A new car and goodbye to the cockerels

This weekend we went up to Lincoln to buy a new car for me. In a few weeks I'll be starting my new job and the Focus that I had was slowly falling apart at the seams. It was time to part-ex it in for  something with fewer miles on the clock and a bit more fuel efficient. We got a two and a half year old Hyundai i30 diesel. I felt the difference driving it home, for a start the gears worked! We got three stone chips in the windscreen driving home though. That took most of Saturday. In the afternoon we spent time with the kids. 

Yesterday I noticed one of the hens, Penny, being bullied by the two cockerels and prevented from eating. The boys in the last few days have been pecking the girls when they tried to get into the coop at night and the girls were hanging round outside in the dark. We knew one had to go. Tonight I went to check everyone had gone to bed and when I opened the door Penny had a huge hole in her neck. No prizes for guessing what had happened to her. As I had seen both the boys ganging up on the girls I'm afraid our hands were tied and their time had come. In the end once they were to bed for the night James took his air rifle and took each one aside and finished them off. Penny is tucked up warm in the broody cage with some antibiotics to help her heal up.

I always buy free range chicken and then only occasionally, mostly I use quorn and I never buy pre-made chicken meals as I know they're probably battery farmed. I shed a few tears for them as they were both incredibly beautiful. They've been plucked and butchered this evening and at least I can say that they enjoyed a happy life, foraging, free-ranging and enjoying the ladies ;-) 

I'll do a post later this week on how the cabin is faring, I'm sure you must all be as sick of hearing about it as we are of doing it!

Oh and the washing machine packed in, along with my second hand iPhone.