Ted The Shed, Chapter 13 - The Chicken Chatterer

It's time to investigate the compost heap and see whether the tarp has done a good job of helping allotment waste turn to compost. Dad, who loves all animals (except squirrels) makes friends with some of the chickens who make their homes on neighboring plots.

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Transcript

Hello there,

It's Mandy here.

Welcome back to Ted the Shed,

My memoir about my dad's allotment.

We've reached mid-May 2011 now and tonight's chapter is called The Chicken Chatterer.

But before I begin,

Please go ahead and make yourself really comfortable.

Settle down into your chair or into your bed.

Relax your hands.

Relax your shoulders.

And just see if you can loosen your jaw.

That's great.

Okay,

So if you're ready,

I'll begin.

So,

Mid-May 2011.

With the weeding and digging largely done,

I turn my attention once again to our compost heap.

Superficially,

It looks exactly as I think a compost heap should look,

But it's time to check out the state of play sub-tarp.

Unfortunately,

When I lift the lid,

Everything beneath it is dry as a crust.

It has been an unseasonably warm spring and it looks as though the tarp has been doing its job too well and acting as a giant magnifying glass for the sun.

Visiting worms and beetles must be finding it a bitter disappointment,

Like arriving at a half-built hotel.

I throw a bucket of water on the heap and stow the tarp in the shed.

As so often with this allotment lark,

I will have to think again.

On the way out of the allotments,

I notice several carpeted heaps.

Perhaps that's the way to go.

It is old school,

I know.

The princess in me shudders at carpet's tendency to harbour slime and the disciples of slime.

Then again,

A year of trying to grow things has wrought a change in me.

Before,

Eww,

Look at that dirty,

Soggy carpet.

How vile.

Now,

Admiringly,

That carpet is keeping the heat warm while allowing rain and air in and encouraging microorganisms to break the carbon-containing waste down through aerobic respiration.

It seems I have begun to assess things by how they work rather than by how they look.

If only this process had happened years ago,

It would have saved me many painful mistakes in the romance department.

And of course,

Function and utility are among Dad's highest values.

Perhaps I am turning into him.

In the following days,

I ask around and I'm told that natural fibres are the way to go.

Over the next week on my travels here and there,

I stop at many a promising-looking skip for a rummage,

Only to find that a deplorable lack of quality has set in nowadays as regards home furnishings.

All I can find is foam-backed carpet,

And some of it found in a skip outside a local pub.

It looks as though it has spent several years atop a compost heap already.

Knowing that Dad still has rolls of pure wool carpet in his spare room from the house we lived in when I was 11,

I ask him if he can spare a small square of it.

He is mortally offended.

That's decent stuff,

That is.

You might be glad of that in a few years' time.

The thought of that over-familiar swirly blue pattern covering the floor in any house I share with Mr.

M.

S.

Makes me feel unutterably depressed and as if my life has come to nothing.

But it's best not to say that.

Yes,

Dad,

I say.

You never know.

I decide to try another tack.

I go into an actual carpet shop in our small town and ask if they've any spare.

The chap serving shakes his head sadly.

But a man leaning on the counter says,

Scrap carpet,

We've tons of the stuff at our warehouse.

Tell my son his Dad sent you.

He gives me directions to a place near a level crossing outside a nearby town.

But because I think I know where it is,

I don't really listen and I end up crossing the border into Lancashire,

A state of affairs that,

As any inhabitant of Yorkshire will tell you,

Is regrettable.

I jive a bit more before admitting to myself that I am completely lost.

Suddenly it is all too much.

Tears prick my eyes.

Why am I spending time and petrol on this wild goose chase?

Composting?

I'm through with it.

What's wrong with buying a few sacks of it at the garden centre?

I decide to take the most direct route home.

Of course,

That's when I find the level crossing and the carpet warehouse.

I walk round the back and see a skip with a rug on top that looks exactly the right size.

Inside the shop,

The lad behind the till confirms that I can have it for a note.

He also confirms that it's axe minster with not a trace of man-made fibre in sight.

I nearly hug him.

Down at the plot,

The rug fits perfectly.

The compost heap looks resplendent.

So now we are carp rather than tarp.

The rug lets in the rain and I'm sure that the compost will soon be coming on a treat.

It certainly should do,

Considering it now enjoys a higher quality covering than our living room floor.

The spell of good weather continues all through the month and we have some lovely sunny days.

But dad is still compiling his blood pressure dossier and is wary of doing any work at the allotment.

While sorry about the circumstances,

I take full advantage of his absence to plant the place up with crops I like.

