[Wee Eck]

Good Morning 
   Not so sunny in Glasgow this morning but supposed to brighten up around mid-day so we will see.
A pretty quiet day in prospect at Highlander House so will probably be on this site loads today .
To all the members heading to the meet up in Carmarthen ..I hope you have a safe journey there and back, have a lot of fun but most of all behave yourselves....

                            Eck

[happygolucky]

  , morning, I forgot to ask my better half what building was his office in, he  used to smoke and on the top, that was before he packed in and the boss, who owned a lot of the tower blocks, sometimes put on a bar be que.......  
Its dull here too at the moment but the sun will come out, one of my chickens gets into our main garden and comes to the back door most morings, its funny how my dogs tend to avoid her but she follows them around looking for bits!!

[Wee Eck]

Hi there happygolucky
Ha ha ..our 2 dogs and our 3 cats ALL give our chickens a wide berth as they can be a bit handy with their beaks !!. Our Speckaldy (Fiddler ) used to be quie an escape artist but a couple of months ago she injured one of her legs in the process,and, although she is fine now she never tries to get out anymore.

[goosepimple]

Hello to Wee Eck from the borders, nice to have you here, you should let us all know what you've got - we're all nosey on TAS and like to know what you're in to.  Welcome 

[Wee Eck]

Hello to Wee Eck from the borders, nice to have you here, you should let us all know what you've got - we're all nosey on TAS and like to know what you're in to.  Welcome 

Hi there
  As far as ground goes we don't have that much but what we have we use to full extent.

We are a corner semi - detatched. so our back garden is huge and is split down the middle that gives our 14 hens ( we did have 17 at one stage ) an area roughly 7m x 16m to play ( Trash ) around in.
The other half of the garden has a lawned area 5m x3m and the rest is taken up by raised beds and borders in which we grow small ammounts of vegetables and fruit. This side of the garden is roughly about the same size as the chickens area and although we would like a bit more ground, if truth be told , the age Annie & I are reaching it is probably enough for us to cope with.

We have 2 dogs ( oldies like ourselves ) 
Emily  is a Lab / Staffie cross ( with a little bit of pig thrown in !!! ) who we have had since she was a puppy and is the sweetest natured dog I have ever had.  Emily is now 12 ( we got her from the Dog's Trust.
Kiri is a black Staffie who we rescued from the Dogs Trust in January of last year , she is another lovely natured dog who is now 14. The name Kiri was given to her as she has the most beautiful singing voice like Dame Kiri te Kanawa

We have 3 cats 

Libby ..She is a ginger moggy and a very gentle natured girl. who lives between the garden and our bedroom !!!!!
Thai & Lottie are our 2 Siamese monsters who are as wild as hell.....(Hence the reason Libby lives in our bedroom....she is terrified of them !!)  We have had these two thugs since they were kittens and although they are not brother & sister ( there is 3 weeks age difference with Thai being the eldest) we got them from the same breeder. Everything and anything in our house is fair game for these 2 little horrors but the chickens keep them in line outside.

We have 4 fish ( 3 Shubunkins & a Hong Kong Plec)  The Shubunkins are called Haggis , Neeps & Tatties (and why not !!) and the Plec is called Glayva. ( Which goes very nicely with Haggis, Neeps & Tatties  )

So as you can see we do like to be surrounded by animals.

I hope this is enough information for you 

[Wee Eck]

Hello to Wee Eck from the borders, nice to have you here, you should let us all know what you've got - we're all nosey on TAS and like to know what you're in to.  Welcome 

Hi there
  As far as ground goes we don't have that much but what we have we use to full extent.

We are a corner semi - detatched. so our back garden is huge and is split down the middle that gives our 14 hens ( we did have 17 at one stage ) an area roughly 7m x 16m to play ( Trash ) around in.
The other half of the garden has a lawned area 5m x3m and the rest is taken up by raised beds and borders in which we grow small ammounts of vegetables and fruit. This side of the garden is roughly about the same size as the chickens area and although we would like a bit more ground, if truth be told , the age Annie & I are reaching it is probably enough for us to cope with.

We have 2 dogs ( oldies like ourselves ) 
Emily  is a Lab / Staffie cross ( with a little bit of pig thrown in !!! ) who we have had since she was a puppy and is the sweetest natured dog I have ever had.  Emily is now 12 ( we got her from the Dog's Trust.
Kiri is a black Staffie who we rescued from the Dogs Trust in January of last year , she is another lovely natured dog who is now 14. The name Kiri was given to her as she has the most beautiful singing voice like Dame Kiri te Kanawa

We have 3 cats 

Libby ..She is a ginger moggy and a very gentle natured girl. who lives between the garden and our bedroom !!!!!
Thai & Lottie are our 2 Siamese monsters who are as wild as hell.....(Hence the reason Libby lives in our bedroom....she is terrified of them !!)  We have had these two thugs since they were kittens and although they are not brother & sister ( there is 3 weeks age difference with Thai being the eldest) we got them from the same breeder. Everything and anything in our house is fair game for these 2 little horrors but the chickens keep them in line outside.

We have 4 fish ( 3 Shubunkins & a Hong Kong Plec)  The Shubunkins are called Haggis , Neeps & Tatties (and why not !!) and the Plec is called Glayva. ( Which goes very nicely with Haggis, Neeps & Tatties  )

So as you can see we do like to be surrounded by animals.

