Oregano's Top 10 Chicken Tunes

1) Thunder Chicken by the Mighty Imperials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lKJTBmt_D8

2) Chicken Lickin' by Funk Inc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9ghLVbTRgE

3) Chicken Strut by the Meters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUMmyjx7uMI

4) Chicken Dance by Laurence Whelk! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UV3kRV46Zs

5) Funky Chicken by Rufus Thomas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwlGNNqGf_g

6) Techno Chicken by Dominoes Pizza http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_2_EJogf2A

7) Chicken Bone Circuit by RJD2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QONWi3q8Y_c

8) Back at the Chicken Shack by Quincy Jones http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLVvHy6hIns

9) Chicken Grease by D'Angelo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4XI6LXCsH8

10) Dixie Chicken by Little Feat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FekVR_SC5M

The Dome is Alive With the Sound of Chickens!

If you want something doing, give it to a busy person. Ok here's the checklist. Sir Cakeatonne and Parsley now have a baby, two cats, a solardome, an allotment and THREE CHICKENS. All you can say in such a situation is 'It's wicked.' That's brought a few chuckles on when we've been talking about the workload. It does seem comical. Are we ahead of the season by putting in all this time or are we merely grabbing on for dear life? Either way I'm saying yes instead of no to the tasks at hand, even if I lack the initiative Cakeatonne!

The excitement surrounding the arrival of the chucks has been palpable the last week or so. Parsley showed me the coop she'd bought (an Eglu classic!), which was housed in the solardome. A day later and the chucks were in there rolling about and pecking like they'd never left home.

Parsley and I had been on the allotment when we got the bugle call off Cakeatonne. We sped back to find his mount unmanned with bags of feed lying about. I thought they'd flown off and escaped. But no. We walked up to the dome and there was a big cardboard box with some eyeholes/handles. I could hear some furtive scratching from inside and some quiet clucking. I knelt down and had a look in. Had to suppress a wild laugh as I saw a huge startled orange eye looking back at me. 'There has to be some kind of bewildered wisdom in that chicken brain of yours,' I thought. We were all very trepid as I peeled off the tape and opened up the top of the box. Salt-n-Pepa and Spinderella! (We were going to call them TLC, after T-Boz, Lefteye and Chilli). There they were in their bed of shredded paper. 'There's no time like the present,' I said, and plunged my hands in to pick up the first chuck. She was a lot bigger than I thought but at the same time a lot lighter. It was like holding a bag of helium that had feathers and a beak. Placed her in the coop and off she went pecking away like nothing had happened. Then Cakeatonne grabbed Spinderella as I grabbed Pepa and we stood there grinning like idiots as Parsley took a photo. In the coop they went as we launched all types of compliments at them, 'Ooh look at those feathers, aren't they lovely,' or 'You may not be JLS but you're fucking wicked,' along with mixed seeds (a treat). Later they had marmite on toast and apples. Made me wanna be a chicken.

Great animals, these. We just stood there in a kind of trance, watching them do their thing. Poor winks was terrified of them, staring at them from the safety of the dome exterior. Eric just cast them smouldering glances from the far windowsill, looking every inch a Mr Rochester or Frank Zappa. Haha, he really was emanating some scorn. Or were you just jealous, Smethwick?

They've already done a good job of tilling the soil, getting rid of weeds and eating seeds from our hands. The sensation of a warm chicken tongue on your palm is hilarious. And what good chicken would not lay an egg?! I had my first yesterday and it tasted awesome.

Happy G unit thymes (sic).

Who Flung Dung Deux

Cakeatonne and I have been chipping away at the old dung pile and now it is no more. £80 worth of the old umber magic carted down to the plot. My pythons were singing the whole time. Actually Parsley called them worms. They are a tad out of practice. One thing I can't seem to shake is achy hips. Now I'm no James Brown, in many senses but these hip catastrophes are doing my shed in. Is it the cold? Is it my body protesting against real work, the real work of being outside for a change? Or am I getting old? Whatever I'm writing this blog in the fullness of Midwinter Spring, and I feel just fine.

