October 24, 2009
I was standing at the kitchen sink and looking out the back window when I first saw our chickens sneaking into the backyard. I froze.
The Forbidden Zone
They were headed straight for The Forbidden Zone.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that chickens untended get up to no good. Anyone who keeps chickens knows this. Given the chance, they’ll make a bee line towards the most freshly planted, unfenced patch of garden only to begin wreaking havoc with all the wild abandon of drunken sailors in a bar fight.
When we first got our young hens, we kept them in the chicken run for months on end. They were small and there are feral cats and stoats around, so it was for their own good. But when they were big enough to start laying, and when they began laying consistently in the nesting box, Rick and I decided they were old enough to be granted the occasional shore leave.
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20 Comments | 
Chickens, Family, Garden, New Zealand | Tagged: chicken coop, Chickens, chook house, Garden | 
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Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
October 17, 2009
We had two new help exchange volunteers staying with us, a Belgian and a Korean, and Rick asked them to do a very special job. “Dig out these agapanthus, divide them, and plant them in a long row along this line of trees.”
Agapanthus - image from nzplantpics.com
Little did those unsuspecting volunteers know that in doing this work, they were contributing to one man’s slightly crazed and deeply disturbing obsession.
The next day, the Belgian and the Korean began digging.
I never knew what agapanthus were before I moved to New Zealand. They’re native to South Africa, and they can’t survive the freezing winters in the any of the places I’ve previously called home.
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35 Comments | Garden, New Zealand | Tagged: Agapanthus, Garden | Permalink
Posted by Moon Over Martinborough
