We’re approximately five weeks away from the birth of our fourth child. This is causing some problems as we want the house to be perfect before she comes but we know that’s not going to happen in that time scale. Add to that Vonnie is having serious trouble with SPD again as well as pulling muscles in her back and neck which might make labour interesting so I haven’t actually been at work that much recently. I’m off every Thursday but this week I’ve actually only been in the office for one day!
What it does mean though is I’ve been able to take the kids into the garden and get some work done there.
For the past two years I’ve been trying to get my raised beds built and every year something comes up to stop that happening. Last year I had my health problems so I only managed to get the chicken coop built which left everything else still to do in the garden. We have a skips worth of general rubbish sitting in one corner, the old chicken run waiting to be pulled down in another corner, the patio to turf over and various fences to build as well as getting those those raised beds built.
So with the better weather we’ve had the kids out on what’s left of the patio whilst I fenced it off from the rest of the garden. All we need now is to paint it which will cause some problems as it needs to be done after the chickens go to bed. In fact that same problem has meant the fence at the bottom of our garden has never been built. Since we started keeping chickens I’ve actually just had two fence panels leaning against the back hedge to keep them from escaping into our neighbours garden but they ‘kindly’ cut the hedge right back thinking the panels were an actual fence. Twice this week I’ve been able to get work done after the chickens were put to bed so hopefully that will be sorted by tomorrow night. I managed to get the two fence post holes redug as I’d originally made them in the wrong place, line up the posts in their holes and get the supports nailed on and finally get the cement into the holes. Unfortunately I ran out of screws so I’ll need to pay B&Q a visit in the morning before finishing it off.
The raised beds have been started but their location has changed. Until about two weeks ago they were to be placed where we actually have all the rubbish but since losing the greenhouse to the weather and moving the shed and coop about we’ve decided to place the beds on the small hill we have in the garden.

As you can see I have one built so far with another three going in alongside it. Then once that’s finished I can get the chicken run dismantled and the fruit trees/bushes can go in there along with another raised bed or two depending on how much wood I have left. In order to stop the chickens getting in at the veg in the beds I’ve put some pond netting over them using the supports I’ve built on either end to hold it up. I completely forgot that old saying of ‘measure twice and cut once’ though when building the supports as they should have been about two inches shorter that they actually are which accounts for them looking as though they are about to fall over. They are sturdy enough for me to sit on them without fear of breaking them though. So far I’ve got the cabbage, broccoli and lettuce in there but I know the broccoli will be to big for the low net ‘roof’ so I may need to rehome them once I build the other beds.
As for the cat on the bed… I wasn’t even aware he was there until I uploaded it to Flickr! That Fitz is a sneaky one.
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