Before I show you the newbies, a couple of pictures of old favourites. First question is how many chickens can a small man trap they constructed actually hold? Chickens don't seem to do social distancing, well apart from Bridie the Bantam who keeps well away from the Big Four when they are out and about. So we found out last night, one small chicken underneath (no need to breathe for most of the incident it appeared), plus one big, fat Light Sussex (was a breed ever worse named - she is nearly goose size!). The astonishing thing was that this double layer of chicken in a hole lasted for over half an hour!
Our latest previously owned ride-on lawnmower is currently having its blade plate welded, so we get to keep the grass collector that goes with it in the garden. It is seriously large! The hedgehog, Nibbles and, this morning, Poirot all think it is a great place for sunbathing - here modelled by Poirot.
This morning we were back to the vegetable plot to get the third courgette plant, four more butternut squashes and the 20 surviving sweetcorn seedlings into proper ground. I lifted a piece of weed suppressant matting that had been protecting the soil and the horse poo we spread there in the autumn, and tried turning the soil. That particular patch is about 70% clay I think so it was hard work, but the sweetcorn are planted and I am hoping that the broad beans provide a bit of shelter and a lot of fixed nitrogen in the soil as their roots spread out.
As I worked my way down the row and lifted more of the matting I met Sid first of all. I don't know who was more surprised, but once uncovered he didn't seem too keen on going back under the matting. Nor did he seem too keen on going towards the broad beans, probably as there was a cat on the other side of the beans. I the end I moved him down to the bottom of the row, knowing I wasn't going to go that far. Anyway, introducing Sid, the baby grass snake! If he was a foot long in total I'd be surprised.
As I carried on turning back the matting I found the reason Sid didn't want to go back under, as I found Terry sitting and getting very cross with me for having lifted the mat, moved Sid further away, and then I wouldn't just go away and leave him alone. He eventually pottered off under his own steam, but he wasn't too chuffed. He was also very well disguised, so I really only spotted him because he moved. There were some lovely Terry-sized snails further down the mat, so he should have had a good lunch once we left him to it.
It's ever so nice to meet the neighbours!
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