Horrid way to start the day – bbye Lime, Blue and Blacksy

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 26 June 2012 in chickens | 4 comments

Just three days shy of our red chickens second “gotcha” anniversary, we’ve lost three hens – Lime, Blue & Blacksy – in a mink (we think) attack this morning.

We woke up to hear chicken kerfuffling – that’s not uncommon, them bwarking about laying an egg – but it was different to normal and when John looked out of the bedroom with the binoculars, he saw feathers all over the run. We ran down to see what was happening – I thought perhaps someone had prolapsed and the others were attacking – but no. There were three dead chickens on the ground and even though we were stood there, a little nose peeked out of a hole in the ground twice before running away.

Ginger (the Black Rock) and one of the reds were high up on perches in the run when we got in there, and the other red was in the coop’s nest box so I didn’t immediately know which of the reds had died but once we knew that the mink or whatever it was had gone away, it was time to figure out who was gone. I identified our girls with a heavy-heart. Blacksy was easy to identify as she was our only fully black one (another Black Rock) but the reds needed closer inspection. I know it’s awful but I was really hoping that they were the other two red (Ms Mauve & Green), not my favourites Lime & Blue – they all look very similar but I soon found Blue’s blue ring (the only one of them still wearing a leg ring) and Lime’s black flecks in her neck feathers. Sigh.

We buried them in the woods and John’s dad is now around, helping to re-secure the run. It was designed to be fox-proof as we thought they’d be our main threat but despite seeing foxes in and around the garden on a number of occasions (and hearing them barking at night quite regularly), we’ve not had any trouble from them. From the cold winter in 2010-2011, we’ve had ratty residents digging tunnels but as they didn’t seem to bother the chickens, we weren’t too obsessive about filling them in ASAP – we didn’t think anything that could fit through them would be enough of a threat. Sighhhhhh.

The other three chickens are currently locked in their (safe, well off the ground) coop but I’m going to let them have some closely supervised garden time soon. It will be sad garden time though, without my cheeky compadres Lime & Blue constantly getting in the way.

Personalities (chicken-alities?) aside, all three were good layers and their yolky offerings will be missed.

(Pictures: Lime Chicken eating my Swiss Chard last year, Blues investigating the greenhouse a couple of months ago, and Blacksy posing in the run last year)

My kindling cutting “helpers”

Posted by louisa on Sunday 2 October 2011 in chickens, wood stuff | 3 comments

I had some company while cutting the kindling this morning.

Lily was taste-testing each stick as it came off the axe.

“Mmm, bit of a woody flavour.”

And a few minutes later, after Lily had gone into a sulk because she’d heard the fake camera click of my phone (she HATES all cameras for some reason), Lime the chicken came to see what was going on too — the first time she, or any of the chickens, have visited the top level of the garden, which is three flights of stairs away from the chicken coop/run.

She watched me chopping some kindling for a bit but she was more interested in John cutting wood in the woodstore though and spent ages stood behind him, head cocked to one side and making the occasional clucking noise, as he sawed up some logs. She seemed to have no interest in any of the many edibles on that level, just wondering what us crazy humans were up to. :)

(Appalling camera phone pics, sorry for the quality.)

A cracking start to Spring

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 22 March 2011 in chickens, growing, making | 3 comments

Oh what a beautiful day!

I know yesterday was officially the first day of Spring but it was a usual sit-at-computer rush-off-to-rehearsal day for me, whereas I got out in the Spring sunshine today. I’d decided to have a day away, or at least largely away from my computer – and couldn’t have scheduled it better weather-wise.

We had our first breakfast al fresco – sitting on the sun trap of a balcony. The idea of having breakfast on a balcony was one of the things that sold the house to us – the balcony faces into the woods and it’s a gorgeous view, even with the trees still leafless:

(The two horizontal strips of green at the bottom of the photo are just over the stream at the bottom of the garden – it’s wild garlic. There is *so much* wild garlic in the woods – and thankfully plenty in places not often frequented by dogs.)

After breakfast, I cleaned out the chicken coop and since I was working hard, I thought some of the chickens should be busy too – I put Lime & Green to work in the portable run I made the other week, weeding one of the veg beds. They worked like troopers…

Except for when they got distracted by a dried leaf caught in the wire.

