Teeny Dandelion Wine Update - And Chickens.

The dandelion petals are doing their thing - whatever their thing is.  They've had their first stir of the day.

They look like this:

And they smell... hmm... Planty.  I wouldn't go so far as to say floral, really, but I'm surprised they don't smell sludgy and haven't gone all brown.  Very pretty, really!  Bodes well for the vino.  Hopefully.

So now I'm jumping up every five minutes to see if that's the postie with the yeast and yeastnutrientwhateverthehellthatis, because the instructions say you're not to leave it an INStant longer than two days, so I am going to be needing that yeast by lunchtime tomorrow!

Meanwhile, as my previous chickeny post was actually typed at Christmas, I realise I never told y'all they're laying.  Well, Captain Morghen lays a reliable egg each and every day.

I know it's her, because she has had white legs since eggs started appearing, and this is a Sign, as we chicken wranglers knows.

The chicken on the right is laying.  The chicken on the left is a lazy bastard.

Also, the other two are plump and sleek, while the poor ol' Captain looks knackered, because she's ploughing all her energy into egg production.

For a couple of heady weeks, we were getting up to four eggs a day, but then, it seems, the other three lost interest and realised they'd get fed, anyway.  Lazy buggers.  Then my favourite, Bob Mar-lay, who had been watching Tom Daley's "Splash" through the kitchen window with an unnatural degree of interest in her beady little eyes, took it upon herself to attempt a triple pike into the bottom pond.

I found her, some time later, disconsolately perched on a rock with her wings spread out, half in and half out of the water.  A good towelling off and a nice cosy improvised bed in the warm greenhouse seemed to sort her out.  However, this may have lowered her resistance to an itinerant bout of avian flu, because a week later, she bought the farm.

RIP Bob

Another one bites the dust.  She's buried next to Brian, but with a lot less ceremony.  It seems the children are getting used to the idea that chickens die.

So now we're down to three little birds (there's a song in there, somewhere), and one egg a day.  Although Mr P almost mowed over a random egg in the lawn yesterday, so it's entirely possible that the others ARE laying (I shall be scrutinising the colour of their legs, later) but are less well behaved than the Captain, and are laying their eggs wherever they darned well please.  Tut!  How do you train a chicken, anyway?

Three little birds, sat by my doorstep