In which we have visitors from Boston, USA

Our friends from Boston, USA

Dear friends... yes  know its been a week or so but my Mum has been away at something called Folk Festivals and left us all here with some friends of hers who have been looking after us and the cats and the house.  More of that another day, but while she was gone the photos came of us in the garden with the friends who had come all the way from Boston in the USA to see us.  

Our Mum and her friends outside the Museum of Witchcraft
in Boscastle

They stayed for the weekend and our Mum took them to visit the  Museum  of Witchcraft which is owned by a friend of hers in Boscastle and also to Tintagel so they could see where King Arthur came from.  All very exciting but not as exciting as the Sunday morning in the garden.  It was such a lovely day that they all sat outside in the garden wearing the same yellow T shirts and singing.  They sang songs about chicken on rafts especially for us.  You can be sure that we have no intention  of going on a raft, even though Olwen did mange to fall in the pond this week!  She was after the pond weed and tried to stand on the waters edge and slipped in.  Our mum was there like a shot but she got herself out all right with just her dignity a bit damp.  Anyway we have all been back in our run today so we don't do it again.  

I join my Friends on the Bench

Lynn and Philip with Rhiannon

But getting back to my friends from Boston...  It was such a lovely morning and we sat in the garden beside the honeysuckle and the grapevine. Rhiannon and I went straight over to them and loved what they were doing.  They were all singing! We walked in between their legs and even went up on the bench to join in with them.  I think we all should have yellow Middle Bar t shirts now as we were on the Bench!  I think I have to ask Uncle Mike and Aunty Lizzy about getting ones to fit us.  They held us and gave us such loving stroking and cuddles and we snuggled down in their arms.

Rhiannon nearly went to sleep but was tempted away by the soft grass to run in.   My Friend Lynn, that's her holding me in the photo, was really very good and looked after me really well. Her husband, Philip, made sure I was all OK and talked to me alot as you can see in the picture.  They all thought we were wonderful, which of course we are.

Rhiannon joins the Boston Singers on the Bench. 

You will be pleased to know that Rhiannon's quills have started to grow tiny feathers and that Olwen is now nearly covered across her back with soft downy feathers.  Brigid is still bald but our Mum is hoping she will start to get feathers soon or she will have to ask people to knit woolly jumpers for her ready for the winter.  If you look carefully at the photo you can see that I am now nearly covered on feathers so will be nice and warm for the Autumn mornings and evenings that are just creeping up on us.  

My Mum has been putting extra straw in our bed to make sure we are quite warm enough and as soon as Linnet gets over being broody, we are talking about all 6 of us going into the same hen house to sleep in the winter so we can keep snuggled up together.  But for now its still summer and I have songs buzzing around my head,, Hi O chicken on a bench...

Olwen gets feathers and Rhiannon takes a dust bath!

Hello again,

 This has been such an exciting weekend.  I have had so many people come to visit me this weekend and some of them came all the way from America!  My mum is sorting out the photos and when they are all done I will do a very special blog about Sunday morning when they all sat in the garden and sang to us, gave us cuddles and thought we were wonderful.  It was sooooo exciting. 

Rhiannon takes a dust bath

Anyway, down to some wonderful news. 

 Today has been quite warm and 5 of us have been in the garden all morning. Linnet is sitting in a run all on her own as she has gone broody and all she wants to cluck about is having babies but none of us are interested.  Worms and grubs are far more interesting than baby chicks.  She'll get over it in a few days.  So, that means 5 of us are in the garden.  

But I said good news and here it is.... [drum roll]... Rhiannon has found out what it is like to have a dust bath.  Not that she has got any feathers yet to clean but she has been sitting in the middle of the rockery and has made herself a deep hollow and is chucking compost all over her where her new feathers are just starting to show through.  She is having such a lovely time that she didn't even want to join us on the patio for our morning treat of lettuce and cucumber from Auntie Sue and Uncle Geoff.  I think you can see from her photos that she is just starting to get little quills appearing on her chest and breast so we all hope that they will turn in to feathers very soon. She has one or two new feathers come through on the top of her wings and I think if you look carefully you might just be able to see them. She has become so much less timid lately and now runs up to our Mum every time she sees her and wants to be picked up and cuddled. She is still the very smallest of us and this weekend one of our visitors said there wasn't any meat on her at all... whatever that means.. but I think it means she is still very skinny.  she is so very loving though and lays the biggest eggs of all of us!

