Sunday photos in the early morning sunshine

The race to get bits of left over porridge

Dolly and Mary out exploring

There are tasty insects amongst the gravel

The new Belgium babes getting their first 'taste' of freeranging - tentively out of the back door

Mary having a good look around - she only ventured out a little bit less than a week ago - and now she is getting so much more adventurous

Just look at Willow on the left posing with the sun behind her!

And next to her Freckles her gorgeous friend

This fabulous girl hasn't wasted any time in exploring

She is perfectly coloured for being camouflaged in fact later in the day I had a hard job to find Freckles (named by Mr Lottie)

Blissful

Perfectly posed -sitting on a duck!

Playing hide and seek when it's time to go in.

At one point she flew right over my head when I tried to get her to go in.  I decided to clip just a few of her flight feathers - I would hate her to fly up into a tree and come down the other side of the fence.

Allotment Diary - Me 100hrs. He 98hrs - and a finished fruit cage at last

This was the broad beans and onions bed this year, but once they had been harvested we used it to put all the vegetation that could not be composted, to dry and ready for a bonfire.

There was a huge amount - in addition to all the fruit bush prunings.

I set to work finishing off the pruning

Whilst Mr Lottie did what all 'boys' (and me too but I never get a look in these days) having a bonfire

The wind was in the 'right' direction - not blowing towards any houses or farm buildings, just towards open ploughed fields - and we were the only people up there too!  So he had a big bonfire!

I spent the time digging up rogue raspberry, and dock weed roots.

And Mr Lottie had a whale of a time.

And I kept digging over the soil, around and under the fruit bushes

Mr Lottie did such a good job, he even searched the whole plot for more oddments of wood to burn

And I kept digging and finding more buried weed roots, until I was so worn out I could hardly move a muscle.

And I made Mr Lottie damp down the fire and cover it up.

Whilst I took one a last look at all my hard work - and almost forgot about my aches and pains.

Allotment Diary - Me 96hrs. He 94hrs.

Next we tackled the fruit cage

Amongst the weeds on the right hand side are potato plants and some rogue raspberries

On the left hand side a mixture or red and black currant bushes, rogue raspberry plants, loganberry and gooseberry - and weeds, nettles, docks!

The first day we spent three hours digging up half the right hand side potato plants and weeds and some of the raspberries.

The second day we spent another three hours digging up the rest.

The next day I made a start on pruning the  bushes

Yesterday I did some more and with Pat's help added the path

It's looking good.

I just could not resist buying more rare bantams - Belgium this time.

At the back are Dolly and Mary

and in the forefront is my beautiful new Belgium Barbu d'Uccle

Mary and Dolly - no longer the new kids on the block

Isn't she the most beautiful colour - she is pearly white - really pearl white

They have a 'mane' of feathers which hide their neck and make their heads look so small

This new young lady at the front almost looks as though she doesn't have a head - or that it is miniscule - its the feathers that do it.

Look at that fantastic colouring - just perfect

The marks on the flower pot are the residue of Diatom - from where I pressure washed the pot then dusted it with the powder.

All these girls are bigger than the modern game - far bigger than the Sebrights.

I just need to choose names for today's two new girls

New banties in the garden

I came back from the allotment with some currant bush cuttings

I left the door open to the fruit cage and the girls dashed in whilst I went to get the cuttings.  As you can see - I need to do some weeding in here!

Mary is sitting at the end of the raised strawberry bed

Dolly was amongst the others doing some weeding

Mary is investigating the pot and Henrietta is daydreaming as usual

Poppy is almost the same colour as coconut path chippings - well camouflaged on the left hand side

I left them there happily playing - in fact they stayed in there scratching about until tea time!

Cute aren't they!

Allotment Diary - Me 88hrs. He 87hrs.

This past week we have been spending quite a bit of time working up the allotment

I wish I had these machines to help me - they are the ones being used to clear the pig farm site

They have had demolition machines knocking everything down

Other machine to dig up the concrete, and yet more that 'chew up the huge chunks and grind it into piles of small shingle.

On the other side of the hedge we have been busy digging up more potatoes

And weeding too.

I managed to give the lawns one last mow before the winter.

These are a sample of the potatoes we are digging up, they are gorgeous

I took a walk up the top end to look at the new plots

They are all coming along nicely

This site is looking massive now it is being cleared