Here's some chicken-world action...

These are the two new Black Leghorn pullets, bought from the chicken auction two weeks ago. One of them laid their first little creamy egg today.

They've tentatively attached themselves to Frankie, but he's not very mature yet and he may lose them to Shadow if he doesn't look after them better. Luckily for him, even if that happens there should be another six assorted pullets coming in a month or so and he'll have another chance to build a flock then.

Meanwhile, in chookmahal, Brewster is hogging the hoochie with his four hens. There's room in there for everyone, but no-one else wants to share with the grouch. This is Brewster's hoochie ...

And since the Great Fox Incident the other two flocks, ten chickens in all, have been sleeping here :

That may have been acceptable in an emergency and during summer, but there's no shelter in winter and it's just too crowded. So DH and his son built this :

There's a tin roof to keep off the rain, tarp sides to keep out the wind, and paperbark perches to be nice and soft on chookie feet. There will be two doors when time permits, to allow them to be shut in on the coldest, wildest and wettest nights.

And the new, patented fox chute is in construction ... more on that in a later blog !

Traditionally autumn is a time of harvest, of gathering and preserving and stockpiling. Here are some of the stockpiles and harvests happening on Oaklands ...

This is the feed shed, where I am stockpiling small squares of lucerne

hay and all the grain, chaff and mixes for the coming winter. 

It's also a nice warm place for Tenchi to hang out and 

pretend he's harvesting rats.

This is the beginning of a round bale stockpile. I was lucky enough to find a source of grass/lucerne blend and I'm aiming for 18 bales to last three months. There are seven here so I'll be collecting for a while.

The borlotti beans that burned off in summer are doing better in the cooler weather. I may get a decent harvest before the first frost. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see the green and scarlet bean pods.

Part of the water stockpile, this is the lower dam. The boat at the close edge (which doesn't float) 

is a handy level. When this dam is full the boat is completely covered.

 An unexpected stockpile, the contractors removing the old poles are happy

to drop them off at our place for using as fence posts. The day after this
picture was taken they dropped off another six and there are four more to come shortly.

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Another visitor shot, the kangaroo family that shares this place and next door. Male on the left, female and joey on the right. Remember that you can enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

I suspect they are doing it tough and would not object to them sneaking in to share the sheep's round bale. It might be too close to the house for them, though.