Ho Hum... No Eggs, and Broody Chooks

It's been a busy couple of weeks here. Between adopting Mollie and Valentine's Day required nonsense for the wee ones, it's been a little, erm, hectic shall we say?

No "Mother of the Year" award here...
The required 'nonsense' is decorated with pink Gaff tape, and
purple and green electrical tape. It was all I had on hand.

Plus, Eldest has apparently done research on the school computers and has decided that this is exactly what we need next:

Why, one might rightly ask? Because their poo makes excellent garden fertilizer, apparently. And lord knows just what I need is more poo around this place.

Recessed lighting!
Before there was one lone
lightbulb hanging down..
Gotta love old houses.

On a related crap-tastic note, I ripped out the old hallway closet and made built-ins to organise the chaos. Which I'd show you a picture of, but my hallway is too damn narrow to back up enough to take a picture of the lovely tidiness.

However, this led to repainting the hallway in an effort to brighten it up, which led to me doing my first-ever electrical project. All on my own. With no help from anyone other than Google. But I was brilliantly (pun intended) successful!

Do anyone else's home improvement projects snowball like this?!





Outside the slowly-improving house, we're back in the 60/70s (F) and it's time for me to transplant the seedlings I started a few weeks ago with Eldest.

Seedlings last week. They're much bigger now, I promise!

Problem is, the damn -but otherwise adorable- chooks keep getting into the kitchen garden bed. And while I loved that they've turned it over and pooped in fertilized it all winter long, it's time for them to get out, and STAY out!

Attempt number 1: a screened in PVC pipe erector set type thing, which I am way too embarrassed to show, and is wholly unsuccessful. The winds that we're subject to here has torn that thing apart multiple times already, and it's only been up 2 days. I know a new chicken coop with an attached, enclosed run is in order before spring kicks into full gear, but financially that's got to wait a few more weeks. And keeping them in their current coop and run without allowing them to free-range just pisses them off and they quit laying eggs.

Not that pissing them off really matters to egg production, because....

Sweet, pointy pullet eggs.
They were so nice...
while they lasted.

2 out of 3 of the rescue hens just started laying a few weeks ago. I got a handful of sweet little pullet eggs out of them, and then they went... broody. I kid you not. The damn -but otherwise adorable- chooks are sitting in empty nesting boxes and refusing to effin' lay any eggs! Come on.... really???

As far as keeping the non egg laying, and soon to be my dinner if they keep this up chooks out of the kitchen garden, I think it's time to go back to the drawing board...

Any ideas, on either breaking the broody habit or fencing the garden in?