Monthly Archives: July 2013

Three month old chickens (14 weeks)

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I thought after the downer of a podcast I would post some pictures of the chickens. Here is a view of the yard where they free range. They are good and don’t seem bothered much by the traumatic events of that July weekend.

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They are still running around, scratching and peckinging.
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And taking time to preen a little.
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The chickens are still fun to watch, not a cute as they were when they were little fluff balls, and they have a little more attitude and like to challenge you a little more at this age, and we look forward to getting eggs eventually. I am still so happy we got our house with usable property, zoned for agriculture and we put our plans into action.

Three of the chickens have names Elvis, Buddy and Liz Lemon…the two others haven’t stepped out and shown us who they are.

Florida weave

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When I posted about the Florida weave, the alternative to the staking, wire cones and cages for tomatoes. I put another layer of the weave on the plants.

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I do like that it keeps the rows in order. I will have easy access to the tomatoes when they turn red. I am happy that we found the weave, it is a much more affordable way to keep the plants upright.

The overgrown raised bed

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Mystery Squash. Since we didn’t plant it it must have been something we ate and tossed the seeds in the worm bin. I think acorn squash but it’s not green/orange.
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I put the strawberries in the front when the greens started coming out and low and behold one little strawberry. Eventually this will be a dedicated strawberry bed.
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Tomatoes have started turning red. The bed is a mess and crazy unorganized. That’s what I like about it, nothing growing now was planned, or trained or manipulated. And it still grows with sunshine, good dirt and good seeds.
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Episode 53: Predator in the Coop

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Something got in the coop and had one of our hens for dinner. In this episode we talk about what animal we think it was, how they got in and the steps we took to try to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We also share how we cared for two birds that were injured in the attack.

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We suspect the predator got in through this “ventilation” gap, so we added hardware cloth to block future access to the coop.

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We also added wood to eliminate the slack in the side door.

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A picture of Elvis’ injury. We were unable to get a good shot of Liz Lemon’s wound.

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Learning new skills

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Mom’s visits are always a treat, fun for Madigan and a nice break from cooking for me. This year with the new house we have more room to learn skills that my mom is happy to teach. I have tried my hand at sewing before, but due to space and lack of motivation it never stuck. I don’t know if the 3rd times the charm, but mom helped me with the sewing machine I got from Boomer’s grandmother.

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She helped me make cloth napkins.
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She also got us a grill for a housewarming present. And since we are old-school apartment dwellers we never learned to grill. It was nice that mom was able to share grilling wisdom.

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Our last dinner, chicken from Bramble Hollow Farm, squash, cucumbers and tomatoes from my back yard. I love the table cloth mom made for us.

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She leaves today and we will miss her. It’s been a great visit with lots of rain, a chicken emergency and a couple of tired days. Next year when she comes back our little homestead will have changed.

Cucumbers

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We have had cucumbers everyday since they started coming in. I hope to collect enough for a small batch of fridge pickles. The pickling cucumbers came in first.
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We also have some slicers starting.

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Everyday I have a small haul of cucumbers, squash, beans and tomatoes.

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I hope to be better at keeping track, so I know when we planning what we need next year.

Elvis and Buddy

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So what I think are our two roosters (sounds like the name of a hit TV show on the Discovery Channel) I have started calling Elvis and Buddy. First Elvis…

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See his lovely slicked back feathers.

Now Buddy…

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He has a more noticeable collar of darker feathers. I also call him Buddy cause he is the first one over to me when I walk out to the pen and happily eats out of my hand. Now Buddy is also the enforcer of the pecking order. He has run off a hen who dared to eat before he had. I have to keep reminding myself, that they are chickens and not people, stop anthropomorphizing them.

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They are together a lot, they fight every now and again. I would hate to have to get rid of either of them…especially Buddy, since that is my brothers nickname. We will know when they start to crow.