I guess I can truly say that I have been bitten by the chicken bug! I went out today and bought another two hens, bringing my flock to 4 and that will be quite enough for now, I think. I met the lady who bred these hens, on a forum called Backyardpoultry.com and found out that she breeds Light Sussex hens, as well as some other breeds and so today I went to her home with the idea of buying a couple of Light Sussex hens.

Light Sussex are a large breed of chickens with very pretty markings. They are white birds with black tipped wings and a black tail and have black and white hackles (neck feathers) They are quite docile and good laying hens and I think they are very pretty.

Sandra was quite surprised at just how large Light Sussex hens are and her eye was caught by the pretty markings of the Wyandotte hens which were also running about on the chicken farm. We wound up coming home with one of each. A BIG Light Sussex pullet and one Black Laced Wyandotte.

In the Cat Carrier to travel home.

Light Sussex

Black Laced Wyandotte

Apparently when you have a mixed flock of hens that are not one particular breed, that is referred to as a "Rainbow Flock." As we were leaving, the lady said to me "So you're having a Rainbow Flock, are you?" I said yes, and we had a quite chuckle about it on the way home, because with us being a same sex couple, that seemed very appropriate, but also, for those who remember when I was podcasting, my podcast is called Rainbow Faith, and I used to refer to my listeners as my "Rainbow Flock" so now I have a Rainbow Flock all over again.

Between the four of these hens, when they are all laying we could expect to get 28 eggs a week. More than we can eat, but we may be able to barter them for other things amongst friends and family, so it chould work out quite well.

I declare, I am becoming quite the farmer!

Now I need to name these birds. I am thinking I will call the Wyandotte Wynona. Not sure what to call that big Sussex girl yet, though.

Yesterday, all my husbandry and care of my new chickens started to pay off. We got our first egg!

I think it was laid by "Boss" my black Australorp Utility hen as she is the one with the reddest comb and wattles. It is a smallish egg, but weighs 53 grams, so I think it is a fair dinkum egg and not a wind egg.

The hen seems happy and healthy and enjoyed a leisurely dustbath under the orange tree when we let them out of the coop. You can see one of the little spots of yellow in the photo above.

The above photo gives some indication of the relative size of egg to my grin on discovering it in the cage!

And finally, this is the proud hen who laid our first egg!

I've been talking for a long time about the idea of creating a small vegetable garden on our land here. We've got a few fruit trees, which were planted by the previous owners of the house, and my kids bought me two chickens for Mothers Day this year, so my enthusiasm for such things has been resparked, and I've really wanted to get into it and make a garden bed. I had, in fact tried my hand at digging a small patch of ground up, at the side of my chicken coop, but with my arthritis, and general lack of fitness, that has now become a composting pile where I am dumping waste from the chicken coop when I clean it out and will add other garden waste to it as it accumulates.

So, I needed to find another way of creating a garden bed, preferrably raised slightly to save my having to bend too much. I'd been eyeing off a 'raised garden bed' frame in the latest Bunnings catalogue for $59AUD and was quite excited at the prospect of going next week, to buy one.

Sandra, though, who is ever the more frugal of us, had another idea. She thought that with some of the existing landscaping, and what bits and pieces we have lying around the sheds and yard, we could probably make a raised, no dig garden bed for ourselves. So, today we got out in the sunshine and scouted around the yard for some old pavers we'd had for some time and scraps of wood and anything else we thought might be useful and selected a spot to build our garden. The plan was to dig a trench and set the pavers into it on their sides.

We kind of wished that we had some cement mix at this point, as it would have made the seating of the pavers a bit stronger, but as we didn't, we had to make do. While we were working, a couple of curious onlookers came by to see what all the comotion was about--and if it meant there was something nice to eat in the offing?

My chickens are like the Bobsy twins; completely inseparable.

"Are you sure there's nothing to eat?"

"What, nothing?!"

After the chickens lost interest in us, we got the rest of the pavers seated, and then lined the bottom of our 'garden' with newspapers.

After that, the papers need to be soaked with water so that they will break down underneath the straw/hay which will go in next. That part was where we struck a hitch.

"Bummer! Wish we'd had that concrete after all."

Whilst Sandra made repairs to the wall, I went to gather the grass clippings, aka hay for the next layer.

The chickens are happily dust bathing under their favourite orange tree in the background.

We then filled up the garden bed with hay, and soaked it with water to start it breaking down into compost.

The stakes at either end are to support the pavers, but we will also tie string around them to run peas and beans onto when we finally plant. This will be left a few days now, to settle and break down before we add more hay to it. It will be a little while yet, before it is ready for planting, but it feels good to have actually started it.

We're going to go shopping in a few days and buy a worm farm as I want to use vermicasts and worm tea for my garden as fertilizer etc.

Stay tuned!