The dung looks ace on the plot, all nice and ordered. Still we have to rake it over so it's evenly spread over the cardboard, I had a wee go at that the other day and the pythons moaned after five minutes. Really I am dreadfully out of practice, and if I'm going to attain the Greek God physique I had some two years ago. What hasn't changed from two years ago is Parsley as overlord. She was making me rake up as much of that muck as was humanly possible:

Parsley: 'Go and grab a rake there's still loads of manure on the path and in those brambles.'

Oregano: 'My pythons are screaming and I swear there's nothing left!'

Parsley: 'Are you kidding? There's easily another two barrows left in there.'

Oregano: [Sarcastic] 'Oh yeah! Look there's £2.50 0n the path and another £7 in the brambles haaaaaa.'

Parsley: 'Shut up Howard.'*

* This came from a conversation we had about Howard from Take That. For those of you new to the blog, or with a bad memory Parsley thinks I look like him. See http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2009/08/fat-pigeons-hedgehogs-and-howard-from.html. He's also playing at Gatecrasher later this month. However if he pulls that quasi-smile (lower lip tucked in so he looks like he has no bottom teeth: take a closer look) then I'm not going. VIP entrance or no!

Pace.

Who Flung Dung?

'I've got a steaming pile of shit with your name on it,' how often do you hear this sentence and actually feel happy about it? Well, I was jubilant when Sir Cakealot aka Sir Cakeatonne (shortly to be discussed), tweeted me an image of what looked like a pile of brown lava, with a gardening fork sticking out of it. It was time to shift £80 of rotten horse manure onto our plot. Trouble was (is) the van couldn't get down to the bottom, so we had to wheelbarrow the brown gold down there ourselves. This was pre-Christmas as I was recovering from man flu. I tell you hitting a 'vein' of particularly smelly dung with a bad chest is hilarious. When I say hilarious I mean dreadful.

The cold, courtesy of our very own pleistocene epoch had frozen most of the manure, so it came away in great clods and boulders. We were really jousting a dragon; Sir Cakealot definitely had more energy than me, filling up barrows like ale in a tankard. Hence Sir Cakeatonne - he was powerloading pounds at a single bound. I was more systematic in my approach, reducing the back bit methodically. Damn my chest was sore.

Comic relief came in the form of Reg who was traipsing through the snow with a Sainsburys bag and a smile that outshone the Winter sun. Turned out he was curious who was on the plot, and was paying a flying visit. He started laughing almost straight away, real loud like. That set us off. He admired the dung and then headed off, with Cakealot shouting at the back of his head. This wasn't at all malicious, Reg is a tad deaf and Cakealot / Cakeatonne was his chivalrous self.

Mmm steamy!

The second round of dung shifting came yesterday. It was a milder day than I expected, with plenty of mist to make things atmospheric. I have seen the allotment in many ways over the year, and this was one of the most special. Cakealot and I had a good go at the pile and reduced it by approximately another quarter. Laughs were had with capsizing barrows (full to the brim), heartbreaking when that happens.

Amidst steaming plots, muddy walkways growing ever muddier and thinner, and puddles, we shifted a good six or seven barrows each. We also had time to lift up an area of carpet and black plastic we'd laid down a good long time ago. It had done the job well, with only a few hoochy coochy strands here and there. That too will be covered with the dung. There's still so much to shift though!

* * *

A great year for gardening, a lousy year for everything else, so say Brother Oregano. I hope you've enjoyed the blog almost as much as I've had writing it. Keep up the support and I'll keep up the amateur gardening. 2011 will be a feast of activity, so watch this space. Happy Millennium!

Weasel's First Allotment Visit / One Late Sunflower

Earlier this week Parsley paid 24 Rue Albert a visit with Weasel. I had my hands full with my favourite new UNIT. She was crying a wee bit so I spoke gentle words of encouragement like: 'Stop crying Weasel, you won't have time to be cribbin' when you're diggin' and a piggin,' and such like. Weasel is such a wicked little unit.

