Don’t know why it happens, but I should have learnt my lesson by now. Every time I post a photo of the chickens, something I lose some and so it happened again. I went out the front door to walk the dogs after lunch and I found three of my new chicks dead. However, one of them somehow managed to escape.
I came face to face with the fox last Wednesday. I had spent all day outside guarding the chicks whilst renovating an oak card table, so there was lots of noise from the sander etc. At 5.30 I decided that I really needed to give the dogs a run, went down to the field and heard squawking when we were half way round. We ran back – as best as I could in sandals in a boggy field – was running up the path when the thing appeared from nowhere from the direction of of the garden. The dogs were confused as it dived straight into the brambles. I thought I saw something white in its mouth so I ran up to the house. The Orpington chick was hiding under a bush, Salt was standing on my newly varnished card table, Scruffy and Sage were perching on the drive gate, Pepper was snug in the coop as she’s broody, but no sign of Onion, the White Star. As I thought I’d seen something white in the fox’s mouth I feared the worst and locked the remaining birds up in the coop up. When I went out to check them at 7.30 I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at a rather annoyed Onion who was strutting round the pen, not understanding as to why she couldn’t get into bed. She was a bit quiet for the next couple of days we are more vigilant than ever. We have a few ideas for how we can better secure their area and the garden but if things carry on like this we may have to give up keeping hens as one of our neighbours eventually did when he lost the last of his 38 birds.
Onto a much more pleasant subject! My biggest blog hit rate was when we went to Rome and visited the Villa Borghese. I said at the time that I hoped that the renovation of Sefton Park would include reinstating the rowing boats on the boating lake. We went to Liverpool this weekend and strolled the dogs round the park on Sunday morning to clear our heads. Although, sadly, the boats are still missing, the rest of the renovation has gone fantastically well and, in my humble opinion, I think Sefton Park surpasses the Villa Borghese. Go see!
