Back of an envelope chicken house

Her Outdoors has been bugging me for a while to build a new chicken house. A chicken house that will have enough room to accommodate the Light Sussex cock and two more layers she was given for her birthday, months ago. A chicken house that will allow the current pallet chicken house to become a pallet guinea fowl house. A chicken house we can actually stand up in.

Finally, I came up with a design...


And started putting it together...


Then we had to order a chicken-shed-load of wood, which won’t be ready until June.

The bee is not a bee

Yesterday, I told you about a bee orchid I found over the road. Well, Her Outdoors went on an orchid walk last night and discovered it’s not a bee orchid at all. I don’t have the name for you now. Just the name it’s not.

I can tell you that this orchid also grows in écovallée:


But I can’t tell you its name, either. Tsk. Some bloggers.

Orchid watch III: One in, one out

This one came as a surprise to Her Outdoors the other day. "I want to find a new orchid", she said to herself. Then looked into the woods and saw, not one of the orchids we've been waiting for, but our very own Greater Butterly Orchid:


I couldn't wait for a Bee Orchid to show up. So I nipped across the road at the top of our drive and shot this one. I think it's quite nice:


(Oh, I never explained the change of format for the photos.)

www.ecovallee.com world record attempt

Last Tuesday afternoon, around 6.30 French time, www.ecovallee.com version 2.0 was introduced to the world.

Virtually.

There were a few bugs to begin with that needed squishing (including an outrageous horizontal overflow nightmare in Internet Explorer) – and there are still a few crawling round – but it’s now in a bloggable condition, which is why I’m subjecting you to these pixels today.

Credit for www.ecovallee.com can, will and is flowing to the following excruciatingly fabulous people (self excluded). For a more cinematic feel, you could turn off the lights, put on some music and tread some ice cream into the carpet.

In order of appearance:

www.ecovallee.com version 1.0
design and code
Café del Nightmare

www.ecovallee.com version 2.0
code
Julia Aldington-Hunt

www.ecovallee.com version 2.0
words and design
the devolutionary
Her Outdoors
Dave Quinn

www.ecovallee.com version 2.0
pictures
Jo Burley
the devolutionary
Her Outdoors

www.ecovallee.com version 2.0
Dreamweaver operator and uploader
Dave Quinn

www.ecovallee.com version 2.0
lubrication
Cave de Cyrano, Lalinde

Dave tells me that the www.ecovallee.com search engine rating will be improved depending on the number of external links I have to www.ecovallee.com – but I can’t for the life of me work out how this can happen (if you’ve got any ideas, send them to the email address on www.ecovallee.com).

Oh. One other thing. Readers of www.ecovallee.com will notice that we’re opening to members of the public in March 2010. This is so we can: make the site as beautiful as it deserves to be; not kill ourselves with impossible deadlines; and see something of our children while they are small.

If you want to come and see us this year anyway, get in touch and we’ll see what we can do.

Orchid watch II

Been away from the confuser for a while, so these piccies are a little late.

To give you some idea how close to Orchid Central we are, this sign was nailed to our postbox a few weeks ago:


Recent additions to our own collection include the White Helleborine:


And the Pyramid Orchid:


We're still waiting for two Her Outdoors remembers seeing last year. I'll keep you posted.

Pepito goes to work

No. Not the title of my latest unpublished children's book; my soon-to-be-published post on our not very hard working working horse.

Besides turning acres of pasture into wheelbarrows of manure, Pepito has recently started proper work. First he pulled a tree out of the woods (that I'd failed to cut down successfully). Then he did some harrowing practice on what was the old pigs' last field.

Here's me having a go:


And here's Her Outdoors (note the look of concentration on the face - and the lack of gloves - she's hard, she is):

Orchid watch

The orchids are back. So far, between the tractor and the veggie patch, we've found these (shot like this for reasons that will become clear when you see the website):

Early purple orchid:


Lady orchid:


Fly orchid:


Burnt orchid:


I'll keep you posted as the others come up.