I hope this is enough information for you 

PS...Nothing wrong with being nosey.....not much happens in our Cul-De-Sac without me seeing it 

[Lesley Silvester]

And she's not joking. 

I'm another back garden smallholder but I don't have anywhere near the amount of garden you appear to have. Most of the front is concreted over (not by us) with small square beds containing rose bushes and fuschia and, since we've lived here, a jostaberry bush and two fruit trees (apple and plum). In the back I have another apple tree, another plum, a pear tree (3 varieties on on trunk) and a cherry. I turned the lawn into a raised bed area. The beds have now been taken out so that tall ones can be built as I am now less mobile and want to be able to garden from a sitting position. I also have a greenhouse and four other beds for fruit (strawberries and blueberries so far).

Then, of course, there is the goat yard and shed. Two goats: Pom (real name Snowdrift) and Snowcloud (Cloud). I milk Pom and am making cheese at the moment. Lots of cheese.

[Wee Eck]

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH......don't tell Annie you have goats as shehas always wanted goats   

[Wee Eck]

We are really lucky with the size of our back garden as it is huge but have to be honest and say that the are we have as lawn now is.......................synthetic . When we first got our hens we opened up our whole garden to them as we used to love the way some of them came up to our lounge windows and looked in at us. Being so inexperienced we didn't realise that the rest of the gang were stripping our garden bare as we were being kept amused at our windows. So now we have half the garden and the "Mad Squad " have the other half. We got the our side returfed but, as you know with dogs it doesn't take long for the new grass to become scorched and discoloured. So this year we put down the artificial grass and I wish we had done it years ago, it looks great , hose it down once or twice a week and brush it ...hey presto it looks as good as new. ( you can even make nice patterns with the brush... )

Well driving to work in brilliant sunshine and according to Radio Scotland it's supposed to be wall to wall sunshine all weekend so 

               Hope you all have a great weekend

                                    Eck.

[happygolucky]

I love the sound of artificial grass!!
Ou garden is seperated off into sections so we keep our hens in the top part, its not huge but big enough for a number of  hens and its weed free, we only have fruit trees and some shrubs and other wise its stone chippings with a soil boarder and it works very very well, its always dry and always very clean, and the chickens can scratch around in the  boarders, not many flowers survive but the shrubs do, although they do take the lower down apples off the tree, we also have one rouge hen that gets over the fence into our part and comes to  the back door and wandes around with the dogs.
When we move, if some one does not keep chickens in that part of the garden, the weeds will appear, they are great gardeners!!

[Wee Eck]

Hi Sandy
 The artificial grass was more expensive but at least we wont have to keep replacing it all the time because of the scorch marks stains caused by the dogs weeing. I love my dogs and wouldn't be without them but they do ruin the grass. I will post some pictures of the grass and our set up over the weekend. we are quite fortunate that we have managed to locate a couple of tree surgeons who supply us with woodchips ( a ton at a time ) so thats what we use in our chicken side of the garden. They let us have the woodchips for free as our council would charge them to dump them so it's a bargain for us ....a dozen eggs for a ton of woodchips and it always smells great when the new lot goes down (last time it was beech and they smell wonderful ......until the girls trash them  )
It would be great if the chickens only ate the weeds ...it would make our job in the garden a lot easier.

If any of our 2 dogs see  a chicken close by they do a runner as they are scared stiff of them 

[happygolucky]

My dogs are scared of the chickens too, well they keep an eye on them as the dogs clean up the bit they do like about the chickens,,,thier poo!!!
Ours would eat flowers too but they cleared the lot in that part of the garden......I had a fall last year due to the one that gets out, scratching at the tulips my husband lovelingly planted and moaned about if the dogs went near, I went to grab the chicken as it was about to scratch out the tulip and tripped over the garden edging strip....it was not funny but one of my guests thought it was!!  I saved the tulip

[Wee Eck]

Hi Sandy

     Well done you for saving the Tulip 

If we don't keep an eye on our 2 dogs they will clear up all the chicken poo that's available....YEUCH !!!!!!!!!!

[Fanackapan]

Evenin'All,
Just to put right one or two memory lapses that Wee Eck had (bless), our shubunkins are Orandas but he has only had them for 3 weeks or so. The siamese cats are 3 days apart not 3 weeks, they were brought up as 1 litter with 2 Mums sharing the work, maybe why ours are so close apart from when they have their bedtime fight, every night, outside our bedroom door, bump, bang, crash !
I am the gardener, Eck is the builder and cutter down of trees/branches and digger up of roots that I can't manage.
He has built the 2 hen runs and roofed them, divided the garden in half with fencing and made raised beds. His biggest project this year was the artificial turf, which is pretty good.
Did he say we have a greenhouse too, its not big 6 x 8 and just has tomato and cucumber plants in this year, the rest is full of things that need sorting. Does anybody elses greenhouse end up a dumping ground over the winter? Grrrr

[happygolucky]

H aaha, put him right, men see things differently..here, I do it all, my husband loves anything like sweeping or hoovering or chopping or cutting.......I bought some fruits trees and really they need moving but as we are trying to sell up, I dare not move them just yet, 2 were presents so before anyone says they should be left for the next people, they are very special to me.......they have not produced much just yet as the hens can jump and reach the apples!! naughty hens......
I would love to grow more herbs, I currently only grow what I need and seem to outpick stuff, most of the time I gather wild stuff, food for free!!