Eggs!

We've got eggs!  Yum!  All my new little brown hens have now laid eggs and all my older hens are laying two or three eggs a week apart from Tufty who is laying four.  So I can have eggs again and so can some of my customers now too.  I've been explaining to the new girls that they have to not only pay for their own keep but contribute towards the pensions of the older girls - and especially towards the pensions of those who are now too old to lay.  And how some future new girls will contribute towards their pensions when they are too old to lay.  They look at me so seriously when I talk to them that I can't help but laugh.

We went out to the feed merchant yesterday to stock up on layers' pellets.  It is about a ten mile round trip so I try not to go too often as it costs the same amount of diesel to buy one sack as it does to buy six.  It was such a lovely warm and sunny afternoon that we decided to come back through some of the little lanes before we got back to streets and houses again.  We were so glad that we did because we found not one, not two but THREE branches fallen and laying by the side of the road.  So we stopped, pulled the car in as far as we could, spread the tarpaulin over the sacks of hen food and got out our trusty little hand saw.  We came home with enough free wood for the woodburner for four to five evenings.  Somebody local stopped his van and told us that we were doing a grand job tidying the place up.  That made me smile too because that was not exactly our main objective although the place did look better by the time we had finished.

And I've hung outside my first loads of washing for 2014.  I'm now really looking forward to having clean bedding which smells of being dried outdoors : )

I popped into Lidl after church this morning.  My husband really likes their meaty crisps and they were one of their half price weekend specials.  The only pack left was torn and half the little packets were missing.  He was really disappointed - especially at £1.04 for all those packets which would have lasted him several weeks.  Their other half price weekend specials were pork chops (none left) potatoes (already got plenty) and mini salami at 29p for a pack of two and one of these minis is just right for upping the flavour in a host of dishes.  So I was pleased even if husband wasn't.