No Eggs Please, We’re British

It could only happen in the UK. Winter in the middle of Spring! It was very quiet one night and when we woke up and looked out of the window, there it was – SNOW! and lots of it. “I didn’t hear it snowing” said Alex.

Charlie and Lola couldn’t believe what they were seeing and, to be honest, neither could we.  In fact we were so amazed that here is a picture of what it did to our garden. It looked really amazing!

I’m not sitting here writing this to tell you about the weather though – It may the biggest obsession in England, but I get enough weather talk from my mum. She’s in Peru at the moment, by the way. I wonder what the weather is like there? I’m sure it’s not pouring with rain like it is h…. You see, it sneaks up on you and before you know it, you’re talking about it…..

I’m here to let you know that we are now the proud owners of two laying chickens. They’ve been at it for a few weeks now and Jo has been keeping a tally of how big the eggs are each day. Charlie was the first to leave us a small present in the Eglu and Lola followed exactly a week later.

Too much fun and games with WordPress to carry on tonight – I’ll add more and some piccies of the first eggs in a day or two…

I hear You Knocking… But You Can’t Come In!!

For most chickens, a shiny new orange Eglu would be the height of class and luxury!!  Not so, Charlie and Lola!  It hasn’t taken them long to sense that the ‘grass might be greener’ on the other side of the back door, and they are now on a mission to get into our house!!  They have perfected their ‘cold, hungry, homeless‘ routine down to a t, as they stand pecking pitfully at the door…heads at a slight angle Princess D style.   

Even now, with the snow falling quite heavily, all we can hear is peck, peck, peck!!  Mmmm – nice try at getting the sympathy vote girls… but it’s not going to happen!

Location, location, location!

When is a des-res not a des-res? When it’s in the wrong location.

If your chickens dream of looking out over vast forested vistas with blue skies that go on forever, or if they wish they could step outside their door straight into a warm lake that laps gently against the mossy rocks of the shore, then you’re living in the wrong place. It’s time to call in Kirsty and Phil and move out. You could maybe even get a place in the town and a place in the country, just to give your chickens double the view. Or, you could do what we did. Turn them around and see if they notice.

This weekend we decided that Charlie and Lola needed a new home. They’d completely ruined the area of lawn we’d given them and it was time to move on. We gave them free rein of the garden and they decided they’d like to go near the decking in a nice shady spot by the fence. They didn’t need a TV crew and a team of researchers giving them ideas.

 

We dutifully obliged. Little did we know what we’d let ourselves in for.

We spent the rest of Sunday lifting 50 (incredibly heavy) concrete slabs, breaking up the concrete on which they’d been laid, turning all the soil underneath the concrete, laying a double layer of bark (please don’t ask Jo to tell you the joke!) chips, then moving the Eglu into position and making it as fox proof as possible, before moving the 50 (incredibly! heavy!) concrete slabs to the end of the garden, because they were spoiling our view. Oh, and it started hailing as we were moving the slabs. Then we went swimming with Alex. I hope you are very happy in your new home Charlie and Lola, we worked hard that day.

We’d certainly earned a scrub down with our Gardener’s Soap. And, had we been sensible we’d have probably gone straight into a bath with some Zzz’s Bath Bags. But, we didn’t, we went swimming instead. Can we afford to be without the Gym? In fact, thinking about it, can we afford the gym!?

One thing though. The clocks had gone forwards the day before (it’s officially spring now) and what do we see in the garden? The first Bluebells of spring. Perfect timing. Our garden bursts into life in the spring (at least, it did last year!), with the bluebells running down the left hand side next to the holly hedge. It looks great. We’ll post some proper piccies later in the month. Until then, here is a pic of the first Bluebells of spring – in our garden at least.

So, when is a des-res not a des-res? ‘Til now, for Charlie and Lola it’s been every two weeks. From now on though, this is their Forever Home (sorry Kirsty, I just couldn’t resist).

Born Free!

Upon the open Savannah and wild dusty plains of Bromsgrove was played out the eternal hunt today, as Charlie and Lola left their enclosure for the first time. A lot of people say that the first time they are let out, their chickens stand, beaks agape, in awe and wonderment at the world outside their pens. Not so Charlie and Lola. They were straight out, found the only three inches in the garden fence without chicken wire and headed off into the sunset of John’s Garden, in a sort of slightly sepia’d, slow motion kind of way. I bet Travers and McKenna never had this problem.

