Carol's Chickens

It was my birthday a few days ago. My husband said that despite his resolve not to buy me anything chicken related he just couldn’t resist this one. He chose a spot in the garden for the new chicken.

Birthday chicken

Close up of my birthday chicken

My husband said that now it’s in the garden it reminds him of chocolate. Jackie said she managed to avoid a chicken related gift and gave me this lovely insect house. We put it on the wall opposite the chickens.

This wall has the plant holders my husband gave me on a previous birthday and the bird box he gave me for Christmas. It is filling up with my gifts.

Insect house

Close up of insect the house

I had some very thought full gifts and an evening meal in our local pub. It was a lovely birthday.

When we moved here, nine years ago, there was an established miniature lilac tree in the garden. I call it miniature because it wasn’t a full sized large lilac tree but was about six foot tall, fully grown, with small delicate lilac flowers rather than the large flowers on the very tall trees.

We were quite pleased that it was already in this garden as we had bought one for our previous garden which we left behind.

Last year the lilac tree suddenly died and we noticed another tall plant had been growing in it’s place but had been hidden by the original lilac. It had already got quite big so we took out the dead lilac and left the new plant. We thought it fortunate that it had taken the original lilac’s place and would mean we didn’t have to buy a large plant, which would be costly,  to fill the gap.

The new plant didn’t flower last year and we weren’t sure if it was a different sort of lilac. This year the new plant is already as large as the original plant and has been in bud for ages.

I have been taking photos while waiting for the flowers to open. It has a lot more foliage than either the original lilac or a standard lilac tree but the flowers appear to be lilac flowers.

I have a theory that maybe like roses grafted on to wild roses to produce bigger flowers that this may be some sort of grafted lilac that has reverted to a more wild version and therefore has more foliage and less flowers.

Whatever it is we are quite happy to have the new plant in place of the old one.

Lilac in bud

The flowers are almost open

It’s now about six feet tall

Lilac flowers

Close up of fully opened flowers

It has taken weeks for the flowers to open, while the flowers have been open on the regular large lilac trees for some time. I definitely think it is part of the lilac family though.

I am amazed that such a big shrub/tree has appeared only last year and grown this much already. If anyone knows anything about this tree I would love to hear about it.

It is such a surprise when something just appears in the garden but I think there must be a connection with the plant that died. We are happy to have this replacement in our garden whatever it is.

Emerald always jumps on the inner gate when I open the outer gate to the run and Speckles would jump on me as I went through the gate. Speckles has now developed a slight change in her habit. She too jumps on the inner gate (if Emerald can do this then so can she!) and then she jumps from the gate to me.

I have no worry that she will jump from the gate to outside the run. I simply turn my back to her and on she jumps every time.

Speckles on the gate

You can see her looking at me ready to make her move.

Speckles now goes from the gate to me

These funny girls, they do make me smile.

We have been working on this garden for nine years now. When we moved in it just had the concrete path and a lawn. Bit by bit we took the lawn out and planted.

We put the arches in and planted them to screen us from the neighbours. Later the chicken run followed and the veg plot was moved. It has evolved with time. The things we have planted have matured.

The concrete path now needs replacing as it is cracked and loose in places. We would like to get that done next but are struggling to find someone to take on the job.

The garden is looking amazing though and gives us a lot of pleasure.

This is looking good

We look out of our kitchen window at this, where once there was a bare expanse of fence.

Yellow poppies are pretty even when closed in the shade

The yellow poppies open in the sun

I love the girlies watching me as I go up the garden

The garden is so full and lush

There are lots of textures and shapes

Looking down from the chicken run towards the patio

The patio is surrounded by greenery

Over the arches on the right and over the cabin roof behind the patio furniture is the rose that we had as a moving in gift from a friend. It is now huge and is at the moment a mass of bud. It will look glorious in the coming weeks and I will take photos again once it is in flower. I always think of the patio area as a little oasis.

Looking over the veg plot

There is a lot of green at the moment but there is a lot of colour to come. We planted something in flower every month of the year in the first year to give us some colour all year round.

The potatoes are now up

Today we filled the potato bags to the top with soil to give a maximum potato crop.

