Elijah, Lachie and Dad have gone swimming so I have five minutes to catch up on here.
Its been a funny old week this week. The big boys have gone back to school, but the things we do with the little ones arent all up and running yet, so its felt weird! We went to a slingmeet in Banbury this week and met some lovely ladies and Elijah made a great new friend who was boy number 5 out of 6 in his family. It was so nice to meet another younger sibling of a large family; it really helped me to feel like I was an ok parent and that young boys with lots of older brothers do behave differently to only children or the oldest one of that age. I quite often feel like I have to explain that I have 5 boys and the older ones are teenagers to other parents who have never experienced a 3 year old with such advanced computer and games console skills, inappropriate (for a three year old) language, lack of interest in anything "toddlerish" and general cheek ;) Seeing this other lovely lad just made me realise that they are a product of being raised in a large family by a large family. They take on many traits and characteristics that are totally normal in teenagers (for example standing with the fridge open for hours just staring whilst deciding there's nothing decent to eat in this house!) but that people find peculiar in toddlers. I dont think any of my older ones behaved in the same way, as they didnt have the role models. Children learn what they live with. The good stuff and the not so.

The seeds that I planted in our new raised bed have germinated and are looking good. Im feeling quite proud of myself, as Ive never even been able to grow a sunflower from seed before. Here they are in all their small glory: (radish on the left, spring cabbage for overwintering on the right)











We have also put in a new little apple tree:One of our trips out this week was to Toft Alpacas where I managed to pick up some beautiful pure alpaca wool and have managed to do a bit of knitting. Lachie has tried to do some too, and ended up with a beautiful holy purple scarf which he doenst want to share with anyone in the cyber world ;)
Ive done a litte hat for Baby bear ready for the colder weather and he looks sooo cute in it, even if I do say so myself.
And I have made a start on a wee small woolly number for myself (watch this space for more details):

We had a lovely week last week. Lee took a week off work and we had our first "staycation". I can honestly say it was more relaxing than any holidays ever! No packing, no rushing, excellent food and the bed was really comfortable. Plus, no extra washing when it was over.

We visited Northamptonshire food show at Holdenby House and managed to scoff lots of lovely stuff. Weight watchers went out of the window as did all thoughts of vegetarianism as we tucked into a roast pork baguette with all the trimmings from the hog roast stand! The weather was glorius and the kids had a great time tasting free samples and conning us out of ice creams. We even managed a tour around the house. Something I've often thought about doing having driven passed it on my way to work many times. It felt really wierd walking around someones stately home that they clearly still enjoy living in. I felt like an intruder. The Lowther family with their four kids live there. The large flat screen TV and various boxes plus remotes looked so out of place in surrounded by the magnificance of potraits and wood panelling, but oddly comforting that the room was still a home. There were modern family photos all around and the music grade exam certificates in frames on a bureau in the hall, just like normal people lol. And the dogs were shut in the kitchen, wondering who all these people were walking in straight lines around the edge of the rooms in their house.
Later in the week we visited Stanwick lakes with some friends. Elijah started off the day quite afraid of their dogs (I, however, just cant stand their dirty brown noses, bottoms and eyes, yeuch!) but by the end of the day had been converted:

Saturday we went to the Moreton in Marsh country show where the sun shone, we had a lovely picnic and purused all things chicken mainly. We even found ourselves being asked questions by random strangers in the chicken tent about chicken keeping! We have learned an awful lot about chickens and how to keep them since we got them, but I didnt realise that strangers could tell :-) Our friends have all teased us about how much we know about chickens these days, and how often they come into the conversation lol. A thoroughly lovely day was had by all and yet more ice cream was consumed en masse!

Eggs

Well we didnt have to wait very long for our first egg! Betty our Black Rock laid her first egg on the 25th August: Tiny but perfectly formed.

Here are Betty's first three eggs, getting progressively bigger, the third one on the right was 10 grams bigger than her first!

Mabel's first egg came a few days later:

It was a hefty 62 grams! Wow!
Finally Lisa our Amber Star joined the laying with her first egg:


It was a bit mishapen, but upon opening we discovered it was double yolker!
We have been getting 3 eggs a day ever since and at least half of them have been double yolkers! Betty's eggs are regularly over 60g now, and Mabel's eggs are often bigger. Lisa still hasnt got the hang of big eggs yet, but her small ones are perfectly formed.



You might well ask how we know who has laid what. I must confess we have spent so much time watching the girls since we got them. They are so funny! It is now a regular evening activity of our family to go and sit down at the garden table with a cup of tea and a biscuit after dinner and watch the girls. And during the lead up to getting eggs we were constanly going out to check for eggs, so we managed to see who had gone in and come out of the nest with each egg! They have all been laying for around 4 days now and they have syncronised! They form an orderly queue to go into the eglu nest to lay any time from around 10am and by 12 all three eggs are still warm in the nest waiting. We love chickens! Culinary delights we have had so far include Red Onion Tart, Extra chocolately Brownies, Banana and Chocolate Muffins, Quiche Loraine and various portions of egg mayonnaise sarnies.

Since having the chickens we have been inspired to start a veggie plot and we've even put our name down on the waiting list for an allotmemt. The lovely lady told us it would be about a year's wait :( So in the mean time lovely Dad has made us a raised bed at the sunny end of the garden. Elijah loved helping to build it and fill it with soil and compost.

We have sowed some spring cabbage for over wintering and some hasty radishes and salad in the hope that we will have a few more weeks of warm weather and some tasty last days of fresh salad and radish. No sign of any shoots yet, but my Dad reckons it will take a week :)
Grandad used to grow a lot of his own veg when I was a little girl, so I have informed him that his skills will be required when we finally get an allotment - he looked "delighted"! lol.