In Retreat

This is one canny chicken. Next door have three hens that scrabble around their garden. I've just trimmed the hedge, as you see. This aroused their interest - almost as if it reminded them that there is a place next door. This one found a way through (or over, or round?); somehow she kept it a secret! Even better, she discovered our bird feeder. So, for a while, we had the amusement of goldfinches sitting on the feeder, selecting the seeds they like, throwing the rejects on the ground and the chicken barely able to believe her luck, circling the pole and picking up the benificence rained from above. The comedy was doubled when MrsM noticed the other two perched on top of their pen, looking over the now-truncated hedge, turning their heads to look first with one eye, then the other - the very picture of avian frustration. There will be strong emotions in the coop tonight

It's never a dull moment in the countryside

The hedge is the easy bit of winter pruning, even when some of the year-old shoots are 2cm thick (I should have picked less vigorous species for a garden hedge). The apple tree is harder work because only the lowest water-shoots can be reached from ground level. The rest require either tree-climbing, ladder-scaling, or a telescopic pole with seccateurs on the top, that can be operated with a cord (the last one being very frustrating amongst a tangle of stiff, old branches and twigs)

Today was too dull and cold for any of this. I snipped at a few low branches, captured a picture of a smug, retreating chicken, and ran back to a warm kitchen