Spring Cleaning the Plot

Despite the lack of blog posts over the last few months, we have been plodding on. Life tends to throw us curve balls and the past 18 months has absolutely been one curve ball after another. But as is the common phrase, when life gives you lemons…

Today, we headed down to the plot to clear around the main coop. We’ve had an ongoing rat issue which has been superbly dealt with by our site pest controller. It’s taken him weeks and required us to move Greta and Flo from the main coop, a ton (quite literally) of rat poison and endless patience to get them all. The roof of the main coop continues to deteriorate especially with the relentless rain we seem to have had almost every single day since New Year’s Day. Honestly, I don’t think I can remember a wetter winter since we moved here twelve years ago! If there is any hint of a hosepipe ban this summer, it’s a sign that someone at the water company has the water level graph upside down.

Our first job was clearing into bags some rubbish and removing old rotting bits of wood. These originally formed the bed around the base of the fruit trees but over many years have completely rotted. We created a pile of rubbish to take to the tip later in the week when we have done a bit more clearing. Whilst my husband cleared the rubbish, I worked on clearing the back of the blackberry and raspberry beds so that for the first time in ages, you can walk all the way around the beds.

Our next task was to remove the compost bins as Derek told us that he suspected some of the rats were using them. All of the full and very heavy, my husband emptied them before making a collection of them all near the shed at the top of the plot. Armed with two spades, we set to, making sure the compost was moved away from the front of the main coop. The aim is to remove any incentive for a rat to make itself at home anywhere near our coop.

With the area cleared, we discussed our plan for the coop roof. The roof titles we bought a few years ago have been a disaster pretty much from the moment we bought them. We need to go back to a proper metal sheeting roof although we will need to raise the height of the apex a little to make the slope of the roof better. We also need to level out the floor and build it up using bark chipping or something similar.