A riot of colour

The day started at just 3C which was more like a winter morning and quite a shock to the system. Bean was well-buried under two blankets until the sun arrived on the deck, at which point she made a Bean-line for the sheepskin there. 

And it has turned into a delightful sunny 20C day. 

This is K’s garden again. I spent the morning engaged there in my never-ending battle with dandelions and forget me nots. 

I had a break after an hour or two and as I headed towards my habitual smoko spot, I spotted this cornucopia of colour and whipped out my phone to record it.

My patience has run out with the three chooks who remain eggless. They are now at least 27 weeks old and while one might start laying, the other two look very underdeveloped and are likely to be duds. As you may recall I calculated they were 12 weeks old at most when I picked them up: far from ‘point of lay’ as advertised.

This morning I contacted another local producer and have secured three 18-week old hens to collect on Saturday. I am confident these ones really are point of lay. They come with good word of mouth recommendations.

Hopefully in a few weeks I will be inundated with eggs.

Even though I will soon have nine chooks (although the possible duds won’t last long) I am now dismantling the hen run extension, because the Peasgood Nonsuch apple tree overhanging it is laden with fruit and will be impossible to harvest with the extension in place. It needed to come down before getting completely overgrown with thistles…which hens don’t eat. 

Having inspected the apple tree closely, it now has props under three of its branches to prevent them snapping. So does another apple and a pear tree close by. The harvest is huge this year on these fruit trees which I only planted five years ago. I should probably remove some of their burden, but somehow I can’t do it.

What hope then for digging up two blackcurrant bushes, one redcurrant bush and half the raspberry canes in winter?!