chicken stuff – Page 6 – little cotton rabbits

We now have our Mrs Chickens.

There's Butterscotch & Toffee the Bovan Goldlines (reddish brown ones) and Chick-Chick who is a Black Star.

They are settling in well and are already such characters. Chick Chick is the noisiest and seems to have declared herself top chook – she was the first to venture out of the house to explore. Butterscotch and Toffee are a little quieter and a little more reticent.

We're all getting to know each other although they're already very friendly. My first task is to train them to climb the ladder – there was much panic and sqwaking at dusk yesterday when they didn't seem to know what to do! Hopefully they'll get the hang of climbing the wooden hill to bedfordshire soon!

I really like all of the planning and speculation that comes along with the start of a new year – 365 clean, bright squares on the calendar expectantly waiting to be filled with exciting things! The start of a new year feels like a good time to try and put your own little world to rights and I suppose that's why so many of us make new years resolutions. I did OK with mine last year although I never did get around to sewing very much and my email inbox is even more stuffed now than it was back then. On the positive side though, I did manage to spend some extra much needed time with Amy while my husband had Toby. That's something that needs to happen a bit more this year, but we'll take it step by step and hopefully balance out what both children need a little more evenly! I also did really well on the food front – I did end up making virtually all of our own bread, cakes and biscuits and relying far, far less on supermarket food for meals. The plan is to take that a step further this year and produce more of our own food. Which is why I am so happy with our joint christmas pressie this year…

…a chicken house! It's ready for residents but H is currently busy clearing the area where it's going and building a run. Once it's all in place we'll be going to collect our 3 chickens and hopefully not too long after we'll be enjoying some fresh eggs! Amy and I are so excited and she's already got a shortlist of names for them!

H and I have also been busy in the garden setting up raised beds ready for veggie growing. I can already tell that 2009 is going to be a more outdoorsy kind of year though hopefully I'll still have a little energy at the end of the day for a spot of bunny knitting!