16th May 2013 - the Weighty issue of Chicken Poo

I thought that when we decided to raise chickens I would learn most of the key issues in the first few weeks, like "eggs don't travel very well through the post", "don't try to raise your chickens in the spare bedroom", "chickens in a brooding box can create more white dust than a nuclear winter", "cockerels that are not meant to crow until they are at least 14 weeks are likely to be precocious"...  but yesterday I discovered something new.

Once the chicken pen was cleared of the straw and accumulated mush from the bottom, and placed into one of those useful bags that you get from the builders merchant - the one that says "no deposit but you can return if you want", it seemed like a simple idea to pop it into the new trailer and zip it around to the local recycling point.

Yes, it would have been nicer to use it all for compost - being high in nitrates and smelling like it ought to go into the compost bin  but we are limited on space at the moment and the compost bin is almost full. So the plan was to head for the centre, and not even needing to choose the day for the barriers to be open as we could take the car. Then the problem - though only half full, the wet straw ( did I mention that it has been raining recently - I have plans for an ark and was very tempted to start with the axe and hammer !!) weighed so much that the bag had to be dragged along the ground. A quick heave I thought - but no- I could not lift it over the sides of the trailer!!!

Luckily, the back comes off the trailer so with combined effort we dragged it onto the trailer back.
So, Chicken Poo weighs more than you would expect...   Something to place in the annals of history for future generations to ponder on....

So, finally got some boxes moved. It was sunny and cold, and though there was not a cloud int he sky above us, it rained as soon as I put a box on the sack truck... Oh well!!  Managed to move my scheduled 20 boxes into place. Started ion the top room and managed to bring another ten boxes down to the living room before exhaustion finally kicked in. There are 34 stairs from the top room to the living room and three landings!

I know. I counted them each journey. And there are still more steps down to the garden and then the trip to the garage. Still. Another ten today will be fine. So dodging the rain, at least wee didn't have snow!. There was snow in the Midlands and Devon. What is happening to the weather. It is so cold it must be global warming if that is not too Irish. Needless to say that the central heating is back on again.

So, today we will try the new tent frame out.
In the meantime - how it looked at LARP Aid at the end of March...