Freedom finally (for poultry)

Is the fact that my back door hardly opens the real reason I rarely take photos?  Now that it's a little warmer (and we have got used to being cold in the house this winter), the back door often just stays open all day--to save the effort of reopening it.  Or closing it in the first place.  It's a big glass sliding door and no longer slides on its rails and needs to be replaced.  And very heavy and very hard to move.  That's my new excuse--but we are saving up for a replacement, hopefully within a few months.

Chickens, ducks and all other domestic birds have been granted freedom!  Well, the housing order has been lifted by the government, so our ducks are back in their own large yard and the chickens' tractor has been extended with a bit of fencing so they have a bit more room to move.  Well, not a lot of room still but the son and I still are moving them daily to a new spot on the lawn or garden, so they have fresh ground and fresh greens, and some actual daylight every day.  And we're getting several eggs a week in return.  

The son, daughter and I visited the allotment a few days ago to do a bit more sheet mulching and harvesting (kale, leek and rhubarb) and afterward we went around to say hello to everyone else's newly released poultry.  Lots of happy birds.  I want to get our chickens up to our allotment, but it probably won't be for at least another week.  Maybe longer, as their yard and coop there needs a bit of repair first.  Nothing major, thankfully.

Several weeks ago I brought home a large plastic tub from my work;  it had been thrown out with a hole in it.  The husband managed to repair it and the ducks have a lovely splashing tub now, big enough to get into fully.  I've seen the boy duck in it a lot, but finally saw a girl duck in it the other day (the husband says he's seen both girls in it at various times).  There are two water butts in the duck yard, fed from the garage roof, so I've set up a little hose to transfer water from them directly.  If there's no rain to refill, they can probably fill it about six times before they empty, but this is a wet time of year so no problem with that yet.