I am a week old!

My name is Freckles and I am a week old today.

The way I am standing here makes me look like a boy - but I'm not letting on yet whether I am or not.

Because I am a week old, Dad made me a little run so I can see daylight and run around a bit.

We're in the oldest house, and it's pretty rickety, but it will do for now until I am bigger and can go and play with the other chickens. Mum is keeping me warm anyway!

There's this other weird creature that comes and watches me for ages too? - I expect when I'm older I'll understand more, but I like fidgeting about and scratching and running and jumping and climbing, but this other creature just lays down and watches as still as a statue.

Weird huh?

New Chick on the Block!

My Nephew seems to think that Freckles is a good name - so freckles it is. We don't know if Freckles is a girl or a boy, but it seems a pretty unisex name really (as luck would have it!)  Only 1 hatched, out of 6 eggs, but to be honest I wasn't really expecting a good show.  I had to leave broody mum in with some of the other hens for quite a long time whilst the broody house was de-red-mited (several times! - and they're still there a bit) and then another hen went broody too so they shared the duty a bit. but that also meant a little fighting and at least one egg got kicked across the hen house! Plus it could well have meant that the eggs went cold while they were squabbling. Who knows. But this little one is a fighter - I had to help the hatch after watching for over 2 hours and all there was was the first little hole. A pair of tweezers came to my aid and I helped open the shell in much the same way as the chick should have done, and when I popped it back done Mother hen yanked it out of it's shell, so she obviously thought enough was enough too!.  Fingers crossed for this little one. I know it's common to loose one or two in early days, and obviously I can't really afford to, so we are just hoping this one will be ok!

Down by the riverside

The level of water at the river is well down due to the distinct lack of rain lately. This apparently changes everything in a dog's view of the world. Spot was scared stiff. Really I haven't laughed at her so much since she was a pup. Daft girl!

Latest update, 20 squares done

I'm not blogging about much else at the moment am I?

I'm trying to be really random with the colours, but it's funny how difficult random is when it comes down to it!

In other news, I have silky sitting on a few eggs, poor love keeps going broody and it seemed only fair to give her a chance to be a mum again.  I don't hold out a lot of hope on these tho' as I'm not sure the cockerel has been doing his rounds lately!, but we'll see what happens. Heavens knows where I'll put them if they hatch, they may well have to come indoors in a box for a while!

There's not much else to tell you at the moment, life is ticking along as normal. The veg patch is doing ok, but i've had to stop watering all my pots and window boxes. It's coming to the end of the season anyway and they did so well early on, but I'm on a water meter and we haven't had any decent rain since early May (and even then it wasn't really a lot) so my water butts emptied a long long time ago. So now I'm just finishing off my veg then I'll call it a day for this summer. I've done well, courgettes, bean, a few peas, and plenty of potatoes. So no complaints and definitely cheaper than the supermarket!

Spot and I haven't walked quite as much as usual, it's really incredibly hot for a dog with a long fur coat, and she still hasn't learnt that she'll last longer if she doesn't run round like her a*s is on fire. But we have walked a few evenings along by the river where I did my 5k training and that's lovely, and usually ends up with me rescuing her from the river where she dives in and then realises it's too high to get back out!  I swear she'd jump off a cliff face without a seconds thought if that was what took her fancy at the time!

All of these walk photos have been taken during July - very late for little ducklings (which probably explains why there's only one) I expect it was a second brood?

Right another coffee, and then.............. well who knows, the sun is trying to peek through so maybe a walk if it's not too hot, although I really should do some work................. sometime!