We have chickens!

We are now the proud owners of 16 one week old chickens or chooks as they are called here.  We had a minor disagreement on the kind of chickens we should keep.  Matt took a purely practical view that they should be utility birds, good layers and good to eat, but I also wanted them to be interesting and nice to look at!     Unable to decide which breed to go for, I found a local breeder and went to see her for advice.  Fionna is a mine of information on breeding and keeping chooks, she showed us all her adult birds and pointed out all the characteristics of each breed.. In the end I chose a mixed clutch of Plymouth Rocks, Light Sussex, Buff Sussex and Rhode Island Reds.  If you would like to see what they will look like when they are grown up, Fionna's website http://www.chooks.co.nz/  has lots of photos and is full of interesting chicken stuff.     Now we have to wait four weeks to find out how many layers we have in our flock and how many are roosters.  The boys will end up on the table, except for one lucky rooster who will stay to look after our girls and hopefully create next years brood.  

Matt spent the last day of his leave getting the hen house ready for the chooks, it had been converted into a childrens playhouse so he restored perches, nesting boxes and ramps and gave it a good clean out to get rid of all the spiders and bugs that had taken up residence.  There is a good sized enclosure for the birds, but it isn't chicken proof,  our intention was always for them to be free range.   Next week we have to raise the fence around the vegetable garden, I don't want the chickens making a meal of all my hard work!

I was a little bit worried about how Poppy (the puppy) might react to the chickens, we thought it was wise to get them while she is still young enough to accept them.  Actually she is scared to death of them!  She took cover when I tried to introduce her to them and hid out on the porch.

We are planning to get pigs next, the pig sty is big enough for at least a couple of weaners and there is about a quarter of an acre of woodland behind which we will fence for them to forage in,  they should be very happy little piggies.  

Mowing the very overgrown lawn was a priority this week, we left our mower in England, because of the strict rules about importing garden equipment into New Zealand.  With nearly two acres to keep neat and tidy hand shears just weren't an option!  The previous owner had a ride on mower, but we weren't convinced that we needed something that big so we hired a push along for the day to see how long it would take, answer - five hours continuous mowing!  This could get annoying when the grass really starts to grow in the spring, perhaps we should get some sheep.

The vegetable garden is coming on, I have cleared most of it now by covering it with compost and tarpaulins until all the weeds die down.  I have four huge compost heaps on the go, one of the advantages of caring for a horse is the never ending supply of manure!  I have sown broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, spinach, carrots, chives, onions and parsley this week and I'm hoping to get some fruit trees in over the next few months.  We have been collecting walnuts as they fall from the tree and drying them in the sun, we should have a good supply to last through the year.  

We had a huge glut of plums last week, at least 20kg!  I have frozen half of them, we gave loads away to friends and I made jam with the rest.  I got the jam recipe off the internet and it was surprisingly easy to make.  

Plum Jam Recipe
4lb plums
4lb sugar
1 pint of water

Bring to the boil, skim off the stones as they rise to the surface, test for pectin (does it start to set when dolloped onto a cold plate?)  then decant into sterilised jars, seal, cool and label.   Easy!   It made eight full jars.   I'm going to make the remaining plums into chutney, even my sweet toothed family can't eat that much jam!  

The weather is starting to turn distinctly cooler in the early mornings now. It's still really warm in the afternoons but the evenings are drawing in and autumn is definitely on the way.  We have bought in all our fire wood and Matt has draught proofed every door and window, so hopefully we are prepared for winter.  I'm still a bit worried about the lack of double glazing and central heating though!   We are going to need a good supply of sweaters.  

the living room - all cosy now!