The little chicks are growing noticeably bigger now, and are becoming very much more adventurous; no longer cowering in their temporary home and nearly smothering each other at our approach, but running madly towards anyone who ventures out of the house, hoping for food treats. We even found one on the kitchen windowsill yesterday; I hope they don’t think they’ll be invited in when the windows are open (except to go in the pot, that is!) They’re becoming expert at hiding in the undergrowth (of which there’s loads), to the point that sometimes we have to search for them to check that they haven’t packed their bags and left!

On Sunday evening we went out to round them up for the night, but couldn’t find them in any of their favourite spots; after a few minutes searching, we found two of them on top of the spare roof tiles at the side of the poulailler, so we put them away for the night and started looking for the others. One of them turned up in the garden round the side of the house, presumably having flown over the carefully chicken-wired gate, with her clipped wings. By this time it was getting very dark and we were concerned about the last one; we searched the garden, the orchard, the field, even the vineyard, all by torchlight, and had all but given up when Kieran spotted her, outside the main gate to the road, quietly waiting to be let in! Kieran blamed the windy conditions for having given her the extra uplift she needed to get over the gate!

Before we can get the builder in, we need rid of the rubble mountain in the grange; so we’ve started digging out the soil from the path at the side of the house and will fill the space with some of the rubble, then pave it. It’ll provide good drainage and the soil’s useful to fill in some of the dips in the garden. It doesn’t look as though we’ll get any more done this week, though, as it’s forecast to rain for at least the next week 🙁