“I know I said I wanted to see your chickens”, said John, “But, I didn’t realise it would be quite so soon, or quite this close!” Luckily, John has a good sense of humour and he took it all in his stride. He did put a plank of wood over the offending three inches very quickly though.

Charlie managed to find a dust bath, though she looked more like a flailing monkey than an elegant debutante, and she learned to swim very quickly when she fell into an old barrel that has been set into the ground. Lola, meanwhile, just pecked about and made sure she looked cool in her new surroundings. Not quite as inquisitive as Charlie, she just munched on daffodils.

Jo decided that the best way to get them back was to tempt them with lovely morsels. Their grub – No! Tasty grapes – No! Alex’s left over Shreddies – The Perfect thing! We’ve discovered that chickens do like Shreddies. They worked a treat and the girls were soon back in their bright orange Eglu. Somehow though, they managed to make it look like it was all their own idea. How do they do that?

So today’s question is: Given the fact that chickens are girls. Does this mean that Alex and I are outnumbered in the house now? And does this mean that all the Starwars stuff and (more importantly) the beer-fridge will have to go?!

This Eden is a beautiful place, let’s keep it that way.

The Arrival Of The Queens Of Sheba…

At about 2:45pm yesterday we took delivery of two little chickens. Charlie and Lola are the latest additions to our family. The red carpet got rolled out and The Queens of Sheba took their place in the garden. They pecked around for a while, tried a bit of their food (GM Free and Organic of course) and then pecked about a little bit more. They clucked for a while and after having had their photographs taken, they pecked around for little while longer. We had to go out and get some tent pegs to ensure total Fox proofedness and check out a supplier for their next huge bag of food (apparently it only costs 3p per chicken per day) and, by the time we got back, they’d got bored with pecking around and had taken themselves to bed in their Eglu. This is a picture of the nice man building the Eglu.

And what a fine Eglu it is. It stands proud and orange in our garden for all to see. In fact, I think that people in planes can see it from their windows and will wonder what it is. They might even mention it on their postcards home. You know the type of thing, “Having a lovely time in… (substitute some far off sunny and exotic place), wish you were here. By the way, we spotted a large, bright orange thing in somebody’s garden as we were flying over The Midlands. Did ‘The Bruce’ report any UFO activity on the day we left?”

So, all in all we’re very pleased with Charlie and Lola. They get up in the morning, do their own thing all day and then take themselves to bed in the evenings. We’ll get them some toys to play with soon. I thought the Internet might be good. They can check out all their favourite chicken sites at night in their bright orange Eglu. And of course, log into the This Eden blog and read about themselves. This is a picture of the girls. we’ll get a better piccie up as soon as we get them to slow down for a while!

Talking of the Internet, we had a good weekend on the site and have already had some very positive feedback on our new Baby Basket. We’ve sold two so far and apparently both recipients were thrilled by the baskets they received. Check it out on thiseden.com . In fact, we’d be very interested to know what you think. Send us an email from the site and let us know if there are any other things you’d like to see go into gift baskets.

More playing in the garden this weekend. I went out and bought some herbs last Friday and they’ll be going in then. There’s no holding me back now. I hear that Tarragon goes very nicely with….. Hmmmmmm. So, the question for today’s post is: Now we have two little feathered friends of our own, will we ever eat Coq Au Vin again? Or will we just be doing Prawn Curry in the slowcooker from now on? Do prawns make good pets?

The Experiment Starts Here or “More power, Egor!!”

They said the weather was going to be bad and, guess what, they were wrong – as usual. Anybody that had been watching the Bruce on Saturday would have just stayed in bed on Sunday and missed a fabulous day. In our household we’d planned to be busy. It didn’t stop us having a lie in though. I’d got the weekend off (the ‘Men In Red’ owed me one!) and we were going to make the most of it. Croissants, bacon and egg, all on a slice of toasted homemade bread. Yes, I know, just like a scene out of ‘The Waltons’.

We received lots of new products from one of our suppliers on Friday and Jo is busy putting them on the This Eden site. Candles (larger then those we had before), moisturisers and bath milk – all with the This Eden name. You won’t see the bath milk on the site though. We discovered that even though it’s paraben free, it’s got some SLS in it. It will go on Song Of The Siren, we think it will be popular there (Jo tells me as I’m writing that we’ve sold one already!). We’ve sold a couple of the candles today as well and as a celebration we lit one ourselves over dinner. Well it’s cheaper than Champagne and you don’t get the hangover the next day – the ‘Men In Red’ wouldn’t like that. We would definately recommend the Jasmine, a bargain at £10. Told you it was cheaper than Champagne! and it lasts longer too.

