Chooks and Compost

It was a glorious winter weekend, blue sky and lovely sun with a little chill in the air.  

I had a wonderful Saturday when I went up to visit my Mum.  She made my very favourite cheesy scones and we relaxed, chatted and went on a "Tiki Tour" - a New Zealand term for driving around looking at the sights.  It was lovely to be child free for a day too!  Honestly, by the time I got home I absolutely felt like a different person - completely re-charged and almost feeling back to my normal self.  Thanks Mum xxx

Not my chooks or compost but a great picture!

Today, was my chooks and compost day - and I loved it!  

I know I am a bit bonkers, but my two favourite things in the world are chooks and compost.  See I told you so.

Why?

Well, chooks are fantastic little animals.  Not too smart, but so loving and productive.  They eat all your food scraps, give you yummy eggs and are very relaxing to watch them chook around.  At the moment, I only have two gerls.  One is moulting, so looks pretty shabby and the other one, who honestly looked like death for the past 12 months, now has beautiful light brown feathers and looks like a new chicken.  She is gorgeous.  I bought them from a cage egg farm and it has taken the now good looking chicken the whole 12 months to recover from her ordeal.  I originally had 5 chooks but 3 have passed away in 12 mths sadly.  It is a tough life for a battery hen.

Compost is magic.  EVERYONE should compost if they have a yard.  Simply put (and I only do simple), you put all your left over food scraps (anything except meat) into a compost bin, plus any grass clippings, leaves, ripped up newspaper, teabags, hair from your hairbrush, chook and animal poo and so on...... add a bit of water now and again, give it a turn now and again (I don't really do this actually) and after a while it turns into compost - ie dirt!!!  MAGIC!!!  It is great stuff and especially great for garden beds that are getting a bit water repellent and dry. 

Mummy's little helpers

My compost needed to be sorted out, so I emptied out the two bins (read shovelled out 2x large containers and then shovelled them onto raised beds) and put the wonderful compost onto my vegie garden boxes.  The dirt in the boxes had become a bit dry and water repellent and they needed organic matter to be added.  DONE!

Then I repositioned the compost boxes as one was in the sun a bit too much and was getting a little bit too hot.  

Then I shovelled out the chook run (nearly killed me and I have a blister on my palm to prove it!) and then shovelled the stinky mess of chook poo, grass clippings, food leftovers and wood shavings into the compost bins for the worms to work their magic.

Chook run before - not yet shovelled

And here is the chook run after.  Looking good.  We let the chooks free range in the afternoons when our doggie goes to bed inside.  Doggie is a chook killer so we can't let them out with her around.

Chook run after - lovely and fresh

A very productive weekend and it didn't cost me a cent.  I'm looking forward to a productive week - I have my To Do list done and will be powering through it this week.  Might have to get some plants into those veggie planters.

I'm now relaxing in front of this wonderful heat source - love it.

Wishing everyone a great week too.

Luv Rach
xxxxxx