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More Progress

Hi again, well, things have been cracking on here in Cornwall. The new chicken enclosure is up and now in use. It appears, so far, to be rat-proof ....... fingers crossed for that one. The rats have once again become a real problem and although I hate to do it, I will be putting rat bait down for a few days to try and get on top of the situation. I totally appreciate that living in the country, with animals that live outside, there will always be an issue with rats but they have started to take over the garden and sadly, it's time to do something about it. The chickens love their new space but to be fair, they spend most of their time free ranging on the front lawn digging up my flowers! There are still a couple of little bits left to do, the house is going to be raised up so the chickens have even more floor space and there has also been the addition of a new nest box, again raised off the floor because our chickens do love to fly and hop and climb .... weird little things that they are lol.

The new nest box .... I call it the penthouse flat lol 

The ducks are now 9 weeks old and finally have names and are now big enough to live outside on a permanent basis. Big Bird the Aylesbury, Coco the chocolate Muscovey and Lulu the Mallard now live in this gorgeous little des-res. Woodworking skills courtesy of my daughter and hubby 😀

The chickens were quite excited at the prospect of a new house and were mightily miffed when they were turfed out so the ducks could inspect their new home. 

We also re-located their pond so all-in-all, I think they are happy little quackers. 

We have also had some of our first veg harvest. It's so exciting to be able to go and pick what you need for dinner. 

I am totally amazed at how well the aubergines have grown in the poly tunnel and the sweetcorn as well however we are having one issue that is really, really, REALLY annoying me. We have mice in the poly tunnel and they are eating the tomatoes. And when I say eating them, they're not just eating the ripe ones but the green ones as well!! At first we had no idea what was damaging them until I spotted this ...... 

Mouse droppings on one of the tomatoes. I am absolutely gutted. We have hundreds of tomatoes in there and it looks like we might lose all of them to the mice. They aren't even just eating the ones low down on the plants, they're actually climbing up the stalks of the plants and eating them at the top of the bushes. This tomato is about 4 feet off the ground!! I seriously don't know what to do about it. If anyone has any suggestions I would be most grateful. Again, I understand the countryside comes with it's issues and pests are a big part of that but it's actually quite heartbreaking that we nurtured the plants for so long and spent such a long time making sure they grew well and now we might not actually get to eat any of them. 

On a much happier note, last month, our middle daughter got married and we spent a lovely three days at the Folly Farm Centre near Bristol with family and friends celebrating with her and her new husband.