Z sorts things out. I hope.

Because Rose will be looking after things for a few days, I showed her the ropes around the henhouses, as they are at present.  I know it’s funny, but she was kind enough not to laugh at me.

The three newbies are fine.  It’s just a matter of giving them their evening treats, collecting the eggs and shutting them into half the hen house.  Any that come near are stroked and they’re all very calm and friendly.  The others, in the greenhouse, are also fine, but not quite so easy.

For the first couple of days, it was easy.  The big brown hen was broody and dozed away in a big container rather like a bucket.  For safety, i picked it up in the evening and put it inside a wire cage, which I then wrapped in netting because I’m paranoid, but sometimes they are out to get your poor chickens.  Then she decided she wasn’t broody any longer and was quite upset because the other chooks were inside Rose’s spare run and she couldn’t be with them.  They were happy enough, it’s quite big enough for four hens and there were only three.  The only reason BBH isn’t in with them is because I’m worried about the disparity in size in a small, confined space.

So, on the third day, I let the three out to be with BBH.  That was fine, they were perfectly happy all day and in the evening,  I went to put them to bed.  They ran around a bit.  Then they all went into the tunnel, thinking it was time to go to roost in the hen house.  I crawled down the tunnel, caught the three small ones and put them in the coop, then cornered BBH and put her in her bucket in the wire cage.  And I’ve been doing that every night since, though I now put old feed bags along the tunnel so that I’m not crawling through mud.

I’ve assured Rose that they’ll be fine in their run (she was quite rightly, unimpressed by the tunnel-crawling idea) and, if she wants to experiment with putting BBH in with them, under close initial supervision, I trust her judgement.  We will be away, and she and Lawrence will put together the new shed at the weekend, and the next stage will be considered once we’re home again.

In the meantime, I have written all emails, paid all bills, checked the gas tank, turned down or off the storage heaters, caught up with all the washing and nearly all the drying (some of this will happen overnight) and have frozen stuff from the fridge that we aren’t taking.  Astonishingly, I’m entirely up together with it all.  I’ve even remembered to take an electric blanket off the single bed, to take with us to air Wink’s caravan bed.  And I’ve posted Weeza’s birthday card so that she’ll get it tomorrow … no, I haven’t.  I wrote it and stamped and addressed it, and LT posted it.  I have remembered to cancel the milk and papers, though.  I’ve also read a whole book, which is always a good sign.  And had my hair cut and taken LT out to lunch.

I might be able to blog from my phone, but please don’t depend on it.  Not that I suppose you do, of course….

6 comments on “Z sorts things out. I hope.

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