Poultry, Collecting Rainwater, Blooms and Purrdy (again)

My Lavender Pekin hen and her nine chicks have settled in well and seem quite happy in the small run they will be in until they are at least ten weeks old. 

Next they will go up onto the field, initially in a separate area from the established flock, to get used to the whole idea of being properly outside and for both lots of birds to get used to each other through the open weave fence.

In between the grey sky and showers I have been taking photographs of flowers in the garden.  Here are a nasturtian and a purple petunia which I took yesterday. 

I don't think I ever really looked into the centre of flowers before I started taking photos.  The detail is amazing - really beautiful.  In fact, I think there are a lot of things I didn't look at properly before I took up photography.

Because of the amazingly hot dry weather we have had, particularly through April and May, we have been looking at even more ways of collecting rainwater.  Tomorrow we are going shopping for zinc guttering to put along the very shallow log shed roof.  In this photo it's possible to see part of the log shed on the left and the left hand side of the pond.

Water will run through the downpipe from the guttering to a water butt which I already have in use on the field.  From the butt a hose pipe will take it into the fish pond to keep that topped up.  The pond currently loses so much water from evaporation in the heat that we are constantly topping it up from the mains and I know that the fish will prefer rainwater.

Purrdy has been enjoying herself outside in the garden and also inside, playing with some of my shredded bank statements.  I'm glad they give her more joy than they did me! 

On Monday midday, the Writers' Group met here for the monthly get-together.  One of the group was driven here by her husband who fell asleep with Purrdy during the meeting and only woke up as we were taking photos of them.

It seem that everyone loves to cuddle a kitten and hear the happy purr.