Norty birdies

As we had a hose pipe ban earlier this year I decided that I wasn't going to plant hanging baskets in the garden,  we had 12 last year and they were really pretty and colourful for the whole summer,  but they do take a lot of watering and with me being away from home so much this madre up my mind that this summer it would not be practical to maintain them.

Instead I planted the herb/veggie table with flowers,  a much bigger area to hold more water and this would be very easy to water with a watering can unlike hanging baskets.   We have been really pleased with the table and the added bonus is that it is easily seen from the house too as it right outside the patio doors to the garden.

We were only saying a couple of days ago that the chickens have been really well behaved and have left the table alone.  There is netting all around it, but we have left one side open for watering and just to be able to appreciate the view a little better.

Well we definately spoke too soon,  I walking into the lounge yesterday and one look at the flower table and low and behold THREE chickens were sat right in the middle of the flowers...  aarggh!

Quite happy in the middle of the flowers

Norty, norty birdies..   as soon as they caught sight of me walking towards them they knew they were in trouble - no doubt my squeal of displeasure was a bit of a give away too....  so instead of three chickens sitting in the middle of the table there were three chickens running all over the table to get away from me.... the flowers were getting more and more squashed by the milisecond!  I managed to grab Hettie and ejected her,  Gillian and Stella were then like 2 Kamikaze chickens launching themselves everywhere that was no where near my hands,  finally I managed to grab them too and they were duly ejected.  Actually it was really funny with them being like complete mad things  flapping and clucking and running and launching......

Now they know they have been spotted and have started to run.....

Doing there best to get away and launching themselves at the netting
 at the back of the table...  there is no hiding I've seen you!!!

The poor table is now looking decidedly flattened and sorry for itself..  hopefully a good water and bit of feed it will perk up.  And the netting - now firmly secured from all angles!!