compost bins and chickens

All the nettles are now removed from the compost bin area, though I still have plenty of roots to dig out. And about ¾ of it is now levelled. The lump of earth at the left hand end is the remains of a former compost heap, but unfortunately most of it can't be saved as it is riddled with nettle roots. And of course, growing in the compost as they did, they have a very strong root system. I really need to get this finished as soon as possible – the grass needs cutting and I would prefer the clippings to end up here than in a disorderly heap behind the garage!

There are now four of these huge concrete bricks – they are as wide as a house brick, about 18 inches long, and as thick as they are wide. I’m hoping to discover a few more, as I have an idea in mind for using them:

And this gives some idea of the size of these capping stones - a brick and a half wide and three house bricks long:

The resulting nettle pile - this was level ground before we started yesterday:

Under here, there is a concrete base, where a greenhouse once stood. The greenhouse was a disaster when we moved here, so we took down the rest of it so that it didn't fall and injure anyone. It was made of some kind of reinforced plastic sheeting, held together with metal strips. This is where the chicken house will stand one day:

The concrete base is at the far end of this photo, near the fence in the background. The area is about 10m long; the chicken run will fill most of the space from the chicken house to where I am standing:

As you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done, and still thousands of nettles to pull out and nettle roots to dig up, not to mention actually building the shed and run, before we can have chickens: