Wet

We met some other home-ed families at the woods for a picnic and chat but the steady drizzle meant it was a huddle with pinched faces and flasks of hot coffee under the trees before heading home with filthy wet children and dogs. Scruff loved it. So did the children. I didn't.

We called in at the hen shop to purchase two replacements for Ida and unfortunately Mary who has also disappeared and I don't feel it's very likely that she'll reappear with chicks given the whetted appetite of the local fox.

Bit camera-shy

Anyway, Ida is on the left - another Blue Belle and Mary is another Speckledy but with a lot of white on her so hopefully we'll be able to tell the difference between her and Emily.  There wasn't a huge selection but I really felt for Maud's sake and the other hens that I needed to get the count back up as Henry is really a no-less-than-six-girl guy and Maud needed some friends who were also young. I have the new ones and Maud in the extension run with the rabbit house to shelter in. So we are now at Ida II, Emily III, Peggy II, Maud II, Mary II and the original Daisy. I'm not going to work out how much it's cost me to maintain my grandmothers' namesakes!

Henry was overjoyed to see some more females and strutted around the run exuding testosterone but he wasn't looking his best, being so damp:

Still quite a chick-magnet

The bunnies have been moved from the warren and seem happy to be in some longer grass:

but apart from that the day has been so wet and dreary we've done nothing really.  I must go and put the new chickens in to roost with the others as it's too wet and not secure enough for them to be in all night.