The dwarf beans are up too

This is the first year we have grown dwarf beans instead of runner beans. The veg plot always gives us something to look forward to. We never know which crops will do the best in each year.

The girl’s dandelion patch

Even the girl’s dandelion patch is looking lush. The beauty of this is that I keep picking the leaves for the girls and it just keeps on growing back again. They can have these leaves all year round.

I once tried to grow grass for the girls in trays but it didn’t work because they scratched the roots but this gives them a year round supply of leaves to top up the other greens that I give them.

You can see Peaches and Barley looking hopeful of getting a few leaves through the wire. When I hold the leaves through the wire the girls peck at them as if they are starved. They absolutely love them and it keeps their egg yolks a lovely deep orange colour. We are not the only ones happy with the garden and of course we also benefit from the lovely eggs that the girls give us.

A few days ago we took a branch off of our pear tree because it had grown out at a strange angle and was looking unattractive. When we had the apple tree in the run the girls used to like to get up into the tree and eat the leaves so I thought that they might like the leaves of the pear tree.

I thought that the branch might provide them with some entertainment.

All the girls investigate the branch

They try the leaves

Speckles disappears

She has taken a leaf away

Speckles took her leaf to a quiet corner where she could tackle it in peace. While I was taking photos she jumped on to my back then up to my shoulder. I decided to blindly take a selfie. I held up the camera and clicked with no idea what I was going to get.

I was too high and missed myself but just got this shot of Speckles.

Speckles is on my shoulder

After the initial interest in the pear tree branch the girls soon lost interest in it completely. I think that the leaves may have been too tough for them. The next day the branch was completely ignored so I decided to remove it as it was just taking up space.

Oh well, you never know what they will like but even a short spell of entertainment is worthwhile. I am always looking for things to entertain the girls and that in turn entertains me too.

A few days ago Emerald had been in the nest box for much longer than usual. I wondered if she was feeling broody.

Emerald in the nest box

She has a manic gleam in her eye.  After checking on her several times I decided to lift her out of the nest box.

Underneath her were two eggs, her own egg and Peaches egg. I lifted her up and set her down in the run. I wish I had had my camera with me at that moment. The look on her face was priceless. She looked as if she was wondering how on earth she had landed there, my husband described her look as “shell shocked”.

Next time I checked on her she was in the nest box again. She has never done this before and I decided that as all the girls had laid (except Toffee who isn’t laying at the moment) that I would close up the nest boxes. I hoped that I could nip this in the bud as I don’t really want another broody and Emerald is our best layer at the moment.

I thought I would keep an eye on her and open the nest box again if she looked stressed because she is prone to being a bit manic at times.

She went out into the run and started picking up bits of shavings and twigs and flicking them on her back. It was so funny because she would toss them over her shoulder so violently that they would miss and fall over the other side of her. A few of the smaller bits landed on her but as fast she tossed more on some fell off.

It was difficult to catch the actual moment she tossed the bits so these photos are the best I could get. You can just see some small bits on her back.

Emerald is flicking bits on her back

Most of the bits have dropped off

She tries taking bits from a different spot

I think this probably is broody behaviour but when I next checked on her she was scratching around in the run as usual. I opened the nest boxes up again and she didn’t return to them so I think the moment had passed.

Emerald did sit in the nest box briefly the next day but didn’t lay an egg and soon gave up and was back out in the run again. Hopefully her very brief broody moment has passed. Emerald is a funny little character.

My youngest son and his partner moved house a few days ago and yesterday we went over to see the new house. We knew that they had a large decking area and a lawn so decided to take them a couple of pot plants as a moving in gift.

Two plants as a moving in gift

They put the hosta in their front porch and the petunias on the decking. They were a bit lost in the space but it is a start for them.

We also bought a couple of small plants for ourselves.

A new plant for an empty pot

I love the pretty colour of the flowers on this succulent and it was perfect for this empty pot.

A replacement plant for my chicken bucket

I bought an annual for my chicken bucket too early in the year (too eager). A couple of weeks of frost followed and killed it so now it has a replacement. I love the colour of this and hope that this one will flower all summer.

