No-one can complain that the weather in Tassie is boring. Today was glorious teeshirt weather - sunny, warm and lovely! It got up to 18 degrees then at three o'clock it suddenly came over black and cloudy and the temperature plunged to 10 degrees in half an hour!

I spent the morning excavating the guinea pig run from the long grass that had engulfed it completely - so much so I had to cut for some time before I found it. I am still looking for the other chicken run which appears to have disappeared completely! I finally found it and dragged it out to dry out while I went off to clean a cottage. On my return I concluded it is too small to house two birds for up to four weeks, so I am in the process of modifying it by extending the run by another six feet. It has wheels at one end so I should be able to shift it around if I can work out how to join one run onto the end of the existing one while providing adequate support at the right spots. I have constructed two rectangular shapes - one will be inserted into the end of the existing run and the other will go at the end of the extension. Then long pieces of timber will be attached to the nesting box, and thus to each of the inserts. These will, as an adjunct, fix the wire to the inserts also to form a rectangular run. I hope.

At the end of the run I will fix a panel of wood with a door in it to add food and water as required. Mean time the poor roosters are still in the cats' travelling box which is on a table with the open wire face turned toward the fence to provide them with a bit of extra shelter in the present inclement weather. I can but hope there is no rain tomorrow so I can get on and finish their accommodation.

Another barrow of horse manure was delivered in the middle of all this, which has been added to the fruit trees down the back.