The Good Life ... it's happening!

A bit of a retro-blog because lots has been happening in the garden and by the time I get home I'm too pooped to blog!

Anyway, we've been and got the chickens!! Last Sunday actually so they've been in residence for a whole week now.

Well, before we got the chickens we had to build a nice safe enclosure for them to free range - I say 'we' but really it was Ian and Andrew who did lots of hard work. This is only stage one and a temporary measure because they've got a grand design for the real enclosure.

So, last Sunday we went to Outgate Poultry and bought four chickens; a blue, a speckledy, a sussex and a black. We brought them home and got them in the coup, we were all giddy but the chickens were really shy. They took a couple of days to find the confidence to come out. the blue one was the first to come down the ramp and into the run.

We haven't officially given them any names yet but I call the blue one Bluebell and I think it suits her.

They've had a lovely week settling in to their new home, they've entertained us with their antics... a couple of escapes, standing on the roof of the coup.

But today was the best antics of all... Bluebell laid her first egg!! Who's a clever girl?

Later on when we went round to the garden we noticed that there were actually five chickens and not four. A little bantam black chicken had appeared from no-where. It had a very lovely day being part of the flock, eating and scratching about. Anyway when Ian went to close the coup for the night it had disappeared! Let's see what happens tomorrow in the crazy garden!

Update.... the bantam (seen here on the left scurrying away from the camera) had returned this morning after obviously roosting somewhere else last night, so let's see if she gets accepted as part of the flock and decides to stay, or whether she is just here for the free lunch!

Oh, in between chickeny things we've also been planting things (shallots, beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, a whole range of squashes, cucumber, sweetcorn, courgettes, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, leeks, parsnips... the list goes on and on).

First trip out in new caravan....

.... not as planned but hey!

Planned to go to Hinderwell with our good friends Mark and Michelle for the Easter long weekend.

Isabelle was just getting the caravan packed up when Mark phoned to say that the site was flooded and we had been cancelled - nightmare! We knew we would never get another booking so late in the day with it being Easter so we were all feeling a bit down to say the least.

We all started ringing round every site we could see that looked half decent to no avail, everywhere booked up. We were gutted. Then, Michelle rang to say that a site in Thornton le Dale had a pitch for one van for the whole week and should they take it - we agreed that they should take it and we'd stay at home. We'd just settled down for the rest of the evening when the phone went - it was a chap ringing back to say they'd had a cancellation at their site if we wanted it! So we jumped at the chance..... it was all the way to the other side of Howden!!!! (about half an hour away). Didn't matter that it wasn't a long journey, it would be just a good chance to test out the new caravan and find out how to work every thing.

So, we packed up and went to Brenda House caravan site for three nights. The great thing was that we got to explore some places which are on our doorstep that ordinarily being busy people we wouldn't have done. We had some lovely walks with the dog right from the site and we also went to Wheldrake to visit the nature reserve but it was flooded. The caravan is fantastic and we had a very relaxing and peaceful break. Just missed Mark and Michelle, but we're really looking forward to May now.