Sorry (not sorry),  I don’t mean to inundate you all with Chicken stuff, but OMG I have an egg!!!!!  I went to check on my hens at lunch and one had popped out an egg!!!!!! They were all standing around staring at it like it was from outer space.

Rookie mistake I made this morning.  I closed the coop door so I could open the back and check for eggs….and then forgot to leave it open, so unnamed-white-hen popped one out right on the ground.  I hope I can be forgiven though, it was only day 2 and I am not used to being up at 6:30 am.  I will do better tomorrow, I promise.

Here’s the egg against a white background, so you can see how pretty the colour is.  The white hen is about 4 weeks older than the other two, so maybe in a month the others will be laying as well!

And just for fun, because I promise we are still gardening, here’s a photo of the wonderful cauliflower we harvested yesterday with Matt’s even more wonderful, inquisitive, and cuddly dog Scrappy photo bombing it.

And here’s Matt building the extended chicken run!  It’s going to look totally ghetto shabby chic, but there’s an unwritten rule on the allotment that you use what you’ve got,  and we had pallets and boards.  I think I have some left over shed paint, so I may spruce it up later with a coat of wild thyme.  I’m now working on stapling chicken wire fencing all around the inside and over the top and around the edges to form a “skirt” so foxes can’t dig under the edges.  Will update with pictures once complete.  The hens are supposed to stay in the smaller run for 4 to 5 days so they really get the feeling of home, and know to return to it every night.  Although since they will not be free ranging (mostly due to the foxes and giant cats in the area), I don’t know how important this step is.  But they will stay in the small run at least until we complete the bigger one.