Today has been the sunniest day we have had in yonks!!! And so still! And aside from a few seconds spit of rain - which obviously then read the forecast properly and disappeared almost as soon as it began – we were blissfully dry all day.
We are in fact set dry for a good week and a bit and so in anticipation of this, yesterday, Jack spent her afternoon washing the grass mats in the poultry area, removing all traces of mud!! It was a complete joy to open up this morning and be greeted by such a clean, dry view and, even better, believe it might actually remain looking this good for more than a day or so!! It was slightly obsessive to 'wash' the mats BUT after the dire spring and summer, the grass underneath them just never really got going and as such the mud found it very easy to ooze its way through them and then lie unashamedly on top. This of course made for wet, mucky poultry feet and damp straw when the birds then came inside.
As we have mentioned before, the poultry paddock gets a lot of run-off from our other fields and Denis' land above us and so it does get very wet. We cannot do much about this but we do try to maintain a dry area immediately outside the stable where the birds can feed and drink. The rest of the paddock is muddy in places but on the whole very grassy still and on days like today, the birds do make their way into this area to enjoy the vegetation still.
We are not sure we are going to see much more sun after today but just being dry will do very nicely for a while!!