The Golden Girls

At long last I am the proud owner of a very swish Chicken Arc, thanks to a generous gift voucher from my work mates at Nuclear Medicine, and also my part time mother, Aunty Dorothy. Well a chicken arc is not much use with out chickens,so we have obtained three young ladies. They are Light Sussex, mainly white with some black feathers around their necks, and are just starting to lay. We have called them the Golden Girls after the TV programme, cant actually distinguish who is who, so not quite sure who is Dorothy, Blanche or Rose. We will see.
The chicken arc has upstairs accomadation, with a nesting box, a fancy stair case that goes up and down to close the chickens in at night, and a run on the ground floor.The general plan was to keep the girls in the run for about a week to make them feel at home, and then gradually let them out for a bit each day. By Day three that plan had gone to the dogs, as one of them managed to escape while I was cleaning out the nest box. After five minutes of playing chase the chicken ( looking a real sight in my nightie and wellies at 07.30) I decided to give up and have let them all out.
They have very gentle characters (so far, I have heard theres another side to chickens, they can be quite vicious) and potter around the field, usually following who ever has a spade as that means we might be doing the digging.Like naughty children, they keep returning to areas you have chased them away from, almost to taunt me. I am trying to convince them that the poly tunnel is not actually a chicken beauty parlour, and they can find other areas to sand bath and snack. They were very interested when were adding some planting around the nature pond, and seem to rather like the taste of hostas. I thought you used chickens to eat the slugs that eat the hostas but we seem to have missed the slugs out, and the chickens just eat the hostas instead. LOL.

Talking of eating, the purpose of getting chickens, apart from the entertainment value , is to have our own eggs.The girls are young and have just started laying, quite impressively I think, one or two eggs most days, and occasionally even three ! They seem to have got the idea of the nesting box, and they might all be scratching around the field, then one dashes back to the arc to lay an egg. When that one comes out, the next one might go in, and the other day I had to have a chuckle when I could only find one girl in the field, had a look in the nesting box, and the other two doing a double decker act together. Only one egg though so dont know who was shirking. Occasionally we find an egg without a shell, and I get the impression that these are sometimes a surprise to the chicken as well as they may not be in the nesting box. We even found an egg in the long grass in the field  when we were cutting it !! Didnt eat that one, gave it too the dogs. Now Seun is very interested when we go to check for eggs, thinks he should have one for breakfast each day. Not likely. I have had to make a plan to deal with all the eggs , so have been baking, which is a bit of a pity as it means we have to eat the baked goodies!!!! I have even had a go at making lemon curd which was yummy. Most surprising  was when I cracked six eggs, I had 8 yolks... well done girls.

The Baaaa bies arrive

Even fields need to be looked after, or they go out of condition in one year ! We had several options, ie, leave the fields to grow into hay, and pay a contractor to come and cut and bale the hay later in the year, and then try and sell it, or get some animals to graze the fields. As we are concertrating on sorting out the vegetable garden ( hopefully market garden)we thought that we would be biting off more than we can chew by adding animals to the equation for this year at least. So we decided to tack the fields out.- this means basically another farmer will put his animals onto our land to graze the fields, we have no responsibilities with regards to feeding, or the health of the animals, our fields get eaten and fertilized, helping to maintain the fertilitly, and we might even get a couple of shillings in the back pocket, or a lamb in the freezer. Farmer Alun from across the road did say he would bring some cows for a while, but we have yet to see them. Cows are quite heavy on the land and can "poach" ( farmer talk for wreck the land ) it quite easily. Another couple (Derek and Heather )who farm quite near us ( so they say, across the road at Five Roads, not sure which road they are on ) , stopped by and wanted to tack some of their sheep to our land. We thought this was a better idea than cows as sheep are not so heavy on the land, and thinking ahead, if we do  get some sheep in the future this would be good practise for us. So we decided to foster the sheep. Derek arrived with a double decker trailer full of 25 sheep one Sunday afternoon.These ladies are last Febuary's lambs, so just over a year old. They are here to rest and put on a bit of weight before they have lambs themselves early next year. There are two sorts, a few with pale mottled faces and the rest have black faces. Derek did tell us what flavour of sheep they were, but neither David or myself caught the name. These sheep are used for fleeces and will be shorn towards the end of June.That should be fun to watch, and Heather has promised to show me how to fold the fleeces before they are sent off to the Wool Board... something else to put on my CV.. fleece folder, GCSE. As Brian still hasnt come to do the fences or gates, Derek brought a couple of tempory gates, which are held in place with baler twine ( the stuff they use in the machines that harvest the hay and bale it ) It seems like all you have to do is keep the sheep in, keep a distant eye on them and make sure they have some water. Easy peasy, dont know what all these farmers moan about.(though I am sure we are going to find out ).
Well David cannot just look at the animals in the distance. They were not particularly friendly, but give David a bag of sheep food and plenty of time, and he soon has some new friends. The most bold sheep who comes at every opportunity we have called Maud, and she gets cheekier by the day. After two weeks , she is even coming to the top gate in the field to look for David and calls him as well. I am sure she says Daaaaa vid Daaaa vid . She now eats out of his hand and is quite bossy, not really letting the othere get a look in side ways. I just wonder what Derek and Heather will say when they have 25 sheep waiting to be hand fed and entertained. LOL( laugh out loud ). 

