Gone Walkabout

Lotty @ Home
After having a look in greenhouse two on Saturday and realising that the seeds hadnt made an appearance we decided it was time for new tactics. We put as many of the pots as we could and brought them all home in the hope a bit of warmth would help them along a bit. The first thing I had to do was to find homes around the house for them all. We now have tomatoes in the living room, peppers, chilis and aubergines in the bedroom and onions by the front door. I havnt really been checking them too much as its always a bit disappointing when nothings happening, but as I was cleaning yesterday I noticed a very small shoot in one of the tomato pots. I hope this means our plan is working and we can bring more home to start them off.

Another Break In
On Tuesday I arrived at lotty to find a wooden pole and some of the white foam wrap just outside of the hut. I couldnt understand why they were there but didnt really thing too much of it. It wasnt until David came along and asked that I realised we'd been broken into. The pole was the hand rail from next to the hut which had been pulled off. They couldnt break the lock so they removed the pole it was locked around to make enough room for them to squeeze through. I had a quick look but despite things being moved nothing was missing. They had been to quite a few plots but the only thing taken seems to have been the eggs from chicken Georges coop.

The eggs not being the only thing to go missing that day, after only a few minutes of letting the chickens out Penny went missing. They've been doing it quite often lately which may be due to the cockerel. Marge being Pennys best friend was making her way along the fence so that she could join her in the adventure. The cockerel didnt seem to like this too much and was constantly crowing for her to come back.

Despite spending half an hour looking for her, I eventually had to leave, and once again by the time I got back she was milling around as if she'd never left. Whilst I was there that morning I thought id ask chicken John to have a look at the cockerel as id noticed a lump on one of his wattles. He came in to have a look and said it was nothing to worry about, but that I could put a bit of savlon on it if I really wanted to. He did have a little check over of him and said he was a lovely looking boy. He did advise me to only cut one set of flight feathers the next time we needed to clip his wings. The cockerel is alot better behaved now and is usually the first one into the coop at night now. The dynamics of the group have changed slightly now but the girls never seem very happy when cockerel tries to mate with them, iv so far not seen a successful try.

Getting Ready
The Blur and I went over to lotty this afternoon to clean out the coop, although the Blur did more sitting on the swing than actual helping with it. Greenhouse one was in a bit of a mess after the chickens thought it would be good to throw the straw everywhere and today id had enough of it. After cleaning the coop I took the wheelbarrow over and raked up what I could of the mess. I managed to keep the girls out whilst I was doing it but Alison, wanting to have a play in it climbed up onto the wheelbarrow and began the to kick it all back onto the ground. Luckily she didnt make too much of a mess. I put the straw onto our fire place ready for tomorrow and covered it with the wheelbarrow so it would all still be there in the morning.

The final job of today was to dig over part of our large new patch so that tomorrow i'll be able to start planting some carrots. As soon as the spade hit the ground the girls were surrounding me ready to gobble up any worms I unearthed. I was hoping the cockerel would come and join in but he stayed on the outskirts pecking at grass. I hope next time he'll get the picture. It wasnt long either before the Blur came down with a spade and wellies on to give me a hand. She wasnt quite sure of what she was supposed to do but she tried her best and it was lovely that she wanted to help. Im hoping now that the weather will be nice enough for us to spend a bit more time there, and we can really start getting our seeds sewn.