Back outside again today

High pressure has settled over us and we are promised fine and dry weather for today and three more days - hurray! The sun was out when I drew back the curtains this morning and so I hurried outside to let the chooks out to enjoy the weather too.

The Gold Partridge Orpingtons seem to be settling into their new, segregated home. The EFG and I had a hilarious half hour last night watching them from the kitchen window whilst we were doing the dishes. They were thinking about going to roost, then they came out again, looked around and went inside again: we began to imagine what they might be "saying" to each other..."what's it like in there, girls?" "not sure I want to go to bed yet, there might just be another morsel of food if I have a scratch around!" "move over, girls, I'm coming in!" "come on in, it's quite nice in here!" and then eventually they were all in for the night.

Today I have done another couple of loads of washing,and sown some Dwarf French beans in pots in the greenhouse. They are a variety called Ferrari so I am expecting them to grow fast!! The temperature in the greenhouse was over 40C this afternoon about 2pm when I was planting them so it was Warm in there.

Later on this afternoon the girls and I went to town for a couple of hours. I had a 20% off voucher for WHSmith so they got a book each, some laminating pouches, and I got a copy of Practical Poultry magazine as I hadn't had one for months. I'm going to be scanning all the breeders adverts but more about that later. We also had to get some medicine for the FH, put a cheque in the bank, and get some bread rolls for a picnic tomorrow as we are going to Thetford Forest for a walk/play/picnic with my friend D and her daughter. We can all fit in my car, so we'll be off at about 10.30am. It's only about an hour from here, so we'll be there in time for lunch, a walk and a play and then come home by about 6pm.

The Volvo has been taken off to the garage this afternoon so I am waiting to hear what the damage is going to be. Hopefully it won't be too bad - a new battery would be a good place to finish. More expensive "surgery" will be avoided if we are lucky!!

The poultry breeding. I spent ages here last night investigating and reading all about critical breeds and rare ones, and came to the conclusion that I would like a challenge - to breed some Brussbar chickens. These are on the Critical list and I can't find anyone offering any for sale at all via the internet. They are bred from the Barred Plymouth Rock and the Brown Sussex, and then the next generation females are crossed with a Light Sussex cockerel and then the resulting females are crossed with a Brussbar cockerel (from the first cross) and then the end product is the Brussbar. You can then take the Golden Brussbar cockerel and cross that with Rhode Island Red hens and end up with a Rhodebar......it's going to be a project of five or six years' undertaking but it will be interesting and challenging. I may not have the right information about producing the breed yet, so I am going to keep looking and investigating! To document it properly, I think I will start another blog which I will use to keep all the information together. I have ordered the Breeds Standard Book from the Poultry Club from the library this afternoon so that I can find out exactly what the breeds are supposed to look like to help me choose good specimens of each breed. Would you believe that there is not a copy in any of the county's libraries and the lady said that they would have to ask inter-county loan to find me one - and she had no idea how long that would take!