Magpie Monday

Every week, for months and months and months, I have seen the Magpie Monday linky on Me and my shadow's blog and, being a little obsessed with bargains, charity shops and auctions myself, I always intend to join in - but always fail to post up a blog in time! This week I have done better - and here is the story of our family day out at the poultry auction and the bargains we found there! 

First up - I love wicker laundry baskets - love. So when I spotted this one in amongst the deadstock (not dead things - just as opposed to 'livestock'!) I knew I was going to be waving my little number card around, trying to play it cool but actually a little hyper!) and I was thrilled because I won the bidding - and for a mere £4! 

As if that isn't exciting enough - which it really is - it was a job lot and for that bargain price I am also the proud owner of this wonderful - just wonderful - bread bin. I do love me some chunky retro kitchen bumph! Being the weather it is our bread, so far just sitting on the surface in a bag, has been going mouldy and getting dropped on the compost with horrible regularity - so I hope this will prevent that! 

The lot also came with three nesting boxes - oddly - it's a bit late in the year for birds to use them now but I'll set them up on the fence ready for the spring and hopefully we'll get some little visitors - this year we have about seven swallow nests in the eaves of the house so it'll be nice to give them somewhere that isn't immediately above the bedroom window! 

As it was a poultry auction we couldn't come away without some poultry - and we were on the look out for some new chickens to add to the three we already had. For a mere £16 we came away with three of these beautiful hens. White leghorns (yep, as in Foghorn leghorn!) which are already laying beautiful white eggs that would do Delia proud! 

We also got the fencing you see in that picture - it's electric fencing but we won't electrify it, as Midget Gem will almost certainly be chewing it at some point - there's nothing that child won't chew! The fencing - a huge, huge length of it - was around £10 (hubby bid on that whilst I was entertaining the children at the bottom of the field!) which is a real bargain! 

Wandering through the livestock lots I did some falling in love and am now pestering Hubby to let me have a goose (for the incredible eggs!) or dig a little pond out and let me have some ducks! 

Midget Gem loved wandering around in his wellies looking at all the birds - and can now very clearly say 'Bird' and 'duck' which makes him feel ever so proud of himself. 

The hens are only in cages like this for an hour or so once they arrive - but seeing them like that makes me want to rescue them ALL so I forsee a lot of chickens coming to live with us the more auctions we go to - I got chatting to a lady there who went home with 22 last month! She must have a very big garden! 

As you can see in the pic above Jellybean LOVES poultry auction days out - Midget Gem did too, but he got very tired from all that walking and bidding and pointing at birds! 

Not shown in pics here are the other two bargains we came home with - a rabbit hutch that hubby managed to get for a pound (A POUND! It's seen better days, but A POUND!) and a flipping BRILLIANT ride on pedal tractor with a trailer and digger bucket on the front that I paid just £7 for - bargain! I tried to get a picture but it was terribly blurry because Jellybean was riding it so fast around the garden being a big important farmer! 

So there you go - that's our weekend of bargains, and now you should pop along to the Magpie Monday linky and join in too! Or just read other posts and get envy ;-)