Chicks move into their new home!

I thought it about time the chicks went outside and started to realise what the big, bad world is all about, so I put them out in their new coop, with their little run.

Now the run isn't as big as I would have liked, but it's enough for the little chicks to scratch around, and for mum to get some fresh air.

We have 3 types of chick. Their father is the same - Rhydian, but their mothers vary. Two brown eggs hatched, then two of the white Silky eggs hatched.

From the brown eggs came the brown chick with the striking markings it's a typical brown Isa I think, with tan legs and skin and brown feathers.

From the other brown egg came the white chick. This chick has the same type of feathers like the brown Isas except they are white, but has black skin like the other Silkies.

The youngest two are definitely Silkies - typical scruffy feathers, big black eyes and black skin.

While I was taking photos, mum wanted to get in on the fun too!

Queenie is looking a little tired and bedraggled, but hopefully once they are all integrated she will fluff back up!

A crazy year so far!

I seem to be posting about as often as we have blue moons!

It's one of those things - not intentional, I love blogging, but unfortunately life has been taking far too much time over virtual writings.

We had Christmas - that was very nice, we had Jo's parents over Christmas Eve, my parents round boxing day, and no-one at all round on the actual day itself - WONDERFUL!

Before the Christmas holidays, I was set to be Santa at Kane's old pre-school, but due to everything being closed due to the snow, I wasn't able to do it - nor was I able to do it on the second occasion, due to.... yes, you guessed it SNOW!

I didn't let that major disappointment get me down too much (although I've booked myself in for next year I hope!), because I wanted to see what sort of Santa I would have been - so I dressed up and went walkabout in the snow with Kane to get an idea of what I'd look like.



Even the Chickens got a visit!


Since it WAS snowing, I looked around to buy Kane a sledge, but there were none for sale ANYWHERE! It was one of those occasions when I should have pulled my finger out a LOT sooner, but not wishing to have my lad upset because he couldn't join in with the fun - I decided to make him one!

I'll spare you the technical details, but I would have bent the metal tube runners on my pipe bender I bought, but I didn't have any sand to put inside the tube to keep it round when I bent it - so it folded rather than bent round - still it worked VERY well!





During the snow we had a power cut for 32 hours. We're not on gas, so we had no way of cooking either!

Kane enjoyed sitting round some candles (especially his 'Meerkat shrine!), but Jo and Zak were less than impressed - it gave me the opportunity to become 'Super Stiggy' though, as I drove out and hired a gas heater and bought a little camping gas cooking stove.



Candles just ooze mystical don't they!



And that, as they say, is about it - I'm looking forward to blogging more this year, as I'm sure there are lots of adventures to be had and stories to be told...

..I guess we'll have to wait and see!

;)

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!

To turf or not to turf.

We're sprucing up the house we've just moved from, so we can put it on the market, one of the jobs that we had designated to a pro was the garden.

Since the grass hadn't been cut since last October, it had grown long, bent over and made clumps all over the lawn. Unfortunately, the areas underneath the clumps had been starved of light, and the grass had died away, leaving random lumps and bumps...

...not to mention the size of the ant hills - which stood like mini volcanoes amongst the grass!

We decided to get some quotes for re turfing the lawn - that is, to take up all the old grass and top layer of soil, and replace it all with lovely new turf. After we had spoken to a few people, we received a quote to do 140m2, which we felt was way over what we expected, so we took the decision for me to do it myself. In the meanwhile, I cut the grass to see how bad the problem was.





The problem was, I found a turf website that could deliver all the turf for the job for 1/10 of the quote - and the machine to do the job was only cheap for 2 days - so onto the phone I went to organise the machine to be delivered.



After the turfing machine had been delivered, it took me a little while to figure out how to use it, adjust it and make it work for me, but luckily it didn't take very long at all! (I seem to have an affinity with anything with a petrol engine!)



I decided to do only the main part of the lawn, as the bank was too difficult to get the machine on, and anyway - it's not a well used area of grass.



It took me two afternoons (6 hours) to take the turf off the areas I wanted to, which I was very pleased about, as I had never used one of these machines before.

After all the turf was taken up, I had to order a skip, then another afternoon was spent moving all the old stuff into the skip.

Once everything had been cleared and raked to get the nasty stones and lumps out the way, I went round with my weed sprayer and attacked any weeds I could find.



The two tons of topsoil came the next day, and I set about wheelbarrowing the soil to the back garden.

The quote we received was for a group of men to work for about 3 days to re turf our garden...

...had I been able to work full days at the house I would have been able to do the job - on my own - in just 3 days!

