Water off a chickens back

Wow, what a fabulous few days!!! It's been brilliantly hot and sunny, and the garden has just been crying out for some company, so that's where I've spent the last 3 days. Much to the detriment of the k itchen, I hasten to say.

So, what have I been up to? Mostly I've been planting seeds, tidying up the borders and digging a small extension to the small veg plot, making a slightly large small veg plt. Just enough for a couple of potatoes a shorts row or two of carrots and peas and beans up the fence. Both bean and peas are growing like mad - and I seemed to have solved the slug mucnhing problem by balancing the seed trays on a ladder on it's side. Last year the majority of what I planted got anihilated as soon as it's first leaves poked through the surface. The cucmbers and courgettes are doing well, and are detsined for the patch under the living room window. It's a south facing wall and gets the sun all day, so hopefully they will flourish. I'm thinking about getting a grape vine for that wall.

Because it was so hot over the weekend we put the paddling pool up for the kids. Ok, not very green to use all that water, but I have been watering the plants with it, and refilled the back garden water butt and have now filled the butt in the front garden. I first tried running the hose through the house and attaching one end to a watering can. To my credit it worked, but it took so long I resorted to carrying cans through the house and ignoring the drips on the carpet.

Had a bit of good news - neither side neighbours are fussed about us keeping chickens. Woo hoo! Just need to build their house and run. I picked up some bits of fence lanelling this afternoon from freecycle, soi it's time to get creative. I'm aiming (in a very loose sense) to make a house with a nest box, on legs, contained in a netting enclosure, with access to the eggs from the outside, and a door to get in and out. It will be about the size of a 6x4 shed, and may be joined on to the side of our existing shed.

I'm getting really excited about getting the chickens. I was sitting out there last night after hubby had gone to work and I'd watered the plants, and I was thinking how 'right' it would feel to have them at the end of the garden. It's a really hard feeling to put into words - but certain things just feel right, and natural and normal (like chickens and planting seeds and digging the garden), and other things just feel plain wrong (like shopping in Tesco).

I have a long way to go with the garden yet though - as the pictures show!














Think I need to mend the fence before the chickens escape next door!














This lot will have to go first!














My pile of fence panel chicken housing