Olwen's new feathers

And now some more news.  Olwen has got feathers!   If you remember a little while ago I told you that she was starting to get black dots on her back well they have now come out as beautiful feathers.. They are very soft and fluffy and are a dappled colour with a light pattern in the middle and a darker edge to them.  When they all come she is going to be stunning.  Good job my Mum hasn't got any cockerels or they would be running after her! This is a picture of the new feathers on her back. If you look carefully you can also see the feathers coming through on the top of her wings.  Her bottom is still very bald but that will come in time.  

Olwen and Me on the patio

I thought you would like to compare the two of us. Do you remember when I was almost totally bald too?  Just look at me now.  That haunted look in my eyes has gone and I have lovely soft dark brown feathers on me and even my wings are starting to grow back.  My tummy is still a bit bald but it is getting better and one day I will have feathers all over me.  We are all so very lucky and we are so very spoiled.  every time my Mum comes out I rum up to her and snuggle down at her feet asking to be picked up and smoothed.  It is just so good to be living in a lovely garden here up on Bodmin Moor. We have a granite chippings patio, a big soft lawn to run around in, flower beds to take dust baths in and last weekend I found the greenhouse has got tomatoes growing in it.  We love tomatoes but our Mum wasn't too happy when she realised that we had found out how to get in and could jump up and reach the baby tomatoes that were hanging on the plants.  We are very good at jumping.  Our Mum said something about Olympic Champions but i don't know what she means by that.. something else to find out.  Life is never dull here.  

So, all is well here in our Forever Home.  The sun is shining, Rhiannon is taking a dust bath, I have discovered tomatoes and Olwen has feathers.  Brigid has quills so will soon get feathered up and as soon as Linnet stops going on about having chicks life will be perfect.  Bye for now. 

Hello again.  I am so sorry that I have not talked to you all for a few days but my Mum has had visitors and has been gallivanting all over the place so I have not been able to get to the computer.  We don't have electricity in the hen house either so I can't put one in there.

Rhiannon on her first day with a floppy comb

Rhiannon's comb now,

 I have some wonderful news for you all.  

Do you remember how poorly Rhiannon was when she came to live here in her Forever Home?  Well she now has a few feathers and lots of black dots on her back where her feathers are starting to come through but... what is even more exciting is that her comb has gone from pale pink and floppy to red and starting to stand up!  That really does show how well she is coming on.  I am so very pleased.  She still likes to have early nights but she now runs around the garden with us and joins in all the fun.  That really is very good. 

All of us now have feathers starting to show, some more than others and if you could see mine you would say how soft and beautiful they re compared with when I came here.  

Olwen has discovered something new as well.  Toes.  This morning our friend Hellyn was sitting in the garden and she had open toed sandals on.  well there were these wiggly white things so Olwen decided they might be worth investigating.  Hellyn got the surprise of her life when she started pecking them!!!! We ran away and hid under the table but as soon as Hellyn wasn't looking, Olwen ran out again and gave them another peck.  I think Hellyn might stay in wellies all day!  She is helping our Mum with the garden today so we are going to help them.  We will be very good at catching worms and getting in to investigate every time a weed is pulled up or the earth turned over.  If we are really lucky they might take the duck weed from the pond and throw it on to the garden and we will be able to run after it and eat it.  That is fun.  

 I heard from some of my friends that Little Hen Rescue have girls looking for homes  www.freshstartforhens.co.uk They are based in the North West so if anyone knows of a lovely person who could give a hen or two a Forever Home then please get in touch.  We love being alive.. so much nicer than being in a pie.   If you are in Essex in September I heard of a wonderful event   that you might like to go to.  I have asked my Mum to put the poster for it below so you can all have a look.  I love the idea of  a Hen fest!  Re-homing coupled with a village fete sounds brilliant.  I wish I could get there.  I haven't ever had ice cream or beer and they will both be on sale.... 

Well I am off now to help a bit more in the garden.  Talk again soon.  Love Little Maeve. xx

Into the Garden Again

Good morning everyone and what a wonderful day it is.  The sun is shining but not as scorching hot as it has been, I have laid my egg for the day and the plan for today is to help our Mum in the garden.  

