life in general

I am trying, somewhat unsucessfully to blog regularly again. Not happening!! Life is just too hectic. its good tho dont get me wrong but I could do with more time each day. We now have 3 more chickens and they have a better home. See below for a piccie. It should get even better for them eventually cos we are extending the run to just about double the size to the waste bit of land next to them.Had great difficulty taking piccies of them since when you go in to their house they all come to see you and you cannot get far enough away from them to take a good photo!



This is their home. This is my chicken`s house with run and you can just about see the girls. Below is a piccie of and egg and also of one of the girls.














This is the egg - yesterday.
We had 4 eggs yesterday and 5 two days ago. They do not all lay where they should tho and some are laid out in the run. I am not too sure who it is yet who likes to lay outside. Its been pretty amazing watching my girls change from scared of gthe daylight frightend hens into proper dirt bathing lovely friendly chickens. A local chicken breeder has outraged M by saying they are only fit for dog meat since at the end of their productive life. They are lovely. Muriel likes being cuddled, Sally is the adventurer and has least feathers but can fly ( not very good really and I hate the idea of clipping wings but if they are to come out and range around the garden they will have to be clipped.)





















This is Gwen. Shes the boss and pecks every body. She is looking quite fluffy. When we got he she was nearly bald. All but one have had their beaks clipped. They are in somewhat of a mess. They are all jagged and rough and I am watching to check they do not split further. Apparently they could do. They are very gentle creatures -tho vicious to each other and I am so glad we had them. I am very onld on Wednesday ( half way to 90!) Scary or what. So these lovely girls are my brithday pressie. Well I did say to M wanted a chicken for my Birthday and a Turkey for Xmas. Maybe the turkey is a no-no now tho!

Yesterday I was in the kitchen which is at the back of the house but about 50-60m away from the chickens. Windows and back door were locked.I heard the loudest clucking ever. No idea what freaked them out but I thought someone must have been murdered by the level of noise, but when I went running down to see them they all came to tell me something had happened. Maybe they saw a cat ( there are 2 next door)or a fox, who knows but the noise they make when scared is loud and shocking. good thing I didnt have a cokeral cos we would definitely have problems with neighbours with that level of noise!

NOT ENOUGH TIME

Well there just isnt enough time in a day to fit everything in. Its starting to really annoy me. I need a planner to run my life and not just the work bits cos I NEED a planner to work out when I can fit in the play bits. How sad am I!

Felt a right idiot today. Took car into a garage cos have what I am pretty sure is a tracking problem but they just wont have it. If the tyres wear I shall send em the bill! Not sure theyd pay it but worth fighting for cos I still think it pulls to oneside but being a woman ofcourse I cannot be right - or so they made me feel. Me and M both drove several different bits of road and it always pulls to left. They say camber. I will send em the bill in about a month!

New directions and old friends

Did Leamington peace festival, Last time I went (as a punter/customer- depending how you see life!) I was 26! Now I am middle forties so all has changed|!) made a living. This is good. Its where I should be! I need to do lots of festivals. I have never enjoyed work as much as I did last weekend! Mind you was really hard work since my mate was ill so I ended up having to work alone and when it gets hectic thats difficult. Some shoplifting too cos I cant watch everything at once and serve pepes. I really need some help at big events like that. I still enjoyed it tho dont get me wrong and with luck I will do again next year.

free the chickens

Had a really hectic weekend and we are both still knackered and its only tuesday! On Thursday decided its nearly my birthday ( wont say how ancient I am)and emailed Little Hen Rescue since I would love to have some ex-battery chickens. I first got in touch with them when I found a knitting pattern for jumpers for hens on the internet and decided then - January- I would like some hens but we were not ready gardenwise. We still are not really but its just time and we have demolished about half of the tumble down buildings so do have some space now. I was intending to get them mid-July but they emailed back to say they had booked us in for Sunday! So having done a market in Derbyshire I came home swapped from van to car, left M to take care of the rest of the pets( dogs cockateils etc) and drove to Norfolk to get my chickens. We have 3. Should have got 6 tho so have asked for 3 more in about a month. They are lovely! They are a bit bald but not as bad condition as many. Because I live so far away from the rescue place they gave me very feathered good condition birds. Or relatively speaking. One has a floppy comb due to malnutrition and all are underweight. The state of some of them there was pitiful. They have a hospital wing for birds with broken wings - normally they are left to suffer untreated on the battery farms. One pen has birds with a disease who cannot got to homes. Another has birds who have legs so weak they cannot stand up. All will be rehomed eventually though apparently - except those with diseases. These people do such a worthwhile job and work long hours for free every weekend to rehome these poor creatures. The woman who started Little Hen Rescue is called Jo and she has also rescued cockateils. One of her cochateils has had its wings stapled. Can you believe that? What kind of human being would do such a terrible thing to a bird. Being a parrot it can climb and lives in an aviary with other rescued cockateils but the idea of this poor bird having its wings stapled haunts me. Apparently the vet reckons the staples cannot be removed due to having grown over. Poor animal.
Anyway Little Hen Rescue is wonderful. Inspiring. They had 10,000 birds to rehome last weekend else they would be slaughtered. They managed to rehome most of these. The place was very difficult to find and i just got lost and they came and recused me - made me feel a right prat I can tell you but anyway if you ever fancy recuing chickens ( they also do geese and ducks) I would recommend them. My chickens are currently in temporary housing but even this small 6ft by 2 ft run is better than they are used to. The house is good tho and till today only one had ventured out of it into the run and to get them out I had to force them thru the door cos I wanted to clean the inside of their house and didnt want to attempt with them in the way. On battery farms they have 6 chickens to a space the size of an A3 sheet of paper so mine have a huge area even though I feel guilty cos it is small! It will be better once the new run is built. Mine seem quite happy tho scrattching around and munching on food. You have to give them mash to begin with cos they are not used to anything else and make sure they are drinking but it all seems to be going well so far. I have given them some tomatoes, cougettes and carrots which they ate, but they didnt like pasta. The run is very makeshift since we expected to have another 3 weeks to get ready but it didnt work out like that so now we will have to move the wood store and they will then get a space about 10ft by 14ft to live in which is more like it. Also then I can get another 3! M worked very hard on Saturday, sunday after the market( whilst I drove to get them) and monday after he got home from work, to make this home for them. He is very tired still today. This proves how fast you can work tho when something needs doing.I wish we could be this fast at renovating the house. The new chicken run will be ongoing for a couple of weekends I reckon cos to build it we have to move loads of wood but its seasoned now and in reality we are unlikely to be given huge amounts of fire wood ever again so probably wont need such a huge storage space for it so it will be a new chicken home. My birthday has come early this year. Time to get back to making stuff for the festival now.......