen:

Babs, one of the other ex-batts that I got last year decided that she'd try and have a go at Fern through the bars, and failed not only miserably but quite warily.  I don't think she realised just what she'd taken on!

I also had the pleasure of Miss Boo's company today, a rarity in itself.  She happily enjoyed colouring in the shed:

As well as planting pumpkins (trying to explain to a defiant 7 year old that its a bit too early to plant out pumpkins was useless, so we planted two in the soil and brought two home in pots, if need be I'll have to replace the outdoor pumpkins with the potted ones):

And now, even though I'm overjoyed at all of the above, the main progress is coming up!  As you may know I've been in the process of trying to move the raised beds to be able to get a mower in between them.  I managed two beds in about three hours about 7 weeks ago and was on my walking stick for a good week after!

Anyway, today I had help from my wonderful, wonderful cousin Marc, who moved all the beds for me!! I'd love to tell you I helped but I'd be lying!  And so the beds are moved and re-filled ready for the new planting season:

I honestly couldnt have managed without him!!

So there we have it!  A jam packed, very sunny, very productive weekend.

bye for now xx

New Look Blog!

Honestly, I hate technology.  Tonight at 6 pm I thought about finally having a go at updating the blog - I've just finished!!

I've never quite got round to telling you that Mr Husband is a computery geek, that's his job.  And he loves nothing more than computery talk, which I have no understanding of but try and look like I do anyway.  He also loves a computer game or 10!

He has his own PC and I usually blog on my little netbook, which frankly you have to treat it as you would an old hippy.  You know that it'll eventually get there but in its own good time.  Even as it's loading up you can almost here it telling you to 'slow down and chill out man, what's the rush?'

So as Mr husband was late back from work, I thought I'd use his computer....at one point I nearly threw the mouse across the room!  He came home and spent 15 minutes doing something that I'd been trying to do for an hour and he threw in a few computer nerd jokes on the way  - apparently, it turns out there is an 'any' key on the keyboard (he let me look for that for a good 30 seconds!)

So here it is 'New look' blog!  I hope you like it?

Bye for now xx

A March Monthly Round Up

I've resided myself to the fact that I'm a terrible blogger!! My ability to keep it upto date is shocking! Anyway,  I have started a new job, and so 5 weeks in, that's my reason why I've not blogged, much apologies my avid reader!

Now firstly, I have something to tell you all, last month I was contacted by Woman and Home Magazine.  ME! They wanted some more information about my allotment and about me to possibly do an article on women and there allotments.  As it turned out I didn't fit the criteria, they wanted to focus more on someone who made jams.  But I was so proud they'd even read my blog and said it was fabulous!

So here we are nearly at the end of March, the plot is looking, well...

I'm currently in the process of moving all the raised beds further apart it drove my mad last year constantly strimming around them and would have been a lot easier if I could have gotten a lawnmower down there.

There's not much growing either than rhubarb and that's because I've not had to do anything with it, I know I'll regret not seeding anything yet, but I just have to find the time!

The hens have now stopped moulting and they have all their new fabulous feathers in and have started laying again, its amazes me the progress of the battery hens:

This is Babs hen when I got here last year and this is her now:

Amazing isn't she?

The hen pen is currently being extended to accommodate some new ex battery hens, Papa O and my step mum came to help me this weekend, he's got over the mouse and the hat incident, thankfully.

I'm so looking forward to the clocks changing and having the nights a bit lighter, so much more can be achieved on the plot in the summer.  Having said that with life so busy at the moment on somedays I'm just enjoying going to the plot taking my book, having a brew and chatting to the hens, its amazing how much calmer I can feel when I've been there for an hour or two.

This weekend will be all about planting seeds, getting new hens, making new hen houses oh and a good couple of lie ins!! 

I think that's about it.

Bye for now xx