Getting There . . .

We trundled on last night for a couple of hours and finished the main frame work of the new extension, most of the chicken wire, and only stopped when we realised there was no point in starting the two doors which would have to be laid down on the muddy ground to make. Best to leave that for a drier night, or if one of those take too long to come around then we could move the whole kit and kaboodle round to the garage floor. 

Izzy provided us with great entertainment, I think she was trying to locate sunken treasure in the puddle the rain had made in the sand. Her wee feet were as pink as anything at the end of it all and she didn't seem to mind that we had giggled at her.

There is one great piece of news about the grassy area / lawn / turfed area. A couple of weeks ago we bought sorry looking turf from Homebase for an area we had lifted slabs up from last year. We had unsuccessfully tried sowing it with grass seed then gave up and went for turf. Of course with the chickens free-ranging all the time there was no hope of that turf surviving. Then it became sunny and the turf kinda dried up. I resigned myself to the idea there was never going to be grass there and contemplated lifting the turf and disposing of it.

However, over the past couple of nights I have noticed a distinct greening of the turf. Rather than it being completely dead we became hopeful that it might produce something. Last night we noticed that the rain storm had boosted it again. I am now most confident that we WILL have a lawn this year once the chickens are contained in their new extension. YAY!

Here is a panoramic photo of the new extension for you :D

The part with the 69p Ikea shower curtains is the main run and is (almost) completely weather-proof and as fox-proof as we could manage without actually testing it with a real fox. The new extension is not going to be weather-proof or fox-proof but will only be used during the day and means we will soon have three separate compartments to keep chickens in.

The area to the left of the original run has David and Jessica's trampoline in it. They hardly ever use it now as it always seems to be dirty and both have said they would rather have more room for the chickens than the trampoline but as it was a present from Nanna and Papa Iain wont hear of it being sold. I have just worked out in my head that we will probably have enough wood left over from this last project to convert that area too . . . hmmmm . . . must work on Iain . . . :D