Chickens
- Birding, Chickens, Gardening adventures, Houses, Living structures, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures
Building a Withy Bird Hide
I was going to continue my series on weeding, but I’ll pick it up next post. Yesterday we received almost an inch of rain. Whoopee! It wasn’t the damaging downpour we had a few weeks ago, either. It was steady and soaking. The temperatures dipped but not to frost (what a strange February!). This morning after I sat clutching my warm tea mug and doing some Internet research, I went outside to check out the yard and it felt like the first day of spring. Cool but not cold. Wet but not soggy. Cloudy and a little threatening but with patches of sunlight. Birds going nuts in all the bushes and trees. It reminded me of our first trip to England during Easter week five years back. There was this feeling, both there and here today of movement everywhere. The soil was stirring with awakening seeds and slumbering creatures.
I put on a knit hat and old clothes and a jacket (ever the lady!) and was all set to pull weeds from the wet ground. Instead I felt inspired to create a bird hide. So, right now you’re thinking of places where birds can hold up. Actually I already have these; they are brush piles all around the fence just for the purpose of providing shelter and escape venues for critters. A bird hide is actually a structure where bird watchers may watch and photograph birds without being seen by them. We have mallards, wigeon and egrets coming to our pond, as well as plenty of songbirds in the surrounding trees. I wanted a bird hide for us and visitors in which to sit and watch.
Since I can’t build anything (the whole measurement thing… I’ve already told you about that) I obtained prices from Quality Sheds in Menifee who built my two sheds so well. Expensive… yep, but not as much as hiring a carpenter, even if he used scraps from my old sheds. Then this morning I started browsing the Internet (trying to stay by that warm teacup as long as possible) and researched withy structures, tree branch structures, living buildings…. all fascinating. Withy is a bendable piece of willow, and sometimes other wood. I’ve always wanted to make a living thing out of willow; stick pieces in the ground, weave together the shoots and it roots and grows! I’ve seen living willow benches before.
So I figured I’d seize the day, this beautiful unofficial start of spring, and see if I could make a decent hide. There are other wonderful structures on the property build by Roger Boddaert and crew, so something natural would not only fit in and be ecologically more sound (than having a structure built), I know the wonderful feeling of being in a structure that is made of natural materials.
This spot was left untouched during the creation of the garden because somewhere in the area there had been a fairy ring, which is a ring of mushrooms growing out from a central fungus. I’ve given up hope that its still alive, and this is an ideal spot for watching birds both in the pond and in the trees behind.
I guessed where the center was, measured roughly five feet (I stepped on the string and held it to my head… I’m 5’3″) and made a ten-foot circle. Why ten? Eight looked too small and twelve too large. I also uncovered the irrigation lines so that I could avoid breaking them (only one casualty).
Old burnt tree stumps had been given to me by Juan, who constructed most of the garden. They’ve been happily growing fungus and providing some habitat as they’ve sat waiting for me to figure out what to do with them. Of course, I wait for the day after a heavy rain when they are good and soaked to move them, and uphill at that! Most of them were old and light enough to roll without too much effort.
Then there was this squat, misshapen devil. It was just oddly shaped enough to not roll, too short and heavy to move with the dolly. Finally I just walked it, bit by bit, curse by curse. I laughed like a madwoman when I put it in place. I’m really glad that I have tolerant neighbors. I often tell my chiropractor about my garden projects. He seems to really like them, and encourages me to keep on hauling flagstone, rolling logs, etc. Hmm.
Of course, right as I position it, some of the back breaks off. There was a sleepy Western fence lizard trying to keep warm.
Just when I thought I’d moved the heaviest, the last one proved to be a monster. It wouldn’t roll. It wouldn’t wheel. I brought out my incredibly handy garden cart, tipped it up, hoisted that guy onto it and off we went! It wasn’t that easy, but I did it. I had a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment similar to when I took Tai Kwon Do with my kids, and broke a board with my hand and one with my foot. I felt as if I could chop down walls! Anyway, making this ring felt right, and perhaps their acid decomposition will inspire another mushroom ring.