Photos from Dads birthday, and the street party

And off I go again !

After 2 nights at home, the freezer stocked and the fridge packed to capacity, I left Llaingof again, this time for ma week in the sunnier and more noisy climbs of gidea Park and Basildon. So leaving the home team ( David, Michelle, Mark, and Deslyn) with a list of jobs as long as my arm ( which is very long as any one who has had to knit me a jersey will know), and off I went again. This was a bit of a test for myself, as I am not fond of driving long distances, and I had a journey of almost 300miles ahead of me. I managed the journey n about 5 hours with plenty of stops at services along the way for a bit of a breather. The roads and the services always seem so busy, and then I get to wondering if any one is actually ever at home, or wether we all live in our cars most of the time. Hotel Gunn was open for me as usual, almost my second home, thanks lorraine and Graham. Dad has not been well, so I was hoping to offer both Mum and dad a bit of support and see what I could do to help them. Actually it was a real break for me, as their garden is postage stamp size, and once I had potted up a few plants and a few baskets, it felt like I had actaully managed to do something. I was also able to celebrate Dads 82nd birthday with them. I suspect that Dad has had better birthdays than this years one, and am sure he will have better ones in the future.
Friday 30th April dawned, the day of the Royal Wedding. I spent the day watching telly with Mum and Dad, not wanting to miss out on any detail. I thought that Kate looked wonderful, and hope that the Royal Family appreciated the fact that I had my lucky wedding knickers on. Instead of buying a hat for various functions, I buy knickers, so I have white lacy ones for weddings, pale blue or pink ones for christenings, sparkly ones for going to discos and black ones for funerals, much cheaper than a new hat each time and at least I will not look as silly as Beatrice at the wedding, I thought her hat made her look like Tinky Winky form the Telly Tubbies. Anyway, it was a lovely day, and I had a great time watching with Mum and Dad.
The day following the wedding, I attended my first ever street party, in honour of the royal celebrations. Fairholme Ave sure knows how to rock, and there are some very talented local kids about as well. Lorraine deserves a medal for all the work she did and over 100 people attended and had a great afternoon.
In the meanwhile back at the ranch....
The Chicken Arc finally arrived, and was given a coat of paint by Deslyn .. thank you
One tonne of sand arrived and was put into place lining the wild life pond, the underfelt and liner were placed and the pond was filled up, thank you Michelle and Mark.
Loads of plants were either transplanted or potted on, thanks Michelle, Mark and Deslyn
4 more raised beds were completed and filled with compost and potting soil, thanks David .
David also managed to place 300 meters of sheep fencing , attaching it onto exsisting posts. We are still waiting for Brian the grave digger to come and put in the new fence posts and new fencing..... hope hes a bit speedier with his other job than he is with the fencing, or there are a whole lot of people waiting to have a long lie down... well I suppose they have all the time in the world .
And David became the proud foster father of 25 sheep, who will be staying on our fields for a few months. Thanks Heather and Derek for the loan of the sheep.
And me, I managed to do a few little jobs, all indoors, did a bit of shopping with Mum and did lots of sitting, do I feel guilty... no not really.
After a week in Basildon it was time for the great trek home, didnt seem so long going home, maybe i was not quite so nervous of the journey. Again, it was wonderful to get home, and sleep in my own bed.Heaven.

Going Home

Its actually hard to know you belong somewhere, when you havent left, so our trip to Poole served 2 good purposes, one to join in a great family get together, and the second one, , we actually felt like we were going home on our return to Wales. It was lovely to start recognising all the familiar places on the way home, to realise we are only 100 miles from the bridge, and that we enjoyed returning to the peace and tranquility that is Llaingof. As they say the green green grass of home.

The Big 80 !

Our very special Uncle dave was 80 on the 23rd April, and we decided to travel to Poole to join him for dinner as a surprise ! Michella and Mark were left in charge of Llaingof, and after making an early morning telephone call to the birthday boy, we left for Poole. What a wonderful day we had, visiting our special place of rememberance at Upton Park, remembering all the happy birthdays we were able to share with Peter ( David's late Dad) and good old Uncle Dave. Then off round to Lynn for a quick cuppa, and to get washed and polished, and speed off to the hotel in Frendown, so we could hide away before Dave and Doris arrived. I think its fair to say Uncle Dave was suprised to see us all, and we had a wonderful evening together, laughing , talking and maybe even a few tears. A great day and we were so lucky to be there.

Nearly caught in my jammies

Good Friday dawns, Im busy pottering around the kitchen, making breakfast and wondering what we should have for dinner, when out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of blue car ! Its 9.00 am, and Michelle and Mark have arrived, thank goodness I changed out of my jammies about 5 minutes before hand. What a wonderful way to start the day, so its on with the kettle, out with the rusks and the weekend has begun. After 1/2 hour R and R, Mark and Michelle descend on the veggie beds to help out . Me, Ill get on with the lunch, dinner, grub etc.