Three girls a laying.
The season has definitely changed to autumnal. We've had the first frosts and the last of the tomatoes are frost burned and rotting on the vines. We've joined the local community garden but it's raining so hard right now that we're planning to go on another day. You will have noticed that blog posts have been a little scarce. This is because we've been so busy that even late in the evening when I usually sit with my computer on my lap we've still been clearing up and tidying.
One of the biggest problems with having livestock in the garden, from a housekeeping point of view, is that whether it's wet or dry you still have to go out and feed them, clean them and tend to them. In the summer a clutch of chickens seems romantic and exciting. Watching the bees glide dozily around the flowers is hypnotic and beautiful. When you've had 2.5 cm of rain in less than 24 hours mucking out the chickens in wellies and a sou'wester in temperatures just above freezing is significantly less delightful. Not that I begrudge the girls the care they need. Far from it. BUT I do object to people "FORGETTING" to take their boots off and trudging chicken shit up the stairs to the bathroom. I sweep and mop the kitchen floor each day but by the end of it all our ground floor still resembles an archaeological site.
I am attempting to institute a regime of indoor and outdoor footwear. The idea is that outdoor shoes DO NOT come into the kitchen. Well.....nice in theory. In practice even I, wielder of mops and cleaner of floors, forget occasionally so for those for whom there is no sanction I'm not sure there is any way of enforcing the change.
Cats of course don't wear shoes. They just blithely plod through whatever might be around and then bring it in on their dainty pink little pads. Sid is not fond of the wet and as such is unlikely to make much of a mess. He does check the front door as well as the back in case somehow the weather at the front of the house might be a more palatable 25 degrees in the shade but as yet no such delight has been spotted. Merlin is a hardy beast. He intensely dislikes the litter tray so is prepared to go out in any weather. Goose, the destroyer of worlds (I apologise to Mr Oppenheimer-I'm sure he did less damage) generally isn't allowed out when it's wet. She hasn't had her cat flu jabs and is a bit little to be getting soaked. Her poorly leg is recovered and she only limps when she's been really stupid and gotten herself stuck up a holly tree.
The bees, quite sensibly, only come out when the sun shines. They don't do well in the wet and it appears they know this. Since we put bricks on top of the hive to prevent strong winds lifting it I've seen far fewer dead bees on their backs in puddles. The texture of the bricks stops the meniscus from trapping them. However the numbers of dead bees outside the hive are growing. This is cleared up effectively by the chickens who are omnivores in the same degree as goats.
I have yet to see a chicken eat a pair of tights (and I have witnessed goats trying to work their way through a washing line full) but they have tidied up all those nasty plants in the garden. They've cleared up ALL the cabbages, I've hidden the sorrel in the conservatory, they've more or less finished the pepper plants and the corn flowers, while not AS delicious provide some entertainment. I've tried putting out various kitchen scraps. Obviously we avoid potato skins. Potatoes are from the same family as deadly nightshade and do not make good fodder for the chooks. That said they happily eat the pepper plants and the tomatoes, also solanacea, with gay abandon. I've heard that animals avoid plants that do them harm-I've also head that horses will eat hemlock water drop-wort which is a deadly poison so them's mixed messages thar....
Three of the girls are laying eggs now. We've had 9 so far in a week. One lays soft buff coloured eggs, one lays lovely speckled eggs and another lays warm burnished brown eggs. This came as a surprised to us as we'd expected them to be off lay till next year when the days got a bit longer.
I just popped out to give them some mealworms. They're confined to their run while the rain is really heavy so we're making sure they get plenty to keep them entertained throughout the day. Henrietta came diving down the ramp and I looked in the nesting box where I found a perfect warm brown egg. At last I've put an egg to a face! In a way it seems a little disrespectful but we're going to have poached eggs for lunch.
Love
Katherine
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