Hens and hellebores

The snow has gone and the hens are out and about again.  Here is one of the cockerels at the base of the side garden wall.  Somewhere along the foot of the wall snowdrops are just beginning to show.  I shall not be impressed if they are scratched up but mostly at this time of year the hens are good garden companions and will probably not bother with any good sized clump.  It will be another couple of months before we start the frantic seed sowing which means that every bed needs to be protected until the plants get to a decent size.

Here is the little white Wyandotte, still my favourite hen even though she is not as good a layer as the others.  She is so small and fluffy and looks like a chicken from a children's book.  Because she is a bit smaller than the others she has to run to keep up with them and is often to be found flurrying down the garden , a few yards adrift of the flock, trying hard not be left behind.

But I do also love the brown hens which look just as hens should.  The Welsummer on the left lays beautiful dark brown eggs.  The gingery brown hen on the right is a cross between a Welsummer and a Buff Orpington.  The cross means that she should be a great broody hen so in the spring, assuming she does go broody, we are going to let her raise some chicks.  The whole miraculous business of eggs becoming tiny chickens in twenty one days, all cheep and yellow fluff, is something which everyone should see at least once in a lifetime and at just coming up to four years old older grandson will bounce around with excitment (so will I).

Spring must be out there over the horizon somewhere.  Shutting up the hens has  moved from about quarter past four to nearer five o' clock and the hellebores have just started to bloom.  For some reason the cat was so determined to be in the photograph that I had to give up on this, my sixth attempt, to record the only one which is properly in flower.

And the Arum Italicum which I bought as a tiny plant on last year's visit to Great Dixter is unfurling its beautiful marbled leaves.

Spring is out there somewhere.