The best laid plans of mice and hens...

...before I start I wish to say there are no mice involved in today's blog. There were nearly some rabbits. On the way back from Norwich last night ,where we had gone to see Heather perform in a cabaret show,(which was excellent and made me want to take singing lessons and take to the stage myself), the roadsides were scattered with bunnies. Masses of them. I love bunnies. I said to Andy, casual like, 'Can we stop and catch some and take them home?' 'No,' he said. 'The hens wouldn't like them and we have no grass.' I thought, 'I'll pretend I need to stop for a tiddle break and whilst the car is at a standstill and I am off in the bushes, I'll nab a few bunnies, shove 'em in the boot and Andy won't be any the wiser. And when he says tomorrow morning 'Where did all those bunnies come from?' I can say, 'What, these old things? Had them for ages.'

I decided, on reflection, and without any bunny catching equipment on my person, this was not a good plan. The mice in the title are a purely tenuous link to getting onto the subject of hens and my plans going astray.

So, this morning I went into the greenhouse. My plan for today was 'Get the flowerpots, take to kitchen and clean ready for seed planting.' End of. In the greenhouse I got sidetracked into cleaning the floor and taking the old compost out front to the bee garden, ably assisted by the chickens. Andy appears.

'Wotcha doin'?' he asks. I ignore his casual use of slang. It is the weekend after all and he did drive up and down to Norwich yesterday.
'I'm giving the greenhouse a tidy, pre-seed planting,' I say.
'Call this tidying?' says Miggins, kicking a couple of flowerpots from one end of greenhouse to t'other.
'Shush,' I say.
'I need to start making my raised bed for the back garden,' says Andy. He has a faraway look in his eye, as if the sudden rush of fresh air has triggered a primaeval digging urge somewhere within.
'That means we need to empty the compost bin,' I say.

Now, this compost bin is one we started a few years ago. It was our first action towards leading a green life. We know it has needed emptying for a while although it does seem to possess Tardis like qualities in that no matter how much stuff we put in there, it rarely fills to the brim. But it is full now. And THE PLAN has been to use the contents of the bin as a base for Andy's raised bed. I am wary about what we might find inside when we release the contents. Horrors like sludge and foul smelling mud. Tree branches. Rats. Shergar. Lord Lucan...

'LET'S EMPTY IT NOW!' I shout, because it's one of those days when the urge to grab the bull by the horns and tell it what for is the air and I'm having a 'no-time-like-the-present' moment.
'OKAY!' shouts Andy because once I start, he starts and so does everyone else.
'HURRAH!' shout the hens, because they know that compost=worms which they like enormously. (Apparently, they taste like chicken. The worms, not the chickens which do taste like chicken because, well, it's in their nature, isn't it?).

So, Andy grabs the compost bin in a bear hug (I think this is because it looks like a Dalek and he can be a bit weird like that) and lifts it into the air with a flourish (this is a Victorian device made from a skirt hoop and 80 dernier stockings). The contents spill everywhere. I am hiding at the other end of the garden under some waterproof sheeting with an air freshner and a big stick with which to clobber the plague of rats.

BUT NO! What is released is compost! Proper compost. No foul smelling sludge, no rats, no missing lords or racehorses.The top third is not yet fully composted but is riddled with handfuls of proper pink squirmy compost bin worms like you see advertised in the magazines to buy for your wormery. Only we got ours for free!

'ELEVENSES!' yell the hens, falling on the worms like protein deprived crazed things.
'Oi,' says Mrs Slocombe, 'I am a protein deprived crazed thing.'
'NO!' I yell. 'DON'T EAT ALL THE WORMS. THEY NEED TO GO BACK IN THE COMPOST BIN!'
'TRY AND STOP US!' the hens yell. I do wish they wouldn't talk with their beaks full. You try to teach them manners but it's hard work sometimes.



So there is a frantic five minutes when I mount a Mission Impossible-style worm rescue before the hens eat them all. I could mention there was some foul play involved but that would be a very bad joke, so I shan't.

And then we shovel the proper compost into the raised bed area and surround it with wooden edging and breeze blocks all recycled from the garden. And then the hens came and had a good dig around and tried to kick it all out again. And Andy said, 'Oi, pack it in you naughty girls,' and waves his spade at them in a comedy-like fashion and a good time is had by all.

By the middle of the afternoon we had made a raised bed, relocated the compost bin (now only a third full) and I had dug up most of the roots of the shrubs I had pruned back last Autumn. And the flowerpots? Still waiting to be washed I'm afraid.

But like I said at the start -' The best laid plans of mice and hens...'