Last Saturday we visited my eldest son and his wife for the day, in Cambridge. Before we left I gave the girls some corn cobs to keep them occupied while we were out, along with apples and some spinach. The corn cobs were in a pack of four and were on offer.

Emerald and Barley were the first to investigate the corn

Barley, Peaches and Toffee peck the corn

Speckles wants to find a way in

I only had time for a few photos as we left at half past eight. We got back at six o’clock and the corn cobs were completely stripped.

This Saturday I  suddenly remembered that there were still the other two corn cobs in the fridge. I had to trim them down to fit in the square feeders as they were fatter than the first two.

Emerald and Toffee were the first to the corn this time

Peaches joins in

Because I had trimmed one side I couldn’t turn them round as there was no corn on the other side so I decided to put them on the patio for the girls to finish them.

Four girls pecking at the corn

Five girls pecking at the corn

Butterscotch is missing because she was having such a lovely dust bath that she couldn’t leave it even for a treat.

Butterscotch in her dust bath

Headless chicken

I think the girls enjoyed the corn and Butterscotch enjoyed her dust bath.

The not so good news is that I have caught Barley pulling pins from Butterscotch’s head again. She has now lost the pins from her head and has a triangular bare patch.

A bare patch once more on Butterscotch’s head

I am so disappointed at this as her head was filling in nicely. She does still seem to have some new tiny white pins, see the tiny white dots, so she may still get some head feathers.

I have come to the conclusion that I can’t keep fretting over this. Whatever will be will be. I remember how awful Honey and Amber used to look and think to myself that this is nothing in comparison. It would be good to see her with feathers on her head though.

I have talked recently about the girl’s individual habits so I thought it was about time I showed Toffee’s habit.

Toffee absolutely must be next to the side of the chicken shed when roosting for the night. She always goes in first to bag her spot. She doesn’t mind if she is on the right or the left as long as she is up against the side. If she isn’t in this spot she gets very distressed and does whatever it takes to regain her spot.

This really came home to me one night when she was the only one in the shed and because I had gone up to the girls earlier than usual that evening she came out again and then lost her place. I looked back at all the photos of the girls at bedtime that I had taken this month and realised that in every single one she is always at the side of the shed.

Butterscotch likes the middle spot but doesn’t always end up in the middle spot. Peaches and Barley like to sit together but they don’t always end up together. Toffee, however, always ends up at the side.

Toffee is on the left up against the side of the chicken shed

Toffee is on the left again a few nights later

She doesn’t seem to mind which way she faces as long as she is up against the side. I think this probably makes her feel safe.

Toffee is not in her place

This was the evening I distracted her and she spent extra time out in the run. She had been in her usual place but came out again and when she returned there was no space at either end.

Toffee looks up trying to work out what to do

She became very agitated. She could have jumped across to the space between Butterscotch and Emerald but that wasn’t where she wanted to be. Eventually she jumped down and came out again briefly as if to work out what to do.

She went back in and jumped at Emerald’s spot pushing Emerald off the perch.

She displaces Emerald so that she can have her spot at the side of the shed

Emerald jumps back up into the small space between Peaches and Butterscotch.

Emerald preens herself

Emerald spent a bit of time preening and trying to look nonchalant about being displaced. Toffee is now happy once more.

A few days later I took another photo. I always take more than one in case one is blurred and couldn’t resist both of these.

Toffee is on the right

I love the way the girls look down. In the photo above Barley is looking down and in the one below Speckles is looking down.

Look up, look down

They often do this and I wonder what they expect to see down there.

Last night I decided to take a photo of Toffee at the beginning of the bedtime routine to further demonstrate this.

Toffee goes in first to secure her spot

She has the pick of all this space but this is where she wants to be.

A closer shot of Toffee

The final line up

When I went back once they had all gone in Toffee was still in the same place but facing the other way.

It is funny how determined and steadfast she is at having this bedtime position. They do make me smile.

It was our wedding anniversary a week ago and my husband bought me a lovely bunch of rainbow coloured tulips. He thought they would make a change from the usual roses and I loved the colours.

I decided to photograph them, then photograph them a week later to see how much they opened.

Anniversary tulips

Tulips a week later

A week later they are still looking beautiful.