Wecome Rose and Dora 2

What to do on another wet Sunday? I know, lets match our outifts to our umbrellas and go down to the RSPCA to see if they have any chooks for adoption. Liongirl's outift was selected with much care and planning, you can't actually see the Hawaiian print skort underneath this Red Riding Hood number.

Unfortunately for us there were no neglected chooks needing a home. Did make us feel good to know that all current chooks  around the traps were wanted and cared for though. So it was off to Brookfield Produce to select some new besties for Sooty.

We planned to get just one other girl to keep Sooty company but Roboboy has had his heart set on a white chook for months. He gets a little transfixed by collecting complete sets of things, in every colour available.  And we were in luck with just 2 white chooks left amid a sea of brown ones. One had a limp, and the other one, that's our Rose. Roboboy's choice of name. The replacement brown chook, well she has predictably been called........... Dora (mark 2)

 Both are called "point of lay" meaning they are around 5-6 months old and should shortly start to lay eggs. Both are also very timid and skittish and not at all like our old Dora who would frequently just invite herself inside at any opportunity to steal cat food and peck up rogue bits of fried rice under the dining table. Even Liongirl is now a professional at "Shooooing" such badly behaved girls outside and off the deck.

We kept them locked in the coop for the first 24 hours and this afternoon let them out for their first foray into our garden. I suspect they have not been free ranging before as it took a fair while before they had the confidence to leave the coop. And they had not quite worked out the bit about putting themselves back in the coop for bed. Instead they found a nice safe high fox proof perch.........

On my clean washing. We had declined having their wings clipped. Really hope I'm not going to regret that one. Luckily they seemed to either be asleep with their eyes open or in some hypnotic trance like state as they were amazingly easy to retrieve from here. I will try and capture a photo of the complete set, I mean trio, tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Liongirl did what any girl does when her best friend comes over for a play on a hot day. Time to retrieve 2 pairs of matching swimmers to share for a quick dip in the clam pool. She and Fifi have been friends since they first started toddling around and have had many sessions of mutual trying on of shoes, loading of shopping trolleys, chats on toy mobile phones and intermittent eye gouging and hair pulling- usually when snacks are involved.