Chicken Taj Mahal

The school holidays well under way and it has been a hive of industry around here.
I have been decluttering, starting with the dreaded bathroom cupboard and doing lots of little jobs like framing family portraits etc.
Mr M has been busy building a nesting/roosting box for our chooks.  
If you read this blog you will know our chooks have started laying beautiful eggs for us.  Unfortunately they have been laying them in a compost bin that is very hard to get to.
so without further ado.

I give you, 
the chicken Taj Mahal......

This is honey (dark silkie) and Pepper, (light silkie) discussing their new home.

The 3 isa browns enjoying scratching in the dirt.

Honey testing a perch.

I think they are discussing wall colour and flooring choices!

Porridge the dark Isa brown, checking out the nesting boxes.

Let's hope the girls are snug and happy in there and reward us with more eggs.

Yay, the chooks have started laying.

Great eggcitement this weekend!!!!

The girls have laid!

Yes, our lovely Isa browns have earnt their keep and produced their first eggs.

their first eggs are a bit smaller than usual but not as small as the silkie egg on top.

They are also a pretty speckled colour at the moment.

All those scraps, the loving comments and garden rambles have paid off at last.

It really is a great system.

We give them our scraps and a bit of chook grain, in return they produce lots of lovely chook manurey hay and gorgeous eggs.

Don't forget to click here and enter the Moerkey etsy giveaway.

Collages for the love of spring.

I have read all the blogging do's and don't s that say you should not really post more than 5 pictures per post. 

So I thought long and hard and decided that if I made collages then that rule might not apply.

Rules Shmules, 

I think these pink blossoms want to be seen.

And I couldn't possibly have cut down on my shots of the girls having a scratch around in the garden

Or these moody blooms.

And, spring is about colour.

And softness and the promise of fresh new life.

So that is what is happening in the garden today,

and in only 60 six photos.

Stay tuned for Monday's giveaway from Mr M's 

Moerkey Etsy shop.

Our first eggs.....

Guess what? 

Well I suppose the title told you really.

Our gorgeous girls Pepper and Honey have done their job and presented us with our very first eggs.

Silkies eggs are smaller than regular layer chook eggs.

We used to use 3 silky eggs to two regular eggs a few years ago when we had Delores and Pam.

Master B found the eggs.

There was great excitement and he has "baggsed" egg collection as his job.

Well done girls, keep up the good work.

Our chooks have started arriving.

Yay, happy days, our chooks have started arriving.

The first two have settled in.

Our two little silkies. Yet to be named.

This greyish white one is a bit feisty.

She squawks and clucks and protests when she is picked up.

The little gingery brown one is very friendly.

She loves a cuddle.

This is fortunate, because they have been on the receiving end of hourly cuddles and pats.

It's been 40 degrees over the weekend so lots of checking was a good idea.

Welcome girls.

Meet some gorgeous girls, down on the farm....

Just through here,

under the peppercorn tree.

In a sweet little house.

Live a gorgeous gaggle of girls.

With pretty gardens to scratch in.

Friends to cluck with.

Somewhere safe to roost at night.

These girls live a charmed life.

We met them to today while visiting a gorgeous farm.

I took a zillion photos.

Stand by, there are more to come.

Linking here

Our earlier visit to the farm here.

chooky love and a giveaway.

Have I ever told you about the lovely silky bantams we used to have?

They were called Delores, Pam and Kira.

They used to roam freely around our back garden, grazing on weeds and fallen fruit.

Delores was the longest living and our favourite.

She used to eat out of the dog bowl, 

at the same time as our long departed faithful pet Bramble the black fluffy dog.

She was also rather partial to sharing a meaty bone.

It was quite a sight, fluffy black dog and fluffy black hen, 

sharing a bowl or a bone, 

side by side.

She followed us around and was really quite a social chook.

In the evening she would toddle off to her luxury home.

Leaving Bramble alone to eat the fallen fruit.

I had such a lovely time going through the photo album to find photos of these two characters.

I unearthed some photos of our past rennovations.

We looked sooooo young.

Mr M. had hair!

Anyway,

back to the giveaway.

The giveaway is for one linen/cotton blend

 t towel with some red chooks printed on it.

And

a selection of chooky print offcuts made into little gift cards.

I picked these up from a lovely seller

called Firetail when I went to the Grampians texture market, that I blogged about here.

Firetail stand at the market.

How to enter:

Simply leave a comment on this post.

Everybody is welcome,

Follower or not.

Entries close midnight Thursday 7th April.

Winner will be announced

Friday 8th of April.

Good luck.

Linking up here