We helped in the garden yesterday and we even had lunch on the patio with our Mum.  She put the parasol up so we did not get sunburned and with the lovely breeze as well we had a wonderful time.  The patio is made of granite chippings so we could rootle around in it and find all sorts of interesting things.  I hope she does the same today,  We are all going to help her do the weeding today.  I know she will love that!  Until now we have mainly stayed by the yummy raspberries and near the compost heap.. Olwen loves the compost heap and is getting brilliant at finding worms and grubs.  We also went on The Lawn.  Wow, what an invention the lawn is..

Isolde and Morgan on the lawn

a huge soft grassy place where we can run around and flap our wings and just be free. Linnet and Morgan, our Buff Orpington friends, like to walk up and down it being quite stately and then snooze under the bench near the grape vine hedge where it is lovely and cool.  They sometimes have to share it with Isolde, our friend the cat [she was rescued as well]  and it is a case of who gets there first!

The Pond

The other bit of the garden we like is the pond.  Now please don't get worried about us being near a pond.  we aren't quite that silly as to try swimming and we don't go near the water, but our Mum has a fountain in the pond and sometimes it splashes up on to the rocks all around and we can sit there and get cool.  The rocks are not very good for hens so we don't go near it very much but the odd splash of water in this hot weather has been brilliant.  

Yesterday we noticed that we all now are starting to get feathers showing.  some of us have more than others and Olwen and Brigid are doing quite well.  Poor little Rhiannon has only one or two showing but they will come.  She is still very frightened if she is more than a couple of feet away from me or from our Mum but she is getting better.  She laid two eggs this week that were soft shelled so our Mum has put extra oyster shell in our food

Feathers starting to show.

so she will lay hard shells again soon.  some people use our own shells which have been baked in the oven  and then crushed up.  This way they don't taste like our shells and we won't be tempted to eat our own eggs.  

So, life just gets better and better.  I do hope the hens who are looking for new Forever Homes will find them soon.  We are lucky and very spoiled!  They deserve to be as well. 

Rhiannon Goes Exploring

Hello my friends,

Rhiannon takes her first steps outside the gate and into the Garden

This is a very quick blog this afternoon as our Mum has to get everything ready for going to the Launceston Show tomorrow where she will be on the Launceston Bee Keepers stand. If you see her just say hello.  

Rhiannon exploring among the ferns

Rhiannon exploring the garden

But I was so excited this morning, I just had to take 2 minutes out to tell you.  Our mum let us into the big garden this morning.  I just walked out the gate and Brigid and Olwen followed.  

Rhiannon is still very scared and likes to be right next to me or right next to our Mum but we had gone through the gate!  She sat there looking at us for a while asking us to come back and not leave her on her own but we were having a fine time helping our Mum to pick the raspberries [a new taste and they are scrummy] and helping to dig the garden that we just all kept telling her to come out and it was all right.  Well, after about half an hour Rhiannon crossed the gate way and into the big garden.  She didn't go very far from it but what a step for her.  She wandered under the bamboo by the pond and settled down among the ferns.  She loved it.  After a little while she panicked and ran back into the run again but at least she ventured out.  so rather than tell you about it I have taken some pictures of her on her first outing into the garden.   One picture tells a huge story.   So today's blog.. Rhiannon goes exploring into the big wide world of The Garden....

Brigid helping to pick raspberries and keeping an eye on Rhiannon to make sure she is safe. 

Rain, what rain?

Hello Dear Friends. 

What an exciting weekend this has been.  We had lots of visitors in our garden as the local history group were hosting a weekend looking for  a medieval fishery and a manor house that disappeared over 200 years ago and they were all based at our Mums house.  Everyone thought we were beautiful.  

Olwen's 'Black Dotty Things' on her back

Now what have I to tell you..  Rhiannon has decided that she rather likes having sleepovers and  2 or 3 times now she has gone to sleep with the Buffs rather than with us and she has even laid eggs in their nest box!  She is getting quite adventurous. 

  Olwen came to see me yesterday to tell me she has some 'black dotty things' on her back and did I know what they were.  I was able to show her my 'black dotty things' and how they are growing into feathers.  She was a bit worried about having feathers as she hasn't had any for so long and has been totally bald for so long it will be a new experience for her.  No sign of feathers coming yet on Rhiannon and Brigid though, but they will. Our Mum looks after us and gives us loads of love and good food and plenty of water that I know we will all feather up soon.  The feathers on my chest are doing very well but I still have a very bald bottom and underside. 

