Inside the chicken coop: March 2013

Sunday 3 March 2013

When is a herb bed not a herb bed? When it just looks like one

At last I finally managed to get the hens out of my herb bed. I made them a bed that looks like a herb bed except there are no herbs! Last year they were drawn to it every time I let them have a roam. They pecked at my parsley, marched right over my marjoram, crushed my coriander and scratched my sage right out of the ground! I realised this year I had to so something to stop them

Despite the picture of Charity leaping out of the non-herb bed, they did all stay there for hours. It was great to see them having a dust bath and enjoying the Spring sunshine without inflicting torment on my poor herbs.

So now at last they can grow again while the girls enjoy an almost free range of my garden!

Inside (and out) of the chicken coop

Hello and welcome to my blog. I hope you have fun viewing some of the photos and stories, a lot of them are aimed at the younger generation, but hope will appeal to anyone who loves keeping chickens as pets. I have been keeping chickens for several years now, they really inspire my writing as they are very comical. My original hens inspired me to write my book 'One Hundred Ways For A Chicken To Train Its Human' which was published by Hodder and Stoughton in March 2007. Now this little clan keep me blogging about them.

Apart from my hens, I do write other stuff too, I am trying to get my Novel - Red Kite, Published but it's so difficult without an agent, and trying to find an agent is equally as hard. However I shall not give up - that's the one thing I am certain of. In the meantime I am writing freelance magazine articles and children's stories.

Gentlemen of the River - Phyllis Blakemore

I am very proud to announce that my Mother has just had her book published. ' Gentlemen of the River - The last Coracle men of the Severn Gorge' is a lovely book about the lives of the coracle men who spent most of their lives around the River Severn in Ironbridge. It spans the generations of the Rogers family who had a long history of coracle making. My Mom knew Eusty very well as she grew up in Ironbridge. He was the very last of the coracle men of that time. I lived there for some time too and he was a wonderful character. It was very sad when he died on January 31 2003 as a lot of skill and a huge amount of memories went with him.

The photographs show a glimpse of what life was like in Ironbridge before it was a major tourist attraction and helps to tell the story of an ancient craft which is still going strong with the modern day coracle makers of today.

It is published by Stenlake Publishing Ltd and priced at a very reasonable £7.99.

Barmouth 2009

We recently took my Mom to Barmouth for a weekend break and had hours of fun on the beach by drawing animals in the sand. We had limited time to create our sand art, as the sea was fast on our heels. My Mom really surprised me when she drew a perfect Micky Mouse, which I feel was good enough for any comic of today. Our chickens were not so good, and they were soon to be washed away by the tide, but the memories of that time on a deserted beach as three adults being children again will remain as a lovely end to the summer of 2009.