Is disaster too strong a word?

We've had a zero percent success rate with our hatching eggs. The first egg had to be thrown away because it was rotten, and the other two just didn't hatch. The chicks had died inside the egg some time before they were due to hatch. Both were tiny but perfectly formed with all their feathers. They hadn't yet absorbed the yolk. I'm sure I could find out exactly what day they died but I really don't have the heart to do it. 

I will be buying more eggs in a couple of weeks and trying again. 

Hopefully with more success. 

Chocolate and coffee cake with caramel icing.

                                 I'm really pleased with this. Its a bit rustic, but I really like it.

New raised bed.

With a lot of help from my dad I added another raised bed to the garden. Its twice the depth of the other raised beds and will be this years potato bed. I'm growing Mayan gold and International kidney.  

 My little veg patch for this side of the garden is about half way done now. I need to add the three more raised beds to the backs of the beds that already exist, fill everything up with compost, Staple weed suppressant between them and pour gravel down and plant. :D

I unfortunately have to wait for paydays to continue with my projects (just like most other people) Next payday will hopefully, unless something unforeseen happens, be paying for two more raised beds and enough compost to fill the rest of the potato bed and one of the new raised beds.
The March payday again as long as nothing unforeseen happens will pay for the last raised bed and the rest of the soil.
April will be the weed suppressant and gravel although I'll be able to start planting before that's completed. :D

As well as all this I'm somehow going to have to pay for a larger chicken coop before April, the cat to be neutered, and a moped. Oh the joys of working part time.

I'd hoped to get the greenhouse emptied today and given a good clean out. Unfortunately its started snowing again and I really don't want to go out in it. We've really made progress with the pile of rubbish we inherited at the bottom of the garden. We've had a good three trips to the tip now and I can really see a difference. The day before yesterday I pulled all of the old carpet out of the pile and bagged it all up. I'd hoped Ito find soil underneath it all, but I didn't. I found a pile of bricks. :(
Never mind. Perhaps I can use the bricks in a project. Or maybe It will just be another trip to the tip. Either way, I can see the edge of the tunnel now and there are chickens at the end. We will be giving the back of the garden to the chickens, tripling their space. This will be handy as we have two eggs that seem (touch wood) to be developing well. The third one failed and was thrown out. And we've been given first pick of a batch My boyfriends mum is hatching.
So triple the space for double the amount of birds seems fair. :D

Success. (Edited)

My cobs turned out to be a huge success with my boyfriend and me for that matter. So with that being the case I made some more. This time I made them bigger, as my boyfriend requested this.

 I didn't use fresh herbs with this batch cause i didn't have enough but i added dried.

I also made some cinnamon and raisin swirls (without cinnamon - I forgot) as I had the oven running. I still need to add the icing but I'll wait for them to cool down first.... Well this is the finished product. It was a little heavy, needed more fruit and I forgot to add the cinnamon but it was very tasty indeed. The icing tasted more like custard. I may rename this a custard and raison swirl. 

Now don't get me wrong.

Now don't get me wrong.
I really like my chickens. They're cheeky and they keep me on my toes. But cleaning out their coop and run is incredibly time consuming and strenuous. I have to carry three or four massive black trugs of soiled straw to the bottom of the garden where the compost pile lives and lean unpleasantly far across to pile the straw on top of it. I just dug over half of the run to help with drainage as it was retaining quite a lot of water. I covered the remaining half with straw and then made a start on the coop.

The coop must have all the old straw pulled out and into the trug, where it again gets dumped on the compost pile. Then I have to sweep out the wood-shavings from the nest box onto the pull-out tray, take the pull-out tray out and pour the wood-chip onto the compost pile. Pour boiling water onto the pull-out bottom, dry it and put it back in the coop. Dust with anti mite powder and cover the bottom of everything with wood-chip and then a very generous layer of straw.

Now some people scrub out the entire coop every time. Walls, floor and ceiling. Personally I'm waiting for the better weather, a hose pipe and a second pair of hands before I attempt that sort of thing. That is, unless they actually look dirty.
So by the end of this weekly clean I am covered up to the elbows in mud, shit and straw. I'm freezing cold and the chickens are standing in a line on the top step desperately trying to get through the back door and into the kitchen.

I know I gripe and complain about the work and the expense. MY GOD THE EXPENSE! and the struggle to keep them off my vegetables. And (although the eggs are 100 times better than shop bought eggs) I'm not actually a huge fan of eggs, making the pile of thirty that we have in the kitchen not as heartening a sight as one might expect.
But despite all of these cons to the world of poultry keeping, I really don't think I could ever be without them.  

Posh cobs.

Possibly the best cobs I've ever tried.

regular bread recipe
Add brushed on topping of one whole egg, garlic salt with herbs. Chopped up garlic, chopped thyme, basil, oregano.
Pile cheese of choice on top.
Amazing wonderful little cobs.

Day Three.

Well its day three of egg incubation and everything seems to be going OK. I have the machine set to 37.5 degrees and I'm keeping the humidity between 40-50%.
I quite enjoy watching the little machine rolling back and forth, kinda like its lulling a baby. Which, in a way, I guess it is.
I'm considering candling the eggs once they've been in the incubator for seven days, but I'm frightened that I'll:

A. Hurt the developing chicks,
Or B. Find that they're dead or not fertile.

 I have 18 more days to wait realistically before they'll even think about hatching, but. I'm so excited. >_<  

Hatching eggs

My hatching eggs have arrived in the post  and I'm very excited about it! I can't get the incubator until Monday unfortunately due to a mix up. But I'm told that if i keep them between 13 and 18 degrees that they will be ok until then. The Eggs are tiny and white! A huge contrast between my warrens big brown eggs. I just hope we get mainly or all girls in our three whole eggs. If not I might look into no crow collars and showing before considering the more permanent and unfortunate solution to a rooster.

Addicted.

Well after Christmas I am pretty broke I can tell you. But even in this time of financial belt tightening, I can't seem to stop myself. Yesterday I bought three lemon millefleur sablepoot hatching eggs at the rather steep cost of £10.90 including P £ P. I need to buy a ceramic heat bulb before they hatch but I can't afford the expense until I get paid in a week. Should be ok though as I have way more than a week to wait for them to hatch. I've got a big dog crate I plan to use to keep the little babies contained. So everything should work out. (touch wood)
I've now been out to wilkos (my very favourite place for gardening gear) And I've been tempted into buying four packets of seeds. And only one of them D: was a vegetable! I bought some shade tolerant plants for my semi-shaded front garden. Snap dragons, forget-me-nots and lobelia. I should be surrounded by prettiness, but I must try harder to not spend all of my money. :/