Went over to Parsley and Cakealot's to feed her some milk and for us to have a brew whilst listening to hilarious lounge music. Cakealot has a great vinyl collection. Checked out Cakealot's seed collection (wow wow and wow again, like he said - buying seeds is a tremendously optimistic thing to do). He kindly gave me a catalogue from Dobies - a veritable Aladdin's cave of seeds, bulbs and garden storage wonderment. The words Bumper Miniplant Flower Collections has an almost ludicrous charm to it.

When we'd tooled up - that is put Weasel in her pram and wrapped her up, Parsley and I went to have a look at the allotment. The whole way down there I was making jokes about Weasel being in a wagon in the Wild West. No-one laughed.

It was a lovely afternoon, subtle, crisp and golden. Rubbed off on her as she was very sedate / asleep. We had a small perusal of our patch of land and then headed home where we were assailed by Kate's neighbours, one of whom is old but COMPOST MENTIS; this time Parsley and I had a good chuckle.

* * *

Earlier in Spring, I planted a sunflower seed in a load of compost as a bit of an experiment. Clean forgot all about it, but was pleasantly surprised to see it had grown, albeit hugely late - emerging early November. So I've moved it indoors and will track it's progress here. As the cold draws in properly, these blogs will be a little more infrequent, but who knows, I will probably find more things to enthuse about. The sunflowers name is Mal, by the way. This is on account of a chrome dome I saw last night in the pub who looked like John Malkovich. I wanted to say he did but he looked like he might pop a cap in my cold frame.

Peace.

Pumpkin Carving and Mo' Weasel Blend

Paid my first visit to the newest member of G unit last week. Alice aka Weasel!

As you can see she was rocking the Halloween look big time. From prior experience with my three nephews, I have been notoriously hands off - afraid of hurting them with my clumsy mitts. This time I was only too glad to hold the baby - I mean come Spring, she'll be digging and pigging with the best of us!

Eric aka Smethwick (see http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2010/04/king-smethwick-funky-trunk-transplant.html) was ludicrously friendly, and curled up whilst we had tea. Cakealot provided pumpkin pie, which blew my tits off.

Speaking of pumpkins, Cakealot and I carved one, or rather I did the design and he did the carving. It was loosely based on my Groucho Marx costume of the preceding night.

from this

to this!

It was a superb afternoon. Although I did feel bad for not helping Cakealot on the allotment afterwards. We still have tonnes of manure to order and get spread over all the weeds before the frosts come on....G unit for Lyf tho' and ey! Mad skills to Weasel.

Weasel / Late Allotment Antics / Tulips

Breaking news! For those of you that don't know already Parsley and Cakealot have recently had a baby, Alice, whom cakealot in his wisdom has nicknamed weasel. That means there are now six members of the G Unit clan:

****Parsley, Oregano, Sir Cakealot, Weasel, Winks &

Smethwick****

Hurrah! The love grows even as the season grows cold!

Maybe the cold has been keeping me away from the allotment, maybe it's been the wandering to Rutland to hook up with an old friend Dan, a brilliant sculptor and wit, or maybe the barbarous few weeks I've had at work....pressure makes diamonds but I'm not seeing any cubic zirconia!

Either way I took a couple of trips down there last week to pull up some nettles to slap in our bath to make fertilizer, and to quell the brambles, remember how much I love them?!

http://parsleyandoregano.blogspot.com/2009/10/operation-blackberry-or-destruction-of.html

Didn't get too far as my pythons were getting ripped and I had a dinner date with a living Goddess. All the same, a second visit saw me clear most of the waterway that leads to the storm drain. Don't want that getting clogged up!

I was naughty and dead headed a poppy I shouldn't have. When I got home and was rattling it for all I was worth, an earwig crawled out. I screamed! Gotta hate those earwig catastrophes! Needed Cakealot to come in and joust it with a rake.

Lastly I plucked some golden apples and runner beans which I'll give to the parent Units...I'm so egalitarian and still so much of a carnivore.

Lastly, I have planted all my tulip bulbs around various parts of our garden, along the thin border just on the right of the front door and under the privet hedge at the back. I'm hoping the daffs will be back from last year. Needless to say you will be seeing a well documented account on here! PAAAAAAAACE! And a very big welcome to Weasel. You got crazy wonderful parents kid!