You can't really see the filling here, but this is an asparagus, basil, and cheddar omlette, made with our very own eggs from our lovely chickies! :) Yes, they taste better than store bought ones!

And the garlic is also coming along well...

The lettuces are growing rapidly.

Shiva and K, all tired after a long day out in the jungle...

It has been raining pretty constantly since yesterday afternoon...but at least that means I don't have to water today! :)

Chicken Movie

Through the miracle of modern technology (and Greg reminding me that I can FTP things to my other web site) I have now uploaded the chicken film for your viewing pleasure. Just click on http://www.btinternet.com/~weckerphoto/Chickens.AVI and it should download and play. Make sure you have the sound turned on for full effect! :)

Two more eggs! Like magic!

They fit perfectly in the carton! :)

I've made a little film of the chickens -- it's 60 seconds long and a 20Mb file -- and you will need Real Player to view it -- click

Here are the lovely chickens, enjoying their first taste of their new home! I let them into the run this morning and although they initially seemed a bit nervous they are settling in now. The cockerel is having crowing contests so it's a bit noisy here this morning! I've just had the first egg, fried, for breakfast and it was yummy... :)

Despite the stressfulness of their journey, the chickens are definitely healthy and fertile -- I have just had my first egg!!! Can't wait for it to be morning now so I can fry it for breakfast!!! Will post photos of the chickens tomorrow when I let them into the run.

Today is a lovely day -- it is supposed to be 78F today and by lunchtime I will have my chickens! Yippee!

This is the milking parlour in relation to the house. It is attached but you cannot get to it through the house, you have to go outside and walk around. The bit with the peaked corrugated roof is the main milking parlour and the bit sticking out on the front is the bulk tank room.

My rocket seedlings! (That's arugula for all you Americans out there...) I only planted these seeds on Sunday and I had seedlings by 5 pm yesterday -- they want to grow!

This is what our soil looks like -- it's very clay -- which is good in that it has lots of nutrients, but bad in that it has very poor drainage. So the long term solution is to incorporate grit and other things into the soil and then eventually we will just be able to have beds in the ground and the soil will have been improved dramatically -- but, in the short term, we are buiding raised beds and putting better quality soil (purchased) in them so that we can get started growing things right away. In the long term the raised beds will also be useful as they provide a more sheltered growing environment than putting things directly in the ground.

The view the chickens will have (if they were my height)

A slightly more dramatic shot of the fire...

The first raised bed -- fully planted! The bit on the left that looks like there nothing there is going to be lettuce, and then you have tomatoes, and then on the right is garlic. One down, two to go!

Our first garden rubbish fire. I find it very odd that we're just allowed to burn things without a permit or anything -- but everybody else does, so it must be okay...

This was taken Saturday night at about 10 pm -- it's nearly a full moon! You can't really tell in the photo, but it was bright enough outside to read a book.

Special K enjoying the sunny day

It will require a LOT of cleaning in there...

Who names a cow "Blodwen"??? :)

This is written on the wall in the milking parlour -- we think it's Denzil's cows names and when they gave birth.

The empty milking parlour -- now we have to figure out what to do with it.

Now you will hopefully be able to find the house a bit easier. Mind, it's still located on a road that doesn't have a name... If you want to get a sign like ours, have a look at http://www.woodhousesigns.co.uk/

The chicken coop fully asssembled -- now we just need some chickens!

Didn't get the chicken coop finished today as it is STILL raining, but I did fix the cold tap in the bath, bury yet another small creature, and fit this lovely roller blind -- the most professionally done thing in this house so far! This is in the cwtsh dan star (understairs cupboard).

But it is actually easier than I thought! I got all the sides up and the next box (can't see in this photo as it's on the other side) on before the rain started again. I'll go back out and finish as soon as the rain stops!!! I think we might be going chicken shopping this weekend!!!

Trying to figure out how it goes together -- it didn't come with any instuctions!

We arrived home from Cleethorpes on Monday afternoon to find our flatpack hen house awaiting us!

The other morning I went outside to put stuff in the compost heap and found a stray sheep! :)

Sunrise in the fog -- isn't it beautiful? :)

Tomato plants in a lovely planter that Greg built.

Shiva the Acrobat!

Shiva the Hunter in all her glory -- looking thoroughly annoyed at my attempts at trying to get her to pose for photos!

This is why I am so annoyed that we have had to spend money on gravel! This is a pile of rocks we have dug out of the soil -- and it is growing daily! Where do they all come from???

The first (of many) garlic patches...

Have just been reliably informed that this is a foxglove -- we have got loads of them in various different colours all over the place -- aren't they pretty? :)

This photo does not even begin to do justice to the number of buttercups in the field -- it is a sea of yellow!

We've bought a load of gravel and a load of soil and now we just have to get it into the beds. This is the first bed with a layer of gravel at the bottom -- it took Greg about 15 wheelbarrow loads!

Today I haven't done anything outside as it's been raining all day. It's so foggy that you can't even see the top of the mountain!

We got a lot done over the bank holiday weekend -- including these lovely crates that Greg built from pallets -- and this one is now housing some of our herbs which are glad to get outside and have a bit more space! Clockwise from upper left: Oregano, purple sage, thyme, marjoram.

This is from last Friday when we had a "heat wave" -- it reached 95F in the porch!