22nd March 2013 - Cold - Wet - Miserable - and did I mention wet?

Yesterday was the first day of Spring. Someone forgot to tell the weather - or maybe it is the climate at fault. Whichever it may be, most of the UK is being assaulted with snow again and here in Wales, we have the slightly warmer (so they say) air flow which means that we have more rain ...  cold rain ... almost sleet - but that would be exaggerating slightly.

So the chickens are out in the cold. The Chicken Coop is fully built and they only took one day to learn how to put themselves into the warm as it starts getting dark. An automatic door opener/shutter does the rest - so no requirement for early trips down the garden in slippers to open the doors first thing in the morning. The automatic water filler is almost ready to go into place and the food hoppers seem to be working when they don't knock them over.

Seems to be two cockerels and four hens - not too bad a ratio. Two for the pot and four layers when they get a little older. Next week will be the first test of the automatic systems when we go away for the week down to the South Coast - where it will probably snow again - if not a hurricane.

But Monday will allow us to go and look at our new venture - the Mobile Bothy. Yes I know a Bothy is a shepherd's hut and we will not be keeping sheep in it - but the intention is to get warm at events. And Bothy's used to be moved around so our new moving home will be our modern Bothy. Done the checks of the MOT on line and the history of the vehicle. Not huge mileage for the age 1999. Looks to be fairly sound - but I have the mechanical genius of one of our chickens, and could only tell you if the engine was missing if someone stole it! So it will be a case of paying the money and bringing it back for our local mechanic to look at and tell us if we bought a lemon! I rather hope not as it looks to be well fitted - so the worst scenario may be that we have to buy another van and transfer the campervan fittings over...  But would prefer not to have to. MOT until September and Tax till end of month - so will be able to make a decision and even consider selling if necessary - we may get our money back......

and of course - it does have a rather fetching green stripe around the bodywork....

So a weekend of waiting and then we will find out.....
In the meantime - it is umbrellas and winter woolies....