We were also busy in the garden in the Sunday Heatwave, preparing the ground for Charlie and Lola. They won’t want to turn up to any old scruffy garden, so we tidied up a bit. The grass got a trim, the soil got a turn and I blew up the hedge trimmer (sorry Nicholas, I’m sure it can be fixed!). We finally got tired of looking at sprouting spuds in our kitchen and buried them, eyes down, in a few inches of lovely Bromsgrove loam.  A row of red and a row of white. There’ll be potato salad all summer and bakies in the winter  - who could ask for more out of life?

I also discovered an old bulb of garlic with a bit of green sprouting out of the top and so we planted that too. As I was turning the soil, I discovered some Spring Onions (don’t remember putting them there), so I put them in little rows next to the garlic – they’re from the same family, aren’t they?

The herbs didn’t appear – it was decided that there were other priorites and so we’ll put them in another time. We’re also thinking of putting in an apple tree. We’ve been told that the soil is good and Jo makes a mean apple crumble. 

So, the scene is set. Just a week now before Charlie and Lola arrive with their little orange Eglu. And here is the question for this post – Will the red carpet that Jo’s put down clash with the orange Eglu?!

The First Day

Ok, so we’re not expecting this to happen every day, but our first day live has been a real surprise.

People have bought 3 of the bridal dolls and 2 of Alex’s favourite the Rattle Snakey. It won’t be long before we can say goodbye to one of the men in red!

If you’d like to see what we sold on our first day click on the links below – we’re very pleased and very proud that people seem to like our site (and, frankly, surprised that people have found it so quickly!).

http://www.songofthesiren.co.uk/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=39 

http://www.thiseden.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=11

Song Of The Siren was the first site that we started  few months ago. We had a stall at a wedding fair at The Bromsgrove Hotel last Sunday and this was somebody who saw them then. The order came through today, so it’s on today’s sales. Song Of The Siren is all about pampering gifts. Most of the products are natural, or as natural as we can get them, but This Eden is all natural or organic or fairly and ethically traded.

I feel that the time is right for a small fizzy pop.

This Eden is a beautiful place, let’s keep it that way 

Jo, Mark And Alex

It all starts here

So, it all starts here! The finishing touches are going onto the site tomorrow and then it’s all go. We’ll put the advertising in place, let everybody know about This Eden and wait to see what happens. Hopefully, somebody will like what we’re doing and buy something. They’ll tell their friends how cool the stuff is and it’ll mushroom from there. Ah…..we can but live in hope.

Everybody says that ‘word of mouth’ is the way to go, and we think that they’re right. We’ve put a rating and comment sytem on the site , so that people can write their experiences with our products. We’ve spent a lot of time and effort sourcing these items and we love each and every one of them. Alex (aged 5 – he said to put that bit) is an even stronger critic than we are. The Keptin Jr Rattle Snakey has just become his very bestest newest friend and goes everywhere with him (except to school – I think Mrs Miller would have something to say about that!). And that’s good enough for me!!

We’re going to try some experiments in our garden this year – as soon as the sun starts shining and we’ll keep you up to date on how things are going. Chickens (Charlie and Lola) are coming in a few weeks and we’re currently waiting for some potatoes to go to seed. Then they’re going in the bit by the Holly hedge. Eat your heart out Jamie!

This Eden is a beautiful place, let’s keep it that way

ps. If you’re wondering what this is all about, go to www.thiseden.com and you’ll see.

Hello world!

Here’s the big idea:

Build it and they will come -

We’ve all had enough of the ‘Men In Grey’ (or red as the case may be!) and it’s time to branch out on our own, do something that we believe in and earn a living whilst having fun.

Check out http://www.thiseden.com/ and you’ll see what we mean.

It’s a simple dream and one day we’ll achieve it. We’re going to keep this blog going to let you know how we’re doing with our dream, all the things that we are doing to help keep ‘This Eden’ a beautiful place and a few comments on stuff as we go along. 

This Eden is a beautiful place, let’s keep it that way

 Jo, Mark and Alex (aged 5)