My Lovely Hubby truly My Hero ... or a near miss for Latte.

The lovely Latte before her adventure.

Drama here on the farm this morning as a fox tried to make off with the lovely Latte.

I was busy washing the breakfast pots and heard the ladies crowing and clucking at the tops of their voices, stupidly I stopped to dry my hands and only got to the back door in time to see nasty Mr Fox running through the undergrowth with Latte in his jaws, Lovely Hubby responded SO much quicker and on my shout immediately gave chase across the paddock towards the far hedge, with him yelling for Sophie to give chase and making lots of noise it gave Latte the opportunity to wriggle free from the panting fox's jaws and get away.

She lay still on the grass until LH reached her and swooped her into his arms and safety.

The lovely brave Sophie carried on the chase and saw Mr Fox off our land. We are now in the process of making the run safer and more secure, this has been an important wake up call and we are SO lucky that it happened when we were all around.

We will keep a close eye on Latte as I realise the shock may have been too much for her, but she let us examine her all over and all that seems to be missing is a couple of flight feathers and a handful of her downy feathers from her back, luckily she is a plump bird and old enough to be a little bit tougher.

In future if we leave the farm for any reason the ladies will be confined to quarters until our return.

 Free-ranging is only good if you are safe.

Sue xx

We feed them and they feed us......

It's all working out very well, we feed the chickens and the chickens feed us. It was a gorgeous, simple breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast this morning.

We have our first order for a dozen eggs (it'll be delivered on Wednesday night Mum!!). Other orders are on the way as Lovely Hubby has let it be known at his place of work that the chickens are a laying.

 It's a horrible drizzly overcast day here in Oxfordshire, such a shame because it's our village fete at 2pm this afternoon, to be opened by the lovely Susan Hampshire (who lives just up the road). Fingers crossed it dries up in time. 

 In the meantime we are getting on with jobs inside the farmhouse, LH is busy tiling in the kitchen and I am preparing stock for next weeks Farmers Market here in the village. 

 Have a lovely weekend wherever you are.

 Sue xx

Lots of lovely eggs.

Over the last two days we have had FOURTEEN eggs.

I am chuffed to little mint balls, we were told to expect around 4 eggs per week from each bird and they are doing SO well already.

There's one in there Mum!!

Lovely Hubby had a close encounter of the chicken kind today when he was accidently pecked in the eye, maybe it was the one who's toe I trod on yesterday getting her revenge. I would say that us all equal!!

Horrible, horrible weather here today that's our fault most likely ... we tempted fate first thing this morning as we dashed into the local town to buy ourselves a table and chairs set so we can have our meals outside on the patio.

That's Summer over now then!!

Sue xx

Time to wander

Sometimes it's nice to take the pace down a peg or two, and the beauty of living this new life is the ability every now and then to do just that. Yesterday after all the excitement of moving the chickens into our lives I took time to wander.

Our usual walk is a simple one just up our driveway, but what a beautiful driveway we have now the mud has dried and the wild grasses are flowering, the hedgerows are bursting with the anticipation of blackberries in Autumn and the smell of a promise of a hot summer is in the air.

Of course I'm never completely alone, Archie and Sophie tagged along to see what adventures were waiting to happen, so I thought for once I would bring the camera and show you all what goes on when we go for a walk.

Some of us feel the need to gallop ahead ...

... while others stroll leisurely.

But we all meet up in the end.

We take time to admire the scenery, stand, listen and absorb the heat of the morning. Some of us rummage in the hedgerows for delicacies or suitable toys.

  Any chance of throwing this stick Mum?

We run until we pant ...

... and then take the time to flop in the long cool, buttercuppy grass.

After about a mile we turn and decide to head for home, the day is getting hot and the littlest one tired. With a burst of energy he leads the way home, his playmate not far behind.

Something catches our attention in the undergrowth and we all stop to listen, perhaps a rabbit or a pheasant now keeping quiet and still in the hope we will move on.

Home is in sight and with a last burst of speed a couple of us race ahead knowing there is a big dish of cool water in the shade by the back door, others are thinking of coffee and a slice of buttered toast before getting back to the more pressing matters of the day.

Thank you for joining us on our walk ... see you again soon perhaps!

Sue xx

Chick, chick, chick, chicken.......

Latte and Cappuccino eating their mash.

Well they've definitely made themselves at home!!

Mother watching television

.

