Chicks

A few weeks ago a couple of chickens went missing. We eventually discovered that they hadn't been eaten, but had made nests in other parts of the garden. And were sitting on the eggs.

We didn't know what to do about this, so we left them.

This morning we woke up to find that the eggs had hatched, and we now have five baby chickens!

Garlic

The very first thing I planted when we moved in to The Folly was garlic. It also seems to be the crop that has been most successful. We have now harvested it and hung it up to dry.

Rumours that I shall be cycling around the village wearing a stripy jumper with the garlic hanging around my neck trying to sell it; have been denied.

Polytunnel: Day Three

And on the third day we fitted the cover! It has taken four people three very long days of very hard work, but we now have a polytunnel! Ok, we still have some work to do, like fitting the doors, building some more raised beds, installing the irrigation system, and more. But nevertheless, we have a polytunnel! With great thanks to Gavin and Bernie for all their help and hard work.

Polytunnel: Day Two

By the end of another long day, we had managed to fit all of the internal fittings, plus the door frames. Looking good and almost ready to fit the cover.

Polytunnel: Day One

After four people working hard for a full 12 hour day, we have all of the foundation posts in, and the hoops up.

Foundations

The first thing to do was to dig the foundations. This was much harder work than we had anticipated. It took the whole of the first day, and involved sharpened spades, pickaxes, post hole borers, and power tools. We have some very hard ground in our garden.

We chose the option of Anchor plates and baserails rather than the traditional trenching method. This involved digging 14 square holes about 300mm x 300mm x 500mm deep into rather hard clay and stones.

Matters were further complicated by heavy showers and a mains outage for most of the afternoon. Luckily we had set up a barbeque for lunch and we used the remaining heat to brew tea for the workforce:

Gav : Foreman

Louise : Moral Officer

Bernie : Quality control

Jennifer : Digging

Jenny : Digging

Polytunnel

We have a polytunnel! We placed an order with First Tunnels and a week and a half later received fifteen packages. All we have to do now is to put it together...

The office

We have almost completed the office. This is one log cabin built inside another with the gap filled with insulation. The photo is showing the LED lighting that I have set up as its taking me some time to get used to the dark of living in the country.

Bantams

We now have Bantams from Glen who has moved house to somewhere smaller. We have 4 cockerels and 7 hens and they are living in an Omlet Eglu Cube. They are allowed into the paddock when we are at home, but are restricted to their run otherwise. The Eglu cube and run are apparently fox proof. I plan to extend the run ASAP, and will probably find a good home for two cockerels to give them more room.

We get around 4 eggs a day, although these are quite small as they are bantam eggs.

They are a number of different breeds and they all have names. I'll try and get pictures on here soon.

House name change

We have decided that we did not like the name of the house when we moved in. It was called Ellienza, which seemed rather meaningless to us.

We have decided to call it The Folly.

This is our adventure into running a smallholding.