Rhiannon and Me enjoying looking for worms

I hear that some parts of the country are having torrential rain.  Before we went to bed last night our Mum sat with us and told us not to worry if we heard huge rumbling noises and saw bright flashes.  It would be something called a thunder storm and it wouldn't hurt us and not to be afraid. We all had a very good sleep and didn't hear anything at all.  Then when our Mum came to feed us this morning she said it hadn't rained and the thunder had missed us. I expect it means we will see her out with the hosepipe again today.  I just love it when she sprays our run very gently. It makes us so cool and takes some of the heat out of the soil.  It also makes the worms come up to the top and we can have great fun scrabbling around and catching them. Some of our Mums friends in Birmingham have put photos on their Facebook pages showing floods.  I do hope they are all safe and looking after their hens to make sure they don't get too frightened.  

 But now for some good news.  A lovely lady saw the first pictures of us when we arrived 3 weeks ago and was so shocked she asked our Mum if she could do some drawings of us to show how we are progressing. This is the first drawing.  It is of Rhiannon on the day she arrived. Her name is Lesley Ann Cooper and she is very good at doing pictures of animals.  In fact she is brilliant at drawing anything.   Our Mum is so chuffed and will hang the picture on her wall so everyone can see it.  

Last week I told you about some lovely girls that are looking for Forever Homes and how to contact the people who had them.  I heard yesterday that the British Hen Welfare Trust, the lovely people who rescued us, will have some more girls needing Forever Homes in the next couple of weeks.  On 28th July they will have hens  ready in Northants, Oxford, Coventry, York and North Lincs, on 3rd August they will have girls in Bristol, Dorset and Monmouthshire, on 4th August in Devon, Hampshire and here in Cornwall.  If you go to the Cornwall one you will meet Michelle who looked after all of us  after we left our cages and went to our Forever Homes.  If anyone can find a space in their hearts and gardens then please contact them as soon as you can.  This is their website   http://www.bhwt.org.uk/

Well, I feel an egg coming on and think it's time I went and had a little sit in the nest box.  Talk to you all again very soon.  

Much love, Little Maeve. 

We Were Lucky..Some aren't so lucky.. but they could be.

Good morning everyone.  This wonderful weather is making us all feel so much better.  I hope you humans are being careful and wearing hats and putting on lots of sun-cream so you don't get sunburned.  We are sensible hens and love to stay in the shade under the apple trees and our Mum puts out fresh water for us twice a day.  Rhiannon has been much better and not playing hide and seek so much and Brigid and Olwen are just being their usual selves and rootling about amongst the earth and grass to find interesting things. 

Brigid does a spot of sunbathing.

 Brigid did a spot of sunbathing this week but not too much.  I made sure of that.  don't worry about the pink bits on her skin, it's not sunburn, it's from where we were all shut away.  I think she needs a pair of sun glasses to make her look really cool.  But it just goes to show that she is really happy here in her Forever Home.  We are so lucky. When our Mum came to collect us, Michelle, the lady at the BHWT in Cornwall, said we would be spoiled... and she was right!   You know there might be some hens near you that would like a Forever Home.  Not all hens that are released have been in dreadful cages, some have been free range hens who have stopped laying for a while and will come back into lay in a few weeks but farmers can't wait for that to happen as they must have a regular supply of eggs.  

Some lovely people at FreshStart forHens are looking for Forever Homes for some of these at the moment.  On September 7th they will have some ex commercial Free Range  girlies who, if they can't find homes for them, will be killed.  That would be awful!  We are all so very friendly and so easy to keep. In return we give you  all our love and try and be as helpful as we can, just like Olwen and Brigid were this week when Rhiannon was playing hide and seek with our Mum. We love to follow you around and have a chat with you as well.Don't forget we lay wonderful eggs, nothing like the ones you get in a supermarket which might be anything up to 2 weeks old by the time you buy them.  Our eggs are rich and gooey with sticky dark yellow yolks and they taste magnificent.  Anyway,  they have rehoming centres all over the country and if you could find just a little space in your heart and garden for 2 or 3 of my friends I would love you for ever.. and so would they.  The best way to contact them is by going on to Facebook and looking at their page.  

Rosie, one of the cats helping to put out bird food

So, the sun is shining and all is well here in Bodmin Moor.  I do hope you have all got something planned for this weekend.  After reading Catherine Cavendish's blog on the Beast of Bodmin Moor I though I might do a spot of Beast watching myself.. although with 4 cats here it's more likely that I will see one of them instead.  Although they have been seen very close to here.  Have a lovely weekend folks.