After the big rains we had here a little while ago, the drainage tunnel stole a lot of dirt along with the water, making some almost gaps in the ground near the fence. So, we made plans to build a retaining wall and next to it lay some gravel and leave a drainage channel for those wet times. This is a job we needed to be do at some point.
Rosie looking oh so innocent.
For over a week, every day I would discover Rosie on the outside of the pen, trying desperately to get back inside with the flock. She is the tiniest chicken ever. I thought she was sneaking out as a surprise to herself by accident under the fence by digging out the dirt and making holes, right where we had been planning to build our retaining wall. So this job got moved to the top of the to do list.
At least, that is how we thought she was getting out. It turns out, from observing the goings on as we built the wall, that she was deliberately sneaking out. She had found a patch of chicken wire that was not staple-gunned down. She was able to jump up onto the fence and then sneak out via pushing the wire away from the fence. All we had to do to prevent that was staple-gun the wire down, which we did.
What is the most crazy about this escape chicken – the moment she got out, she was desperately trying to get back in with the other girls. She did not enjoy being outside with all that grass to scratch and eat if the other girls could not be with her. This job could likely have remained on the to-do list for another month or so without any issue, if we’d just discovered her escape route earlier. It is done now, and I have to say it is pretty awesome. :) There are 2/3 more sleeper dug into the ground and covered by gravel that you can’t see in these pics.
Twas a long weekend, so on Friday afternoon I said to the other half, let us go to the hardware store now and avoid the rush. Which we did. And we got sleepers to build another planter box as well as the retaining wall, the gravel to go alongside, some potting mix, and some new plants for the garden which I intended to weed a very large patch of.
So I did weed, and then it looked like this –
I planted some silverbeet seedlings which the chicken love and I am not adverse to myself.
In the new planter box, we will be having a Kale moment. Tuscan Kale, which is a somewhat new format of kale to me, as well as some regular kale. The chickens *love* Kale. :)
Before I let you go, you ought to go and read this post. Everything I Know, I Learned from Cows.
Funny how good some animals get at escaping.