Then I scavenged for old twisty branches and willow. Although I have native willow growing in the streambed, I opted for curly willow for the sides. Not only is it more architecturally pleasing to my eye, it likes full sun and is more drought tolerant than other willows.
Since the willows would just be whips yet, I wanted to kick-start the hide with some camouflage in the form of dead oak trees that hadn’t yet shed their leaves. I stuck them in the mud on either side of the main viewing window. They can be incorporated into the design as the willows grow, or come out easily. Everything is reversible! (I try not to build anything that isn’t).
I managed to find some long curly willow off of the plants that aren’t even a year old in my garden yet. I want the withys to meet overhead. The ‘windows’ will be over the stumps, except for the main window looking down to the pond. The hens came over to help plant willow by standing on the shovel and in the hole slurping valuable worms. I sure loved the company.
I planted all the willow, but didn’t really finish working on the upper portion before sunset. I really wanted to finish, too, and move on to weeding. Giving the project a little time will help me in finishing it, especially since I’m making it up as I go! I’m not weaving the structure like many willow structures are, but I will be shaping them so that they grow in the right way.
A little anticlimactic, but I’m not done yet! The willow will be growing and filling out with leaves, making the roof canopy all in good time. I bet there are ducks in the pond right now not paying any attention to the hide! 🙂 Tomorrow I might look at it , recoil in horror, and pull everything out. Or not. I’ll let you know.
- Animals, Bees, Birding, Chickens, Gardening adventures, Heirloom Plants, Other Insects, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos, Ponds, Rain Catching, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Garden’s One Year Anniversary
Happy Anniversary! One year ago on Feb. 1, 2011, I signed a contract with landscape architect Roger Boddaert (760-728-4297) to create a permaculture garden. For twelve years I’ve had this sloping property that was covered in weeds and worthless Washingtonia palms. Not only do these 2 acres slope down to a barranca, but it was filled in due to catching all the rainwater that runs from the street and properties above. I have to give credit to friend Gary B., who brought up the subject of permaculture in a conversation the year before. I’d heard the term and thought I knew what it was about, but months later when I was researching what to do with my property I remembered him mentioning it, and looked it up. I found what I was looking for. I’ve been an organic gardener for many years, have owned chickens for their eggs, have refused to till the soil so as not to kill microbes, have worked naturally with animals and plants, have created habitat, composted, recycled, collected rainwater… and all of that was permaculture. And so much more. How can one not be attracted to the term Food Forest? Certainly not a foodie and gardener like myself.
What happened on the property starting the week of Feb. 1 for the next six months altered the land so that it is truly two acres of habitat. It is useful, it is natural, and it is beautiful. Roger’s team led by Juan built beautiful walls of urbanite, planted and hauled, worked in scorching sun and frosty mornings and made what was dreamed into reality. An integral part of the garden has been diverting the water from erosion points and into rain catchment basins and natural ponds, and that is where Aart DeVos and Jacob Hatch of Aquascape (760-917-7457) came in. They also installed the irrigation. Dan Barnes did the rough and the precise tractor work (760-731-0985) and I can’t recommend his experience and skill enough. Fain Drilling dug the well (760-522-7419) and the wonderful sheds were built by Quality Sheds of Menifee (http://www.socalsheds.com) .
Along with some volunteer help from Jacob, I am the sole caretaker of the property. I am planning the plant guilds, weeding, improving soil, moving problem plants and trees and, did I mention, weed? Oh yes, then there is weeding. On Saturday May 12th, the garden will be on the Garden Tour of the Association of University Women of Fallbrook, and hopefully many people will be inspired to go organic, to create habitat, conserve water and grow extra food for the Fallbrook Food Pantry. We’ve come a long way, baby!
The following photos are comparisons between the precise location last year at this time, and today.