I still have a small area to put top soil on before I order the actual turf, which I'll do today, but the really back breaking work is done now - so I'm happy!

While I was working, I found quite a few slow-worms. Most were small, but one was quite large.





I love snakes (never felt like owning one though!), and although I would never expect to actually see a snake in the wild over here in the UK, it was nice to at least be able to hold a slow-worm, and see it's little tongue darting in and out - tasting the air around it...



...I wonder what it thought of me!

(Jo caught me resting and having a drink after figuring out the turf machine)

Dad's Taxi duties gone mad!

Most parents realise that at some point, their driving skills will be asked for by their children.

Most parents expect the odd lift into town, or to drive their little precious ones to one of their friends houses...

Most parents probably don't get asked to drive them around their garden though!

I had to go to the garden centre and get some compost and top soil, and rather than carry the whole lot round to the back of the house, I decided to use the trailer I'd bought for my little tractor.

Kane saw me hitching the trailer up, and asked if he could go for a ride, so, being me, I found some old carpet and put it in the back of the trailer for him to sit on.



Although I didn't go as fast as he would have liked, Kane definitely loved the experience.

The whole thing reminded me of when I was younger. My parents used to take us on a lot of holidays in the UK when we were kids, and every day was packed with activities or visits to various places, depending on where we were of course.

One of these visits was to a Shire Horse farm type place, where we were pulled around the farm in a big trailer with benches either side.

So back to Kane - I thought he'd be sitting up straight in the trailer like I told him to, and when I turned round to see if he was ok and not being bumped around too much...

...I saw that he was lounging with his arms behind his head!



It just made me laugh, as that's typical of him to relax like that.

Trimming time!

The other day we decided collectively that the hedges needed a trim, so out with my KM90 I went to smarten up the high hedges in the front.

I have to say here, that my love for power tools and engines really comes into it's own with jobs like this - I could quite happily work all day long doing anything that involved powertools or engines!!

Anyway - back to reality here - it was the first time that I've done the front heges, so I wasn't quite sure of the actual 'shape' of the things, so I went very carefully, and didn't scalp them too much.

Once the cutting had been done, Kane decided to want to help me pick the trimmings up, so after getting dressed for a cold day, we both ventured out, armed only with a fork, rake, wheelbarrow and tons of enthusiasm!



I obviously had to make sure he was doing the job properly, so I found myself in a supervisory role most of the time (below) - mainly as Kane refused to give me the rake! (see picture above)



Although Kane was really helpful I couldn't help feel sorry for the little chap when it came to using the tools and also moving the wheelbarrow, but he did a valiant job. We went to the shed to get his own wheelbarrow which is about 2 feet long and is much, MUCH lighter - also his trowel and hand fork.



Complete with his own gear, his enthusiasm was renewed, and off we went again - first raking into separate piles, then lifting the trimmings into our respective barrows.



Kane was a great help, and we had a lot of fun do 'extra' raking and clearing, as for some unexplained reason, the trimmings seemed to fly across at each other ...

...I have no idea how that happened at all!?!

;)

Snow! Lots of snow!

Well what a surprise - I was only reading my friend Don's blog about the snow they've been getting recently, and lo and behold - we get it this morning!

I went out early to take some photos, walking down to the fishing lakes a few hundred meters away - you can see them on my photography blog here.

Both Kane and I made sure we were warmly dressed before venturing out to the garden centre a few doors down to buy Kane some Wellies, which luckily they had in his size!

Once we were TOTALLY prepared, we went to the back garden to have a muck about and make a snowman.

Kane spent a lot of time running around in the snow - it's the most snow he has ever seen!



He also made a couple of 'snow angels', but by the time he was finished, he was caked in snow from head to toe, and with a massive smile on his face.

We usually have a theme when we build our snowmen, you see usually we make them on Jo's car as we don't get that much, so we have to make mini snowmen...

...last year or the year before we made the three monkeys (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil)...



...and this year we were able to make a big snowman due to the amount of snow we have. In places the snow is 6" deep, and as I write, the snow is falling heavily again, so expect possibly up to another 6" of snow today!



Anyway, getting back to the snowman, this year it sort of evolved into a 'Stiggy snowman' I made the beard and put my hat on - can you tell the difference?



Zak was watching from inside in the warm, and Kane and I decided to give him a snow fight, so we made lots of snowballs and threw them at the patio doors - Zak REALLY enjoyed his part, and loved every snowball that hit the glass.



With all this snow falling, who knows - we may even be able to make an igloo or something else...


...we shall have to wait and see!

;)


(**EDIT**

I just added the photo of the 3 monkeys...I mean snowmen!)