Roasted pumpkin seeds -- yum!

Pumpkin pies.

Have spent most of today in the kitchen. Bread.

Have FINALLY finished a sleeve for my cardigan. Now I just need to knit ANOTHER sleeve, and then I can sew the whole thing up...

Chicken Feed

So I was talking to Rachel on the phone the other night and she said that I should post things here more regularly and I said that I try to do something every day but some days there just isn't anything worth posting. For example, that day the main highlight of my day was that I had gone to the local agricultural merchant to buy some growers' pellets for the chicks and I didn't think that was noteworthy enough to write about here. Rachel however disagreed on the grounds that it is sufficiently different from most people's shopping expeditions. So I now bring you a primer on chicken feed (with some VERY exciting photos...)



These are layers pellets. This is what you feed to laying hens (and I suppose the cockerel eats them as well.) They are supposed to help the hens to lay more.



These are chick crumbs. This is what you feed to baby chicks, and the broody hen eats them as well.



And these are the growers pellets I bought on Monday -- they look exactly like the layers pellets except they come in a bag marked "growers pellets". They are for the chicks from about six weeks onwards. If they turn out to be cockerels, they will eat these until we eat them. If they are pullets (baby hens), they will eat growers pellets until about 18 weeks and then they will begin to eat layers pellets in preparation for laying.

Any questions?

I know the two on the right are purple sage and thyme, but I can't remember what the other two are and it's dark outside now so am not going out to check.

Mint and something that the slugs have been eating -- tarragon? I haven't got to eat any of it, so can't remember what it is!

Top row: bay, blueberry, fennel. Second row: rosemary, sage, chive, sage, rosemary. Third row: lavender, blueberry, sage, blueberry, lavender. Bottom row: 2x lavender, parsley, lavender.

Took advantage of the nice weather today to weed the pot plants -- you wouldn't think you would get weeds in pots but you do! Left to right: 4x chive, rosemary, chive, rosemary, chive.

Cat-napping (or should I say hen-napping) in the sunshine.

Yet another gratuitous chick photo...

Pathetic looking wet hen...

Pathetic looking moulting hen...

A break in the rain! At last!

Gratutitous chick photo. I know that the whole point of this is that they grow up to look like grown-up chickens, but it never fails to amaze me how it is just this little miniature copy of its mommy! :)

Prehistoric creature or chicken in the mud? You decide...

Sunrise on a cloudy day

Left to right: Spring onions (small, you have to look hard to see them), beetroot, carrots, swede, and cabbage (not worth mentioning really as the slugs keep eating it...)

Domino's doesn't deliver up here, but that's okay because Greg's pizza's are so much better!

I thinned the raised beds last weekend and these are some of the carrots and spring onions (scallions) that I thinned. Unfortunately I failed to put anything in this photo to give you a sense of scale, but let's just say that after I'd trimmed them, I had about two spoonfuls worth of salad!

Hens only laid one egg yesterday, so I was going to have a very small breakfast, but there was another egg waiting for me when I went out this morning -- although rather misshapen. Of course, now I am worried that this will be today's only egg and I won't have any breakfast tomorrow... :(

Despite the heavy rain, the spiderwebs on my car are still there! :)

It rained most of yesterday and most of last night and is supposed to continue raining most of today. This is ordinarily a little stream -- the cats perch on the rock in the middle (now covered by water) and drink...

Spider plants from hell

Not only do we have baby chicks, we also have baby spider plants! There are 33 baby spider plants, and the five pots at the front right that look empty have basil seeds in. Anybody want a spider plant? What do we do with them all???

Lazy chick

Look -- the chick is sitting down just like a real chicken!

Mae hi'n bwrw glaw.

It is totally disgusting and muddy outside but the chickens seem to be coping okay.

More gratuitous chick photos

Awww -- isn't it cute?! :) I love my miniature chickens...

How fast they grow!

Was just looking at some (old) photos and am amazed when you look at them side by side how much the little chickies have grown in just under four weeks...

They look just like little chickens!

Got home from dosbarth Cymraeg to find that one of my chicks was standing on the rim of the cardboard box!!! So they have now moved into their new outdoors home... :)

They are starting to get little black feathers around their necks like Mommy! :)

Chicks will be four weeks old tomorrow!

The chickens are moulting now and Big Boy has lost all his tail feathers and looks rather pathetic I think...

Magic -- have just had the fields topped!

This is the pile of soil that I moved from Point A to Point B yesterday...

Chickies are getting big and feathered!