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A New-Fangled Coop
I’ve been trying to find a warmer coop for my hens. The chicken tractor that they occupy is not only non-mobile, but is open on all sides with only scant shelter in the nesting ledge. This won’t do. I have tarps draped all over it, and raise and lower them with the sun to keep my girls from being in the wind. It isn’t perfect. Not being a carpenter, I have to search for what I want, and I’ve been searching for coops so much on the Internet that for awhile almost every ad that popped up was for coops! Most coops come unassembled, and not only are extremely pricey but look very thin-walled. Last Saturday over breakfast (of eggs, of course) I tried Craigslist. There were several used coops for sale, but not only would I have to disassemble and reassemble them, but the possibility of transferring disease or bugs was high. Then there appeared a new ad for coops in Temecula, just half and hour away from me! The Knotty Bird (https://sites.google.com/site/theknottybirdcompany/contact-us) is a home business of Crystal Braught. She and her husband create the coops in their home, and house their own flock of lovelies in the backyard. The three styles of coops that were offered were very well thought-out, and I loved the strawberry pyramid that was also offered. I had a wonderful talk with Crystal, who grows organic veg and recommended to me a most excellent seed source, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (http://rareseeds.com/) which not only offers hundreds of seeds from around the world, but sells only organic seed.
So I bought the middle-sized coop at a very reasonable price and hauled it home. (This all sounds so easy! But not for me! I wanted to use my son’s truck, but the insurance and registration had been let go. I spent awhile on the phone adding the truck to my insurance, and then trying in vain to register it on the DMV site. Then halfway there on the freeway the brakes began to grind and it sounded as if metal was dragging on the tire. I pulled off and looked, but didn’t discover anything. When I arrived safely (whew) home with the coop, I had to unload it alone so I propped up a planter, some wood, a piece of plywood I had to haul up from the bottom of the property, and then slowly walk the bottomless coop out of the truck and slowly down the plywood without destroying it or me. It weighs over 100 lbs. I haven’t lost my touch; all safe and sound).
I placed a couple of nursery flats lined with paper under their new roost upstairs for easy clean-up, and fluffed straw into the two small nestboxes. The coop I walked until it was over tall grass that I wanted gone. Then I brought the three girls up, one by one. They loved it. They scratched and tore off pieces of grass and had a grand time. At dusk, though, they stood there looking at me. Finally Chickpea went up the ramp into the living quarters. With some encouragement and direction from me, Miss Amelia and Lark finally went up there too. I still partially covered the coop with a blanket because it was going to be a cold and possibly windy night. Emerson, in his lonely cage at the lower end of the property, was quite the sad guy.
In the morning I fed the dogs outside and noticed that the girls hadn’t come downstairs. I waited and later went out and they still weren’t! I opened the side to peek, and found that they had moved one of the lined nursery flats over the exit hole! Poor girls! I moved it and they eagerly came down, but weren’ that interested in the grass anymore. I thought maybe they’d eaten too much the day before. They stood and watched me work. Very eerie.
I tried to encourage them back up the ramp to the nesting boxes, but they would have none of it. Finally, exasperated, I opened the door and they scuttled down the hill and it was an easy thing to shoo them into their old cold coop. Chickpea went right up the ramp to lay an egg. My poor girls! The coop may not work for these girls, but now I have a seperate place for the Frizzles I want to get come spring! And instead of one large coop with a lot of pecking and competition, I can have several small coops placed around the property, each being a chicken tractor while the girls scratch up the grass and feed the soil.
Apparently,
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Mrs. Two Shacks Builds a Fowl Go-Kart and a Hen Harem
Okay, so… my chickens are currently in a deluxe San Diego summer unmovable chicken tractor. The tractor is too heavy for me to move, and the wheels (reused) have literally crumbled apart. Now it is November and the nights are becoming chilly, and we’re on the weekend rain schedule, unlike our other dry years. (Normally it rains the weekend after Thanksgiving when all the holiday events are happening, which gives the weeds time to grow so that everyone is mowing just before New Years.) My hens are cold. I know, it isn’t Minnesota; the nights are in the 40’s, but that is nippy to Southern California-bred chickens. I’ve been pondering what to do for some time now, and my Libra self has vacillated so much that now I’m up against it. Yesterday I devoted to trying to build a warm place for the chickens. I ended up with a go-kart.
