Our new ‘hen’  isn’t..

We got ‘Aria’ as an egg from a neighbour, which we put under a broody chicken hoping to get another hen to add to our flock.
It turns out that ‘Aria’ is actually ‘Adrian’. We don’t need a rooster, or the accompanying early morning wake up call.

Sadly,  it looks like Adrian is not destined to live a long life, but perhaps we can have dinner in his honour.

The delicate part is how to inform my wife and kids of Adrians impending departure to another world.

Fortunately, my wifes attitude is ‘I dont want to know’, and so Adrian has become an unperson unchicken, much like those unfortunate characters in George Orwells book,  1984.

Our mini Solar hot water system

Our laundry has never had a hot water supply since we moved it from a tiny spot in the house, to the garage.

Rather than try to get hot water plumbed in from the house (expensive and messy), I came up withg the idea of a solar hot water system.

I brought 60 mtrs (65 yards) of garden hose which I mounted onto a frame in a really neat circular pattern (artistic? meh) which sits on the roof.

By my calculations, that hose holds about 8 Ltrs ( 1.75 gallons) of water, which I think should be enough to do the job.
To pump it around the place, I’ve used a 12V waterpump borrowed from an RV.

The waterpump
I even made a little house for it

It all works surprisingly well, the only problem that arose was cheap leaky joiners that got replaced by more expensive non leaky joiners.

Naturally of course, it means waiting until late morning for the sun to heat the water up, which is fine, because we aren’t morning people around here..