Great works at the allotment

Today I dragged my husband down to the allotment to do some digging. The new plot desperately needs to be dug, partly to get rid of the weeds and partly to level out the ground which looks like the dark side of the moon, craters everywhere!

We fed the chickens and admired the continued efforts of Geoff to turn our shed into Cluckingham Palace for our five girls. Two eggs were collected although neither of them had been laid in their new nest box – I guess I will have to tell them again that eggs are not to be laid on the roof of the nest box!

The girls had managed to get through all the greenery I had put in last week and were sliding around in the mud. We threw in another ton of weeds to try to keep them off the mud, but I suspect we may be fighting a loosing battle. On our way to pick up lunch from the shop, we noticed Masie had disappeared. We checked the coops, no sign of her. Worried, we checked in the shed to find her sitting in the nest box busying laying an egg. We left her to it and when we came back we added her egg to the others.

We are attempting to tame our chickens, progress may have been halted by the other half trying to pick up the chickens, some of whom were not remotely happy about him chasing them around the coop in order to cuddle them. Lottie and Doris were the most biddable, allowing him to hold them for several minutes before clucking loudly and making a bid for freedom.

In the end we managed to dig over about a third of the  plot, focused on the top of the plot between the compost bin and the shed. Still living in hope the previous tennant will get his act together and remove the half rotten shed and greenhouse from our plot. I suspect this won’t happen soon, if at all. If he fails to get his act together, we will keep the shed, give it a new floor and roof and use it as a sort of summer house to sit in when its raining.

I still marvel at how good a stress reliever an allotment is. I arrived panicking about the amount of things I have to do this week, I left exhausted but ready to tackle work with, if not a wholehearted smile, at least a halfhearted one