What good is Vegeland without a scarecrow? 

Don't ask me why it took me so long, I had actually partly stuffed one of Dean's old work shirts months n months ago, then only ever remembered it at inopportune times!

So on Saturday afternoon, armed with a pair of old pants, some old gloves, a ball of garden string, a loop of wire, Dean's trusty staple gun and straw left over from the kitchen garden, we all trooped into the glorious winter sunshine, intent on finally finishing the job!

The straw was pretty damp from dew over the last month so when we stuffed the pants, it was way too heavy and we struggled to lift it onto the bamboo pole.

Emmy, already bored with the task of filling ... went off in search of her beloved chicken, Bitters.  Meanwhile Xanthe was our "mali" carrying straw in a bucket on her head!

Dean and I struggled to loop the shirt arms over the ridiculous length of bamboo I'd chosen for his " arms" .. but with Dean's incredible analytical skills we got it - it was a stretch though!

The white gloves filled with straw and stuck on kinda looked like Mickey Mouse hands!

The cold was setting in as the sun was setting so we gave up on the legs, promising to finish it tomorrow.

Tomorrow ended up being a full on pyjama day, Xanthe didn't get out of our bed till around 3pm!!!!  She was happily tucked up against cold, reading and playing computer games on the last day of three pretty lazy weeks of winter holidays!

So, fast forward to Monday afternoon when I returned home from some errands ... to find the Mali's had very kindly finished the job for us!

..... including manufacturing a head .. of sorts!

 

Love that he's got no neck, a 4" waist and elephantitis legs ... very human like indeed!


He's yet to be named, think we might do that once we've made a proper paper mache head and found a straw hat!

But the good news I think he's actually done his job ... the bird's have stopped pecking, well, what's left of my tomatoes!

Next job ... remind myself how to do paper mache and then go about fencing off Vegeland to keep our totally free range chickens outta there!