Looks like a golf course...

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Hopefully the effect is to tidy up the "Gypsie's" garden we've been cultivating recently.

Big news is that, after much build up, one of the hens, Boo, laid her first egg yesterday... and it was a double-yolker. She was clearly possessed by the desire all morning and finally, in the bean patch, announced with much excited clucking that she'd fulfilled her purpose.

We barbequed it at our house party!

Next door's little monkey:

Enjoying the party:

S has been busy making Rosehip syrup and Blackberry jam - both harvested from the hedgerows near the house:

Corguettes from the garden:

Maddy the hen with the sore foot (now on anti-biotics...):

Shash, curious:

Two of them make it into the sacred kitchen (they try all the time)

Maddy, surveying the deck:

Happy:

We've named them. Chicken Madras, Chicken Bhuna and Chicken Shashlick.

Last night, determined to sleep in the nest box, two of them were snuggled down together in the tight space - even though we'd blocked the entrance. The other was perched on the divider between the nest and sleeping areas. I had to chase them out rudely at 11pm... talk about them ruling us.

Anyway, they're great fun. Web cam action coming soon!

These girls are not going to be joining Mensa anytime soon. We put them in their new Eglu Cube - purposely designed for happy chickens - and they couldn't figure out how to go up the ladder to bed. In the morning, after opening the door, it took an hour of delay and some shooing to get them to come down the ladder again. And another hour of coaxing and teaching before they figured out how to get water from the "glug" container.

Highly entertaining though - now convinced I have to get a camera installed in the nest so we can watch them sleep...

The Eglu Cube: luxury 5 star hotel for chickens

S with two of the happy campers:

And me with third:

We have:

1 Bovan Nera (black with copper breast)

1 Belle Blue (grey all over)

1 Speckledy (black with white speckles)

No names just yet - waiting for them to appeal

Bovan Nera:

The house:

S observing - better than TV:

Feeding for the first time:

Scared

Scared more

Happy

Look at me

And me

And me

Handling, pretty tame:

Stroke my neck

Soft claws

The old fence collapsed with the mildest encouragement and so it was a good job that we had all the materials to replace it. There have been a few burglaries around here recently so it's good to be secure. Or more secure than the next, anyway.

New fence panel:

And the supplies:

Spot the obvious flaw: (we're fixing that next weekend...)

At the bottom of the garden, a new fence grew up out of the ground (this required four posts to be concreted into big holes - no small job):

And the gate: (salvaged):

And behind the shed:

The garden getting clearer:

Coming on nicely:

Decking and table, now usable:

Butt of all the jokes - now full. (we need another!)

Alarmed at the height of our decking and the lack of privacy this gives us and our neighbours next door, M (next door) and I decided to put up a new higher fence panel to protect us. Ironically spending a day getting to know each other better on building a barrier between us - but I'm sure it won't get in our way.

We aimed to mirror the recently added fence on the other side and so our deck now is symmetrical. We bought the timber posts and featherboard separately and made a custom panel to fit the space. The old fence is exhausted and so ultimately we'll be replacing the whole thing - one panel at a time. All in all a good day's work.

S was on BBQ duties as well as oiling the new garden furniture - so by the end of the day we had a "changing room" style transformation of the back of our house.

Posts and holes dug on the hottest day of the year:

 

Decking goes down:


Missing some:

The garden of doom:



How to treat your Polish builders - good food, good thrones:

Working hard:

Get your missus on BBQ duty - feeding neighbours and builders:

Fencing panel newly finished:

And from M's side:

Trellis to go up:

And from our side, already with ivy:

Nice butt:

And the beautiful dining set - neatly oiled by S:

And the twinkly lights:

And the transformation is complete from THIS:

To this:

One of the key issues is that:

the debate on environmental issues is moving fast but is too often guided by the need to gain marketing advantage rather than deliver genuine benefit. As a result too much effort, in both business and government, is put into doing what customers and voters expect and not enough into rigorously researched long term solutions.

Fascinating re: tomatoes... if you just ate these in season you'd only have them in August and September.

Gareth Kane defines this as:

Eco-living is the art of living your dreams while minimising your impact on the environment. To include: waste, energy, recycling, green building, transport, food, product reviews, book reviews and anything else to help readers live within ecological limits.

We've just pretty-much built a new house (as you can see) and there are some good eco benefits that come from simply observing the current building standards, such as:

• Double-glazing everywhere including energy efficient K-glass
• Thick layers of insulation - especially in the roof
• Boiler is a high-efficiency "System" boiler which should mean less gas used
• Dual flush, compact toilets which should mean less water usage for flushing toilets
• Recycling - a lot of our weekly rubbish gets recycled by the council here who have a pretty good scheme for paper, card, bottles, cans, metal, plastic bottles and organic waste.
  

• Rainwater harvesting - as soon as the new deck is down, we'll be harvesting all the rainwater off the roof for watering and gardening
• Composting - we're already composting using a large Sankey compost bin. All the waste from the kitchen, garden and paper shredder makes it into here and should give us "soil enhancing" compost in the future
• Growing our own vegetables - as previously mentioned, we're on with growing our own peas, beans, carrots, corriander, tomatoes, courgettes,  pumpkins, chillis and basil - to varying degrees of success. This is never going to make us sustainable but it'll help and it also is fun to do.
• Chickens - we plan to keep 3 rescued battery hens in a coop in our garden which will produce eggs as well as being fun.
• Cycling - both S and I are cycling to work almost exclusively. In my case this is cutting down on wasted bus trips and in S's case, more importantly, cutting down on expensive short 5 mile car rides.
  

• Standby power - since we use a lot of electrical items (TV, PVR, routers, wireless storage devices, shaver sockets etc etc), I'm concerned about the power they all use when "not in use". I was particularly concerned by the shaver socket in our new bathroom which seems to be an unwelcome heat and noise source during nights which are warm enough... I have not been able to find any information so far on "eco-shaver sockets" but there must be some out there.
• Solar heating - although possibly disruptive to fit at this late stage in our building programme, I am interested by using some solar heating panels to help us heat our water etc
• Buying "local food" is important. Especially buying products which are in-season - we might sign up for one of those organic vegetable boxes etc.

Shelves in the study, now properly attached to the wall. (they started bowing so we had to improvise with the car jack and a pole to lift them back into place and secure them to the wall...)

Sofa in the study:

We have curtains - labour of love that was to get them hung etc - thank god we didn't need to make the curtains ourselves...

Vases a la P - in the guest suite...

And matching cushions etc

Front door gets sorted:

And from outside, we get numbered again:

Pride of place in the street and returned to former glory:

Top:

Clean paint all round:

What's your number?

Floor is replaced (apparently a bugger of a job):

Chosen decking material:

Cauliflowers:

Coming on nicely

Corguettes:

Oh and composting begins in anger:

We did a bunch of jobs - commissioning the alarm, putting up bathroom cabinets, tidying up the shed, cleaning up the kitchen and were still scrubbing the kitchen floor at 9pm on Saturday night (what a life!).

Hope you agree it's now looking fine!

Clean windows:

Guest bedroom:

Functioning bathroom with cabinet:

Still got boxes:

Floor needs fixing...:

Kitchen coming on:

Now without plastic covering:

Seating at the island:

Our cauliflower plants broke the surface! v. exciting:

Basil (cheated):

Courgettes:

And a final look from the back of the house: