Hearts, hens, sunshine and sheds!

Today's hearts 

come with love 

(and mucky fingers) 

from my boys 

while we were in the hen pen 

for today.....

we built...chickenham palace!

For those of you who regularly meander through my day will recall our sad loss of two of our hens to a stoat.

We had promised ourselves and our birds, that come summer we would improve their pen and rebuild their hock and with that in mind, last autumn I started to move the compost heaps to allow us to move the hen pen to a more sunnier part of our rather shady garden. Then both winter (and her accompanying snow) and then the flu stopped all work. 

The stoat attack made us realise that the girls had been rather vulnerable and we had to get on and do their 'relocation relocation' before summer.

I managed to source a larger shed for them (had to scout around the tinter until I found one that was a good price), and was delighted when I also found an exceptionally good deal on a shed LED solar lighting system. We had been weather-watching since the shed arrived and  this weekend was the first decent day we could get out.

Over breakfast the four of us chatted through the plan and the more I thought about it the more complicated it seemed to be turning out to be.....

let me explain.

In autumn, as I previously mentioned, I had started to move the compost heaps from the north side of the garden over to where the hens are now (the south east side). But, while munching on toast, we decided that with a bit of judicial pruning we could get more light in the original pen therefore not having to move it, reducing an huge amount of work.

Then I thought about it a bit more.....

• The new shed needed to be constructed in situ as it does not fit through the hen-pen's gate
• the old hen-hock would also have to be dismantled in situ as this one doesn't fit through the gate either
• BUT!!!
• the part-moved compost heaps needed to be emptied FIRST and their contents returned to the original compost corner BEFORE we could do any construction/deconstruction work
• however, the remaining original compost heaps would need  to be emptied BEFORE-BEFORE the new un-composted material be returned to the now waiting compost bays (keep up keep up!)
• the new compost bays would also have to be dismantled in situ,  before any new shed building could begin
• we would have to sacrifice one youngish tree, prune the hedge quite severely, and tidy up an acer so to let in more sunlight
• the brick base for the new shed would need to be built
• Himself wanted to extend the life expectancy of the wooden floor and wanted to paint an extra waterproof layer on it's underside
• I wanted a thick thick pond liner layer to be laid on the inside of the shed floor to make it more hen poop-proof  so I could  continue using a substrate layer of shredded paper (I get an unlimited supply from work, which once the hens have had their use - goes on the compost heap)

I put the kettle on again............. and thought .....this was going to be a long day.

****************************

Now, at the end of the day, after we have eaten, compared all our aches and pains, (even snuck in a sneaky nap on the settee) we are rather chuffed with our efforts, but boy are we knackered!

And the hens loved the idea that they were able to roam free round the garden ALL DAY!

And if you survived all that, and still have strength for some more - follow this  link to see what hearty happenings happened heartily last year!

Thats all for now,

it's been lovely chatting to you and sharing our ( very muddy) day,

 g'night xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx