The Monster Egg Chronicles

Well, there I was thinking it was just another day. I thought we might have got three eggs (a perfect score from our three chooks, but it doesn't happen that often), but I was not expecting this ...

That's right ladies and gentlemen - a whopping 118 gram egg! Miss Keema completely outdid herself! You may remember one of my first blogs was about Keema laying a 90g egg. Well, in a slightly modified version of the immortal words of Crocodile Dundee - that's not an egg .... now THIS is an egg!

I swear to you, she's just a normal Langshan chook, not a duck or a goose. Here is a photo of the MONSTER alongside her normal offering (about 80g) and then on the right, an example of the typical egg we get from the other two girls (64-66 g)

It would not fit in the egg carton and looked quite bizarre against the others - a kind of Mt Killimanjaro of eggs against a few measly hills

DH is a bit weirded out and is not sure about eating it. I can't wait to see if its a double yolker!

And do you know the most incredible thing? She laid us another egg the very next day! Only 78g though - but that still qualifies as an extra large egg in the Supermarket. She skipped the next day and has laid consistently ever since.

What an amazing girl!  Thanks Keema - queen of the layers!

Talk soon
Greenie x 

Mercy Dash and a Close Call

There were loads of sightings of foxes in the Canberra area over the past week, and we were away in Castlemaine in Victoria.

And then, I heard it was going to be 26, hot and windy over the next few days. So then I began to worry about my darling little seedlings, including the new tomatoes I got from the Duck Herder and Murra Mumma at the Canberra Urban Homesteaders Club meeting on the previous weekend.

I was getting more and more nervous, and it was ruining my weekend.  So, I finally rang my daughter to see if she had time to do a mercy dash across town and check on my girls, and water my seedy babies. When she'd stopped laughing at me, she did promise to go.

A few hours later, I got a text with the label "Bok Bok Bok" and this photo

Phew! The girls are OK! Then I had to laugh because I had the opportunity to see how silly the annex looked all sewn up with twine from the straw bales!!

When I got home, all the seed trays were fine, and the girls had laid 8 eggs! but one was broken (it was starting to get a little crowded in there!) So, I collected all the eggs, watered the planted out seedlings and the newly planted ones in the greenhouse, and went to bed.

The next day, I went to let the girls out. All were happy to be going to the day facility again. But on the way back, look what I saw

I had left the nesting box door/lid wide open! I may as well have left a "Please Take Me" sign on the fence for the foxes! Luckily, the foxes were visiting another part of the neighbourhood last night. I don't kid myself that the perimeter is fox-proof; any fox that wanted to could get in. Only Guantanamo Chook is safe - unless you leave the bl#@$%y door open!

Anyway, all's well that ends well - and this time - I seem to have got away with the one little slip up!

I must be more careful. I must be more careful. I must be more ...

Talk soon
Greenie x

Home Sweet Home

My mother always used to say, “It’s always nice to go travelling, but it’s Oh so nice to come Home!” And it certainly is.

We had a wonderful fortnight with our dear dear friends, and I miss them terribly, but I am so glad to be home and to have my chooks, and the cat and my seedlings all in their allotted spaces again!

The seedlings have grown amazingly well under the fabulous care of my friend Alison! Look!

Before

After

And that’s despite a little late night spray with flea mixture intead of water! J

The chooks are back from their holiday with the chook sitter. They had a fabulous time with all their friends and are sulking a bit at being locked in the day facility rather than free ranging with about 25 other friends all day. Here’s a photo of them off on their big adventure.

I used the laundry basket on wheels because I’m not supposed to lift weights any more and these girls are very heavy! It works a treat but one of them always has to travel alone. She sat up the front with me and seemed very interested in all the goings on during the journey. When they arrived, they just leapt out of the basket and cage and joined in with all their new friends straight away. Hmph! Me and my empty laundry basket went home to pack …

It took nearly a week after they got home for them to forgive us before they laid any eggs. In fact, we got one lousy egg today and it's about time I think! :)  They won’t eat the laying pellets in ordinary chook mix, so now I give them mixed seed and pets mince from my favourite butcher. You should see ‘em go when they get their meat! They also get kitchen scraps, weeds, and al the snails they can eat – although I’ve noticed there aren’t too many snails around at the moment. Maybe the girls have eaten them all …

I planted carrots yesterday. I havent had any luck wth carrots for years, and the ones in my current patch are bought seedlings so who knows what shape they’ll be when I pull ‘em up. But then I was going through my very old garden diary, and saw that I’d followed this idea posted by a reader in an old Earth Garden magazine. Cover the seeds with a hessian bag and keep wet. Lift the bag after 4 – 8 days and the seedlings will have emerged! So despite Jackie French saying the soil’s too cold yet – I couldn’t wait – and planted a whole packet yesterday of red chantenay. They’re the short fat ones that it says you can plant from autumn to spring. I covered them with an old quilt cover I had been using as a kneeling cushion in the garden till I thought of putting a pillow inside a large plastic shopping bag – so comfy! I’ll let you know if I have success with the carrots.

Well, it's great to be home, and hopefully I can get back into the swing of gardening, blogging and pretending to seek a balance between that, looking after Charlie and working to pay for it all!!

See ya soon everyone

Greenie x

The Monster Egg

 

Finally, I managed to work out how to post the picture of Keema's egg onto the blog.  Hint: Blogger isn't very iPad friendly! I'll learn! I also managed to plant up 12 punnets with seeds and put into the mini-greenhouse I have.  I planted:

• silverbeet
• sugarbeet
• beetroot (seeds from a very kind woman on the Earth Garden Path who was sharing)
• turnip
• swede
• onions (x2)
• leek
• lettuce
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• pak choi

I planted some parsnip seeds in front of the apple tree, but they should have been planted by May according to the packet so I don't know if they'll grow.

And, I planted out 20 strawberries and a bunch of onion seedlings I had.

I loosened the bottom edge of my chook tractor so that I can move it sometime this week. It's not the most stable chook tractor in the world but it keeps the girls happy and I can walk inside it, so it meets all the immediate needs. I can't carry heavy weights anymore, so I need something lightweight and mobile - but sturdy would be a bonus.  Maybe photos of that next post!

I'm wondering now whether to go for a small mobile nesting box, or to stick with the large floor size of this tractor so I can lock them in there to deter the pesky (but very cute) little male cat who's moved in next door and who spooks them by chasing them.  My previous girl, Bella, would have pecked at him and put him in his place, but these girls are all scaredy-cats (pardon the pun!).

After a nasty experience with a fox a couple of years ago, we installed Guantanamo Chook - a secure facility complete with wire floor that we lock the girls into at night, so I don't need the chook tractor to house them.  And I have a couple of lengths of chicken wire (and bird netting) fence so that I can limit their foraging habits to the parts of the garden I want them to dig up during the day. So the only dilemma is to keep them safe from cats - and maybe dogs while also having the easy mobility I need now.  Any ideas? I'll receive all suggestions - and feel free to post photos or links.

I've been dreaming of something high off the ground, rather like the Milkwood rawbale house but on a much smaller scale and on wheels, with a handle - like from an old pram - so that I can wheel it into position, erect the fencing, block the wheels with a couple of bricks and we're set for another couple of weeks.  Imagination - plenty - skills and materials - a bit limited!

Hope you enjoy the photo of the egg - I expect Miss Keema will be exhausted today after that mammoth effort yesterday!

Talk again soon
Greenie x