I am not one to cut wood. I go out of my way to find matching pieces of wood in my huge and glorious scrap pile just so that I don’t have to measure and cut wood, because invariably I will cut it the wrong length. Fabric, too, (I have some interesting curtains). Determined to make a warm, cozy hen structure that was safe from predators (a coyote jumped the fence and killed Kakapo and took Linnet on Saturday. I was and am heartbroken and angry. I have three hens left. Oh, and Emerson.) I found a huge wooden crate that was used for a sculpture of a rodeo rider, which belonged to my parents. This thing has been taking up space for maybe twenty years in various locations. It looked the perfect size for three hens. I dragged it down the hill to the newly-straw-covered area in front of my new two sheds.
Fifteen years ago, at another house, in another life, I built a movable chicken coop that was gosh-darn good. I didn’t cut any wood for that one, either. Anyway, I still had the casters left. Pulling two long and two short pieces of 2×4 (notice I don’t give a length) out of the wood pile, I hammered them together and attached the casters, although not in that order, which made the hammering together more difficult. I purposefully didn’t use screws: I wanted to bang away with something hard on something yielding. I attached the crate after scraping out the spider webs. Now I wanted a caged area for the hens to be able to graze and get some sun. I still wasn’t completely sure where I was headed with all of this, but I was driving anyway. I dragged down an old large animal cage, which used to support a heat lamp for my African Spur Thigh tortoise until he outgrew it and tore the door off. I could fit it onto the front part of the… thing… and the casters would go through the holes in the bottom with a little help from a PVC hacksaw. (Cutting PVC is NOT the same as cutting wood, by the way, and I have oodles of experience with it. Red Hot Blue Glue nearly runs in my veins.)
I found some brackety-gizmos that made an L shape, and attached them to the bottom so that the cage hung down closer to the ground so that the hens could get at the grass.
I attached two pieces of wood in a ‘T’ as a handle (trying to hammer it onto the frame through the cage), and then found an old dog choke collar with some lead still attached, and wrapped that around to help pull.
So, what if it rained? It needed a roof. There happened to be three of these triangular things left from the shed removal. I’m glad they were put to use. They had been a failed attempt to put up cat fencing (to keep them in the yard) on top of the shed roof by a friend who was a contractor. (He’s also the reason why the 8-foot wooden fence I asked for turned into a 5-foot fence up on bricks with a teal slanted cap running along the top… which makes a nice foothold for the cats.)
I nailed these suckers on the crate, (ever try to nail something triangular?),
then pulled out a piece of corrugated aluminum that wasn’t too sharp (and was also conveniently on top of the pile). It was too long, and not wide enough, so I grabbed some big scissor things I’ve had in the shed for years and cut the aluminum in half (they were tin snips!). Roughly. On purpose. Of course, the piece I cut didn’t fit, so I had to bend it in half, stepping on it, and drape it over the triangles then nail it on. The larger of the two I used towards the front, to give a little shade. The sun was going down and I had to hurry.
Then stuffing straw in the gap for insulation, adding a milk crate and straw inside for eggs, I stepped back to enjoy my creation.
Well, it wasn’t quite a chicken tractor, and it wasn’t quite a warm and cozy house. It was a go-kart.
I had thought to move it and the hens up into the relative safety of the tortoise and cat yard, since the cats were not allowed into the yard right now because two naughty individuals escape (so everyone else has to suffer, just like in school). With much pulling and pushing, I managed to get the kart around to the front of the hen house, and there it stayed overnight. I couldn’t get it any farther. The casters would work fine if the mulch wasn’t so thick, and if I didn’t have to pull it uphill. There was no way I was going to be able to get the kart uphill through the mulch into the tortoise yard.
Today I managed to move the kart over some grass, and one by one brought the hens over and popped them in. I got some very curious looks back from them. The chickens thought it was pretty fun, and enjoyed pulling at the tops of the grass sticking up through the cage, but after awhile they set up a chorus that couldn’t be ignored. And I still hadn’t solved the problem of their being cold at night! It was again about to be dark.
