Calm

Its's been quite quiet here.  There are very few aeroplanes, so the garden is peaceful. It really is lovely  

My gardening friends would be puzzled, I suspect, on how I can regard our garden as lovely.  We no longer have any borders to speak of. The grass is wild.  Our veg beds growing, but haphazard.     I miss the flowers,   but our garden is mainly just there to be green for us and to provide food and interest for the Girls.

This time of year, there is plenty of grass.  We only have 12 (soon to be 11) Girls, and the grass is growing fast enough to not get worn down by them.  It will be like this for a few more months - less, if the rain stops and the grass dies off of course.

I love sitting outside, just by the door, under the shade (the one we bought and installed as an emergency last year).  The Girls are mainly calm,  mainly get on,  and spend their days switching between grazing and then sitting in a "mothers meeting"  in bits of shade.

I think 12 is a good number.  Less than I'd like,  but not too much for us to eke out the grass in Autumn.  

We haven't hatched for 2 years now. The first year was because of the uncertainties around Covid.  Back then, Covid seemed to strike without warning,  it would confine people to their sick bed unable to get up for a week,  and was potentially fatal for people of our age and health.  It was entirely conceivable that both of us could catch it, and so both of us might be out of action at the same time, and both of us might even die.     Back then, we had a lot more chickens to worry about,  and they weren't one flock.   We brought some o fthe allotment girls home, so that the allotment chickens would have enought food and water for a week, should we both be laid up. 

Since then of course we had 4 hens stolen from the allotment,  we had to bring everyone else home and cull the boys (we couldn't find homes for them because of lockdown, and we couldn't risk leaving them on the allotment);     My brother received instructions on what to do if both of us died, which included which hens to cull and which hens got on with each other and so it might be OK to rehome (if such a thing were possible at the time).  We  had all the stress of the various flocks,  and then wen we realised it was going to be long term, we had to try and start merging them;    we had the fights  real fights - between Fleur and our oldest hen, Nora;  Two of the younger birds, Violet and Bott,  were complete thugs;   Sylvia, our baby silver laced barnevelder, died in an accident (Fleur wlked over her to get into the nest box and broke her neck).    This year,  Big Bird died of old age;   Ping had a heart attack; and Annie had to be put to sleep because of an egg laying problem.   Big Bird wasn't a suprise, but the other two were.  

I've got four girls who are very old and creaky, and I'm fully expecting them to go this year.  I fully expected them to go last year as well.  one of them, Gloria, is on her way.  I'm hoping she will be able to go quietly and peacefully and in her own time.... but if not, I'll have to help her. Or ask DH to.

We decided not to hatch this year.  We haven't decided what to do about our allotment.  It's being borrowed by another chicken keeper at the moment, while we see how we feel. 

Maybe next year. Hopefully next year.