Odds and Ends

Today was a plottering day at the allotment. One of those days where you arrive and don’t really have much of a plan and spend the day drifting between little jobs. When I arrived, I immediately went to check on the girls in the new coop and say hello to Liz, Sarah and Andy. To my horror, I heard that Snap and Lilja had made an audacious bid for freedom, dashing around Liz and out the door. The uproar that followed was described to me in detail and aside from clearly traumatising both of them, I couldn’t help notice Andy quietly chuckling away, eyes twinkling as they described the mad dash to get the birds back into the run.

Leaving them to sort out the base of their new shed, I spent a happy half hour, topping up food and water bowls for the different coops and saying hello to all the chickens. I collected several eggs and opened up the shed. The shed needed a brush out and tidy but I decided to leave that for another day. I wandered to the greenhouse to check on the spinach and lemon cucumber – both still alive, much to my relief! As I was standing chatting to Phil, I spotted an egg in the nest box. I stared at it confused. No chickens had been in there for days. Why had an egg suddenly appeared?! Then I remembered that Leia and Lilja had spent most of a day in there when Cliff, Will and I had been moving the wooden nest box for the new coop.

Rolling my eyes, I collected it and put it to one side. It’s likely to be hard boiled after so many days in the greenhouse! Outside on the patio, I looked at the black shelving unit and wondered what I was going to do with it. Ideally, I would give it to someone as it works perfectly well. Sarah happened to pass just as I was thinking this and I offered it to her. She said yes and I went to grab a bucket, washing up liquid and a sponge to clean it before taking it over to the plot. It cleaned up pretty well and Sarah gave me a hand in carrying it to their double plot. It wasn’t heavy but it was definitely awkward.

With part of the patio clear, I decided to get rid of some of the old bagged up bedding from the greenhouse. The communal compost heap is a useful facility on site and having not yet worked out how I going to do compost this year, I deposited some old bedding on the site heap. Spotting a large plant pot, I grabbed it and began to do some weeding. It is a job I don’t particularly enjoy but in the sunshine, it’s not a bad way to spend an hour. Once the pot was full, I took it up to the new coop and gave the weeds to the girls. There was a chorus of approving clucking.

By now the weather was definitely closing in so I quickly threw in some weeds for Roxy and Trixy and shut the shed up. As I began to walk home, the heavens opened. Remembering the washing out on the line, I reluctantly broke into a run to try and save it.

Tomorrow’s plan is to finish off weeding and sort the fruit section. This area has been somewhat abandoned last year and it needs some work. We will also pick up some bags of compost for planting.