They’re on my wish list now. Eight years ago I started hankering. Five years ago I started looking through catalogues of coops and feeders. (The mobile ark or the walk-in pen? A nesting box? roosting ridge?) Four years ago I promised myself some. But babies and a house move, redoing the new garden, tinkering with the house. There has never been the time. Then we took that trip to a tiny village in Eastern Slovakia last May and the girls fell in love with hens too. Spent the whole holiday chasing, feeding, catching and stroking them, much to the bewilderment of locals who see them entirely as a food source. Like watching two children petting a hamburger.
But I view hens through rosy spectacles lent me, no doubt, by some distant episode of the Waltons. Oh think, Mary Ellen, we will collect our own eggs for tea. Fresh, yellow-yolked, wholesome. I can see them now warm and nestled in a bed of straw. Little hands cradling them in to the kitchen. Easter everyday. Oops, splat. Never mind. (Bird flu. Mites. I can hear cyberspace humming with doses of realism). It’s no use; I’m a lost cause. You can only resist for so long. I want them, the girls want them. And I have a friend who will not let it rest.
15 comments:
Oh heck, Eden, you are so clever - how do you do the direct links? I clicked and lo and behold there were chicken houses! Now please don't get me started - I can resist chickens when I read gushing reports of them, even gorgeous pictures, but show me a shopping opportunity and I'm halfway to buying some of the wretched thing! Though I fancy an Omlet really.....
love the photo of the girls and hens. i blogged a couple of weeks ago about going to buy eggs for hatching which are as we speak under my friend's broody buff orpington. cant wait. ian is building hen house, it's all happening. would love to have regular updates as to how you are getting on with yours.
Would love to have more hens but we are just McDonalds for foxes.
Go for it Eden - get the chickens - you won't regret it. We have 14 Buff Orpington eggs in the incubator due to hatch tomorrow! i must be mad! Or a chicken!
Hi Eden
So good to see you again-you are a great blogger-Great to catch up with your blogs!!
By co-incidence, I have been talking this week about having chickens-not allowed them in our Grade2* listed barn but when boys leave home and we downsize I have been promised some!!
PS-Loved previous blog-red shoes reminded me of Ruby Slippers-perfect for getting rid of my Wicked Witch of The North!!
warm wishes
xx
Oh Eden I want hens too, but nowhere to keep them fenced off and Hub3 says they will sh*t all over the garden,which of course they would.... and then I've got the doves.... but I want to be all wholesome too, John-boy!
Hello Eden,
Good to catch up with you again. Think you should get those chickens, name one for me please, Henrietta I think. So glad you are here with us again.
Camilla.xx
Oh Eden I am so glad I have found you again ! Thanks for the comments. I have been shopping for hens today would you believe but found none at market so off again tomorrow to another market which ususaly has lots!
Shall I send you one or two?
You do write a delicious blog.
great to see you again, great pics of hens.
Great blog. Yes, go for the hens, it's a must - and I want to be with you when you buy them. Here in North Carolina they'd be at risk from all sorts of animals and snakes so reckon that contending with only foxes is having it easy.
Hens - come and get 'em. Bring the girls and choose your chicks I can't guarantee whether they'll be male of female - seriously hens like children and taxes - never a good time for them. We inherited ours and then sort of tamed/bred them and now have very tough aracana/legbar/feral chicken x bantams. Some even lay blue eggs! Would you be able to have cockerls too? Nothing better than seeing you own hatchlings...
Yes - get them!! Hens aren't an awful lot of work, and they give lots of pleasure along with the eggs. I have 30+ layers and 4 cockerels too many, but I'm soft-hearted and can't bear to let them go. Just make sure that you have a really secure coop, as varmints will weasle their way in through the tiniest hole.
You'll never eat a store-bought egg again!
just wanted to say hi to the chicks ... and thank you and the girls for visiting c'est chic ... xoxo
Hello Eden,
Yes, the embellished silken wrap has got possibilities, but ...
those two lovely young daughters of yours ... well, they are such beauties!
Go on, get the chickens. We know that that you have the penthouse all sorted already!
It is great to be able to read some of your fresh, free range writing again.
xo
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