Weekend snippets

The St. john's wort is flowering along with lavender and chamomile (both picked and drying out in bunches from the kitchen ceiling).



The boys all were busy today stripping bark from birch branches for the makings of a cold frame and a new guinea pig run.





The herbs I planted around the hen house have taken. This was my effort at keeping the summer heat chicken poop-pong down. Not sure if the massive bunches of rosemary, lavender and mint are actually working as intended but they look very lovely. As does the boy with the apple..... who assumes his post daily at the nearest nesting box because his Queen (remember those pics of Felix and his Spekeldy Queen?) is broody and he likes to spy on her and chat - telling her kindly she is wasting her time as we have no cockerel and so no seed can get into her egg to make a chick - maybe one day - he adds sympathetically and hopefully. The wanting of a cockerel is severe here now but am more put off than ever by accounts from a friend who cooked hers last Thursday after it attacked every member of her family. So we whip The Queen's egg away and shoo her out but she troops back in like a lady on a mission. A vain one, but still.... what does she know. Is there a cure for a broody hen I wonder?



The four Black Rocks are growing lovely and plump-ish, filling out and assuming that lovely U-shape posture of the hen (rather than oversize blackbird look of youth). Their combs are starting to turn red and so nearing 25 weeks old (I think) should be gearing up to give us eggs. About time they began earning their keep! Organic layers pellets don't come cheap I tell ya. Who ever decided keeping chickens was this little packet of self sufficient goodness was wrong. The buying of house, the birds, the food (we have discovered the greedy and perpetual hunger state of the average chicken), the straw.... and a free ranging lifestyle of royalty which finds me scooping and water spraying poop from the front door step every blooming day..... start laying I shout at them pretty much daily Go on before I get my stock pot out!!! Really though, we like our chickens, they are soooo friendly and silly it (almost) makes up for the pound signs that flash like sunlight in their beady eyes and shiny feathers. The Blacks have this new and glimmering sheeny petrol green/blue tinge to their black feathers, and this copper ring around their necks.....



Felix has had his little sling on in imitation of his sister in her 'real' sling. The didymos is getting more use than ever. I have the knack of tying it now. And baby Boo-boo plump-kin seems to like being in there. It is heavenly to have a sleeping baby in the sling, to be taking a walk in sun drenched fields and actually be comfortable to boot. Bliss!