What wonderful characters these ladies are, some already have names as they stand out with their markings or strong personalities. We have Mother, who is the obvious Mother Hen, bossing everybody else about.   Lovely, who just looks angelic and clean at all times, Milly and Molly who explore everywhere together and then there is Cappuccino (Cappy) and Latte, so called for their coffee coloured markings.

Milly and Molly proving that a barrier to the kitchen door is completely ineffective!

Trying to work out if cat flaps work for chickens.

They have all explored their pen, the surrounding fields and the house, they have chased the cats and had a good check out of Sophie the dog.

Lovely checking out the freshly cleaned henhouse.

And best of all - they provided last nights tea, a lovely vegetable omelette cooked by Lovely Hubby, the freshest tasting and yummiest omelette I've ever had.
 

Sue xx

Chickens Galore

Yes, they've arrived.

Ten lovely, slightly bedraggled ladies arrived at 6.30 on Sunday evening. Well you'd look bedraggled if you'd been jammed into a cat carrying basket (8 of them anyway, the two biggest were in their own little cardboard box), the exchange was done in Waitrose carpark, to save them from unnecessary time in the cars ... we are notoriously hard to find!  We quickly moved them into our much bigger box, placed them in the back of the car and headed for home.

Much interest was caused by the boxes and investigations had to be done. Meanwhile work continued on the chicken pen, although the house is all finished and secure, we wanted a cage around it to deter unwelcome night time visitors.

This doesn't sound like a lawn mower Mum!!

They are White Star Hybrids and approx. 70 weeks old, free range and organically reared.  The farmer that owned them hates to send his chickens to slaughter at the end of their commercial viable life so he gives a couple of nice ladies the opportunity to re-home as many as possible before the time is up, (this time they have rehomed 500 up to date and have a 2 week extension on the deadline as they have done SO well). Seemingly we should get about 4 eggs a week from each lady, we'll see!!

As soon as we had made the cage chicken safe we let them out of the boxes, just in time to enjoy a quick supper and explore their immediate surroundings. And boy can they eat, they cleared all the food, drank nearly all the water, I guess they had a hot journey from High Wycombe.

Archie (the cat) and Sophie were amazed by them and Sophie just ran round and round the pen until she was exhausted. Archie is being much more cautious after being chased by a pheasant earlier in the week, birdy retribution in my opinion for all the little birds he has brought to an early demise.

On opening the henhouse this morning I was greeted by 10 hungry ladies, eager to explore and one little contribution to the larder.

(A little update - by the end of day one we had five eggs.)

Sue xx

An award and a wonderful weekend

Firstly a HUGE thank you to Rose from Victoria Rose Paper Crafts (a gorgeous blog by the way) for my new award, this is SO exciting to get two awards in a week. I love it!!

I now have to nominate 7 more glorious blogs to pass this on to....so it has to be -

Karon at Dream Country Chat

Sue at Vintage to Victorian

Clare at Vintage Home

Sian at The Diary of a Tinyholder

Hen at The Henhouse

Sarah at Landcuckoo

and finally.........the very lovely Sal at Salsnippets

The only instructions with this are to mention where it came from and pass it on to seven of your favourites and let's keep this lovely blogging world going by introducing our favourites to each other.

Who should sit on a lovely chair like this?

And now after all that loveliness some more, much more .............where did I go to on Saturday? Well of course it had to be the Vintage and Handmade Fair in Chipping Sodbury. It was BRILLIANT. 

The chance to meet lots of familiar blogging ladies and some exciting new ones how could I pass that up, even if it meant leaving LH at home on his own wrestling with wood and chicken wire (and yes they have arrived, more of that tomorrow!!)

Ruby should of course!!

Charlie, my lovely little dog on wheels and lots more loveliness.

I made some gorgeous purchases and the lovely Jason got himself out of digging for the day by offering to share the driving and carry my (quite substantial) purchases, thanks for that Jason, I know it was a VERY girly day for a strapping 22 year old lad to have!!

Much gorgeousness.

We got home after our 200 mile round trip, to find the chicken pen planned, cut out and ready to stain, so you can guess what we were doing all yesterday (well after a quick foray to the local carboot on my part). 

In true changing room style we were working until 5.30pm to try to get it finished (we had to pick up the chickens at 6pm!!) and no we didn't get it finished, so by today we could have 10 escapee chickens being rounded up by one VERY excited collie.

 

More of that tomorrow!!

Sue xx