(By the way, since it was sunny, both cats wandered down into the garden, saw the girls in the portable run, thought their luck was in so crouched down – then realised the chickens were a. bigger than them b. had sharp beaks and c. had bigger claws so slunk off to continue their sun worship elsewhere. It was funny to watch them go through the exact same actions.)

Chicken, this is nephew; nephew, this is chicken

Posted by louisa on Monday 21 March 2011 in chickens | 5 comments

Our 13-month-old nephew has been eating our chickens’ eggs for a little while but he only met them properly for the first time on Saturday. He took his suddenly-beloved-soon-forgotten spoon along for the introduction.

He’s met Lily/dogs a good number of times before but as well as meeting Lime the chicken, he also met his first up-close cat on Saturday too – he seemed to like Carla-cat a lot and considering she’s a ‘fraidy one, she didn’t seem to mind him either :)

Playing catch up

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 22 February 2011 in charity shopping, chickens, growing | 3 comments

Apologies for being a little quieter than normal recently – after my busy work weekend, I had lots of exciting plans for yesterday but all of them went by the wayside in favour of sitting. Ahh, sitting.

Anyway, so today has been catch-up day, as well as supposedly being a normal work day and having to go to Leeds ont’ bus to do some stuff regarding our old house (which we’re *still* trying to sell) – busy day! I started clearing out the chicken coop and had lots of fun with Lime, my favourite of our girls. While she was moulting, she was a little more distant than usual but today she was with me the whole time, including climbing out of the nest box’s open flap to sit on my knee while I cleaned in there (and then came for a wander around the garden under my arm when I went to reprimand our barking dog). I think/hope we’re going to be reasonably logical/hard-hearted with the hens in general — they’re food producers not pets — but I think Lime is firmly in pet territory now. The others still might end up as soup or in a curry but she’s going to be around for the long term.

After that, I potted on the honeyberry plantlets that arrived over the weekend. You know last week when I said we were done for fruit for 2011? Well, I was wrong – I’d forgotten about the honeyberries which I’d bought as part of a big order in November — I only remembered when Fiona mentioned getting one herself on Twitter last week. Anyway, now I have three little ones in pots. I’m not sure where they’ll end up – they grow to about 4ft tall but I’ve filled my 4ft+-tall spots with the fruit bushes from a couple of weeks ago. I doubt they’ll grow that big or even big enough to fruit this year though so I’ll have a little while to figure it out. They’re definitely the last of the fruit for the year though. Except for the cherry tree which is due in a few weeks. And anything else that pops up.

Speaking of popping up, my heated propagator stuff is starting to poke through! My cucumbers said “7-21 days” for germination but have started to appear at 5 or 6 – lovely strong shoots. A couple of tomatoes have made it through too. Away from the heated propagator, today seems to have been the day for my cauliflowers to germinate as well. I am perhaps more excited by all these green shoots than I should be ;)

That (and some work) was all this morning and this afternoon I’ve been in Leeds – at our old house, at the bank and picking up misc things from Wilkinsons (including the last of my soap making supplies – woo!) – and I had a little time for a spot of charity shopping too. I actually looked at clothes in one place – I decided I couldn’t hide from temptation forever and I’ve had a number of good things from there in the past – but didn’t buy anything. I did see a top that I might of bought in a more spend-hearty type – it was nothing special, just a basic t-shirt thing, of the type I wear a lot and already have a lot – but now it wasn’t worth wasting a clothing credit on it — it wasn’t that special and I don’t need it. I think I’m experiencing a mental shift when it comes to buying clothes – hurrah!

I did buy one thing from a charity shop though – a cute little lunch box thing for £1:

Apparently “miko cat” is Boots’ Hello Kitty homage/rip-off but whatever, it’s a black cat (the very best type of cat) and it’s cute. When I brought it home, John clasped it to his chest and asked if he could have it for his pencils. I reminded him that he lost my last lunchbox so no, but we could use it for our pencils.

Now I must go as a I have a wonderfully delicious chocolate-coffee mousse to eat. If you just raised your eyebrows at the thought of a “wonderfully delicious chocolate-coffee mousse”, stay tuned – I’m hoping to post the recipe tomorrow :)