Everlasting spinach again,

But also chard,

Lettuce and onions.

I also decide to have another go at cabbage.

To cater for dad's tastes,

I sow brussel sprouts in pots on the kitchen windowsill,

Plus runner beans to transfer to my bean tower later on.

We should be on for a good crop of berries this year and the potatoes dad left in from last year are,

As hoped,

Sprouting anew.

It's with talk of this that I finally entice him down to the plot.

He thoroughly enjoys the visit,

Being delighted with his burgeoning potato tops and making full use of the chance to check his shed and his fence.

He also takes a detour on the way out to visit the three sets of chickens who live in varying degrees of squalor on nearby plots.

Influenced perhaps by hit films of yester year like Dr Doolittle and The Horse Whisperer,

He crouches as best he can on the path by their respective coops and makes a noise like a creaking door.

I'm reminded of how much dad loves animals.

He had a cocker spaniel as a child,

Which meant that I too had a cocker spaniel as a child.

Smudge,

A slow portly animal,

Used to disappear from our back garden on warm afternoons and come back with whole joints of meat in his slobbering flues.

He never got much of a ticking off.

Dad admired his nerve and the fact that he'd brought home the bacon and lamb and chicken and once a foil-wrapped pack of cheese sandwiches.

The nearby Fantail Hotel had a Michelin-starred restaurant and dad thought it must have an open larder.

That seemed unlikely,

But then so did the idea of Smudge,

A blunderbuss of a dog,

Doing anything stealthy or agile.

We came close to roasting and eating the lamb and chicken ourselves.

That's the sort of thing people did back in the 1970s,

But mum's caution prevailed and Smudge got to polish them off by himself.

When I left home,

I got a dog of my own.

Maxie and his successor Dog MS were both shepherd dogs.

Dad has loved them as his own,

Spending hours playing with them in the garden or sitting fondling their heads while they stain his trouser leg with dribble.

What a lovely dog he is,

He says about Dog MS,

Forgetting that she's a girl.

But slips like this don't bother her.

She reciprocates his love in full.

In fact,

She throws herself at the feet of any man in a flat cap,

Thinking they are all dad.

Dad has previous with birds too.

At their old kitchen window in the Cotswolds,

He and mum would take their elevenses watching sparrows,

Finches and tits of all kinds descend on his homemade feeders.

He would see squirrels off with a homemade catapult.

So perhaps it's not surprising about his new friends.

Perhaps it's not surprising either that this visit seems to break his duck and over the next couple of weeks he comes back several times to check the progress of the potatoes they're shooting up and chat to the chickens.

Interestingly,

After a couple of visits,

They start to talk back to him.

At the sound of his footsteps,

Brown,

Black and white hens rush in a feathery tide to the fence,

Clucking and pecking at each other's eyes in their hate to get to the front.

Their foreman,

The cockerel,

Doesn't join in the melee but stands at a distance looking outraged and making sudden sharp little head movements with machine precision.

Even once dad has moved on,

The hens stay at the fence squawking.

It makes you wonder what he has said to them.

It makes him wonder too.

Let's hope they don't start flocking to the fence every time a man in a flat cap comes along.

The cockerel will have to introduce a work-to-rule system or egg-laying production will be seriously down this year.

To be continued.

Reviews

I was so happy to hear the carpet caper had a happy ending! And your dad’s relationships with your dogs and those chickens was endearing: my dear dad was the same. Thank you Mandy💜🌟

Charming as usual and I was delighted with the bit about the chickens! I have just three, new ones. They are therapy and egg layers. I’ve trained them well. Thanks so much!

Another enjoyable listening experience. Thanks for being with me this morning Mandy! 🐓 🐕👍

So delightful, every bit of it! Thanks again for sharing!❤️🙏🏼

Oh Mandy! I laughed out loud!! Your colorful descriptions of your dad, his beloved potatoes and his animal friends, your search for the carpet (no phoenix this time) - all so very entertaining!! 😂🤣🙏🏻😊❤️❤️

That story made me laugh! I loved that your dad had conversations with animals (My dad and me both have conversations with our dogs)!! And I do NOT want to know where Smudge got that meat!!! 😖🤨😬😧😴🩷

Aww, Smudge! We, too, as kids had a Cocker Spaniel. Cricket was notorious for bringing home not restaurant treasures but his own version of delight, turtles! Go figure. I love the relationship your dad has with all the critters, and his understanding of communication with them. Of course the dogs and head-bobbing chickens adore him. My fav chapter so far ❤️ Thank you, Mandy xx.