My garden #4

Nothing very pretty to report today.

Today, I moved the chickens from the convenience of outside the back door, where they have spent the winter, to their summer residence down at the bottom of the garden.  No2 was dragged away from his PS3 to give me a hand carrying it down the garden (much to his disgust...).  Then we spent a while fencing them in.  They are the Houdini's of the chicken world and love to escape, so this year I have penned them in a bit of grass around the swing so they can munch away.  I watched them for ages last year until I could be sure how it was they were getting out.  It turned out that if they head-butted (!!!) the fence for long enough, it would spring up and they could scramble underneath.  Ingenious aren't they?  The fence is now pegged down!  Don't worry no chickens were harmed - the fence is very flexible!

Here they are settling in and having a move around of the bark chips, enjoying the dust!  I need to get some more bark to spread around so it doesn't get too slippy again.

Now I can have my back door open again without finding hens on my conservatory sofa or pecking around the kitchen!  Pippin proved to be the most useless guard dog when confronted with bold as brass hens!  They just march straight past him!

While I'm toiling at the bottom of the garden, my nemesis that is my back border taunts me.  Take a look:

It's not for the want of trying.  I have tried.  Like Every Single Year that I have lived here.

I am confronted with brambles and other undesirables that scramble over from the back of the fence.  It never seems to look... harmonious.  I WILL tidy it up, once my green bin has been emptied...  That's always a good excuse.  Just out of shot to the right is the blossom tree that has a couple of weeks of glory in April each year.  Its buds are about to burst.