Carol's Chickens

When I took some photos of my jellyfish for the novelty fruit and veg competition I thought it would be the ideal time to compare my new camera to my old one. I took a couple of photos with my new camera and then a couple of photos with my old camera.

I was amazed at how different they were. The new camera shows the detail a little better but more than it has a much brighter and truer colour. With the new camera the satsumas look  a bright orange whereas with the old camera they look dull and faded. See below.

Jellyfish taken with my new camera

Jellyfish taken with my old camera

While using my old camera I was reasonably happy with the quality, it was the speed that annoyed me. Now I can see how the quality has improved as well as the speed. I am really happy with my new camera.

One of the blogs I follow is called “Going Gently” written by John Gray. It is often amusing,  always interesting and gets many, many comments.

At the moment John is taking photos from his readers of novelty fruit and veg to enter a competition at his local flower show.

I sent a photo of my husband’s “apple bird” which I have shown on here before. That seemed a bit like cheating though so today I decided to make my own and send it in. Here are my “jellyfish”.

Jellyfish

It’s simple but I am actually feeling quite pleased with it. Now we need to eat the satsumas!

Since we moved here, just over ten years ago, the tree in our next door neighbour’s garden has doubled in size. It was already a large tree but it is now an enormous tree.

Our next door neighbour’s tree as seen from our bedroom window

It overhangs the gardens either side despite the fact that we had someone come and cut the overhang from our side a few years back. It is a towering height and I imagine the neighbours will soon have to crawl under it to go up their garden.

It blots out a lot of sun from our garden. It fills the view from our upstairs bathroom window and it dwarfs everything in our garden. The neighbours don’t use their garden so I can’t imagine them doing anything about this tree any time soon.

I think we are stuck with this ever growing, monster, tree for the foreseeable future.

It has been quite heart warming seeing the friendship blossom between Emerald and Speckles.

Emerald and Speckles perch together

They spend a lot of time perching side by side. Emerald has a tendency to stand rather than sit. This is also true of her position in the shed at bedtime until later in the evening.

However yesterday after Emerald had laid her egg she wanted to brood for the first time. In the four years that we have had her she has never showed any signs of going broody. She had always stopped laying half way through May.

This year she has laid for three weeks longer than she has ever laid before. I think maybe that is why she wants to go broody. I think yesterday’s egg was probably her last egg of the season and she has now decided that it is time to sit.

Emerald wants to stay in the cat box

Emerald and Speckles roost together

Speckles often used to roost at the far end of the perch, away from the rest of the bigger girls. Now Speckles and Emerald always roost together. I think Emerald’s flattened, sitting down, pose, is because of her broody feelings.

Yesterday she wanted to stay in the cat box. She has never done this before. I took her out several times and she returned to the cat box. I put the grill on the cat box to close it from her. I was surprised to find that she managed to open the grill and climb over it to settle in the cat box once more. She was determined to get in there. I closed it more securely.

This morning I left the cat box closed and Emerald stayed in the shed near the cat box. She didn’t even want to come out for some corn. I decided to remove the cat box. She still returned to the shed so I decided to close the pop hole.

I really don’t want Emerald to spend her day in the shed and the other girls can lay their eggs in the wooden nest boxes. Once I had closed the shed Emerald stayed out in the run.

I don’t think she will start laying again until next year as she has already laid for the longest stretch ever but I just don’t want her to spend time sitting in the shed when she could be out in the run with her flock mates doing chicken things.

I hope she will soon forget and get back to normal. This seemed like an appropriate time to remove the cat box as without Emerald laying it will no longer be needed. Only Freckles and Rusty lay their eggs in the cat box and with Rusty it’s only been her last two eggs. I am sure they will soon get used to the wooden nest boxes again.

Last year we had our garden path done which was the last big job we needed to do in the garden. It has now softened nicely with the planting spilling over the edges.

Our path is disappearing under the plants

The edges are being softened

After the rain the path through our veg plot had disappeared which was not so good

The potatoes are now tied back giving us our path back again

The path has made a huge difference to the garden and I now have my corner spot to sit in the sun at the end of the day which is an extra bonus. We are really pleased with how the path has turned out.

Today was windy with plenty of downpours of rain. I was pleased to see that some of the girls were using the shelters. Freckles and Speckles spent time in this shelter. Rusty joined them for a few minutes and then went on her way and Dandelion was in the other shelter and was joined briefly by Apricot.

Speckles and Freckles are in one of the shelters

Meanwhile Apricot has got wet

However it was too late for Apricot to go in the shelter as she was already wet. She was the only flock member to get wet. It seems to be because she likes digging in the wet soil and so stands under the drips. I don’t like to think of her getting wet but I can’t stop her from standing under the drips.

She did stay dry in the afternoon so perhaps she is getting the hang of it. She laid her second egg in the same nest box as before and it was the same shape and size as her first one, but with no blood streak, so that is good.

I have also discovered that Apricot does squat. I had wondered if it was because she is so comfortable with me stroking her that she doesn’t squat for me. Today my theory was proved right.

Freckles is going through her next broody spell at the moment and I took her out of the cat box for some respite. She is docile with me but takes out her anger on any passing girls. She saw Apricot pecking at some apple and pecked at her back in anger. Apricot dropped into a squat. I moved Freckles away from her and stroked Apricot’s back and she didn’t move a muscle. It is sweet that she feels so comfortable with me stroking her.

The other development today was that four little girls wanted nest boxes at the same time and we have only three. Freckles was back in the cat box and Apricot was in one nest box and Dandelion was in the other. Cinnamon wanted to lay her egg and didn’t know where to go as the two nest boxes she likes to lay her egg in were occupied.

I guided her in to the nest box Dandelion was in as they are such good little friends. Dandelion looked across at Cinnamon as if wondering what was she was doing in there with her.

Cinnamon and Dandelion share a nest box

Cinnamon laid her egg in there and Dandelion gave up. She still doesn’t always get the signals right about when it’s time to lay her egg. I am sure she will get the hang of it eventually.

I think these canterbury bells are such a lovely shade of blue.

Canterbury bells

I am being watched by Speckles and Emerald at the top of the ladder. This isn’t a very big clump of them but I just love the delicate, pale, blue. I think the clump will get bigger each year.

I took this photo a couple of days ago and the rain has now battered them down.

When I give the flock some mash, I now just put one dish on the patio. The flock are so united that she will share from one dish. It is lovely to see all the girls together.

A dish of mash

All the girls come to take a look

Bigger girls and little girls share the mash, Cinnamon being the tiniest girl of all

They come and go until they have all had a share. What is lovely to see is the different combinations eating from the dish together. Looking back a few months this would never have been possible. The flock have come such a long way.

I often think that one of the things myself and the chickens have in common is our love of sitting in the sun and being able to find a patch of sun to sit in.

The girls will find a patch of sun whether it is on a particular perch, the ladder, or on the ground. Wherever that patch of sun is they will move to it and sit there.

I love to sit on our patio, facing the chicken run and facing the sun, reading a good book. Recently we have been lucky to have some sunny days coinciding with half term which means a quiet week for us as there are never so many lunch bookings during holiday time.

At this time of year the sun disappears from the patio between five o’clock and half past five as it is then shaded by the trees but since we have had our new path I have discovered  that the corner of the path still gets the sun until seven o’clock. There is just enough space for one chair.

At six o’clock my husband brings me a glass of wine. I said that the sloping path wasn’t a safe place to put down a glass of wine. He came up with a solution. The redundant cowl from our chimney was on the veg plot as we had planted a chilli plant in it last year. My husband has now re-purposed it, once more, as somewhere to put my wine glass. Bliss!

Patio area

It’s six o’clock and only a little dappled sunlight is left on here. You may notice that one of the chairs is missing.

End of the day sun spot

This is my perfect spot to catch the end of the day sun. I face my chair to the sun if I want to sit  facing the sun or I turn my chair sideways like this to sit with my back to the sun. This way I get an even amount of sun all over.

This also means that on sunny days when we are busy I can still catch the last hour of sun that I would otherwise have missed from the patio. I just love this little corner in the end of the day sun.

Speckles hasn’t laid an egg for two and a half weeks. She has been growing back her feathers after being plucked which has been like having a mini moult. For the last four or five days she has sat in the nest box for a while each day.

I thought that she probably didn’t know why she wasn’t laying eggs. Today there was a slight change in her behaviour. About six times during the morning I saw her go to the grit and oyster shell. I began to think that perhaps today was going to be the day she started laying again.

She went into the nest box and came out a bit later with a shout. I went to check. Oh my goodness! There was her first egg after her break and it was the same shape and colour as Apricot’s first egg but it was huge.

Speckles egg on the left, Apricot’s egg in the middle and Emerald’s egg on the right

Speckles egg in the middle

Speckles egg in the middle of the egg stand

Wow! What a long egg. It is good to have her back laying again. I think like Apricot she has felt this coming for days. Now we have all the girls laying. Happy egg days.