Grabbing a rather stinky dog blanket, an old flowery sheet and a pillowcase (they were there, all right?) and the staple gun, I went to work. I stapled the blanket all across the back of their regular hen house loft, across the roof and let it dangle down in front of where they roost at night. Sticking my head in there (and holding my breath…. very doggie-smelling) I noticed a slight breeze still, so I stapled up the sheet and pillowcase. Emerson was quite baffled as to what I was doing next door.
Then I brought the hens back, and figured it would have to do until after the holiday. A day and a half’s work and I have a heavy fowl go-kart and taudry drapings around the hen house, but I think the hens are warmer tonight. And, I must say, I think the kart is pretty cool-looking.
Happy Thanksgiving!
- Chickens, Gardening adventures, Humor, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian
Planting Easter Dinner (in November)
I finally was able to work in the vegetable garden today; me and my helpers, that is.
I am by no means done, but I did some major cleaning out of old veggies. Out went the tomatoes that aren’t producing, dead squash vines, weeds, a volunteer avocado tree and the two enormous zucchini plants which, although having been cut in half, abused and ignored, have still been putting on a squash a week. I have one more zuke plant left, but these big guys had to go. The compost heap is… well… a big heap.
As I study Permaculture, I’m more aware of the millions of microbes in the soil and the fine network of fungus that enriches plant roots. The less I disturb my garden soil, the better. After pulling the weeds, I sprinkled on GardenAlive’s soil enhancer, which are more microbes, as well as their organic Roots Alive fertilizer. I used a trowel to lightly work it all just under the soil surface, then topped it with compost from my compost bin. Having soil that is healthy, rich smelling and alive is any gardener’s dream. All those microbes free up nutrients in the soil so that your plants can suck them up and use them, which makes your veggies not only healthy and more resistant to bugs and diseases, but produce … um…. produce that is loaded with vitamins and minerals. Its like the old gardener’s joke: A gardener asks a man what he puts on his strawberries, and the man answers, “Cream.” The gardener shakes his head in disbelief and says, “I always put manure on mine.”
Potatoes from spring, which I’d stored in a dark cabinet under the house, decided they didn’t want to wait any longer.
Fall is a good time to plant potatoes, as long as you keep their greenery protected from frost. Since potatoes can be grown from cuttings (as well as tubers and seeds), and to produce more potatoes you slowly mound up compost or straw around the stem as it grows, I tried something with these long white fingers. I lay each potato on the soil, with the long white stem laying flat, and covered them all up with light mushroom compost.
I’m betting that the stems will all take root and send up greenery along the nodes, using phototropism. That will multiply the number of potato plants by a lot. Then as the greenery grows, I’ll add more straw and compost around them. If all works out, sometime early next year I should be Potato Queen of Fallbrook! Of course, I had lots of help with the project.
A few months ago I planted pieces of yam that had started to grow in the house. The vines flourished outside of the bed. Now that I’ve cleared the massive zucchinis out of the way, I’ve pulled the vines back into the bed, layed them out so that they (mostly) touch the soil, and have dumped mushroom compost on parts of them. The object is to allow them to root along the vines and make more yams. I’ll let you know if this works or not.
I’m also planting carrots and parsnips. The ‘nips won’t be ready until next spring, having improved in flavor for any frost we may receive. I’m hoping there may be some small carrots ready for Christmas dinner, but I really should have put them in last month to be sure. In will go the brassicas: Brussels sprouts (did you ever wonder if it smells cabbagy in Brussels?), broccoli and cauliflower. These guys all like a good chill, as long as they are protected from frost. More cool-weather lettuces will go in, as well as lots of endive for my tortoise. Onion sets and seeds can go in, as well as radishes. The arugula has reseeded itself again and is coming up in all the pathways, with even an elegant specimen right next to the large pond by the rushes!
You remember the pond, which was put in to attract wildlife, right?
I still have tomatoes and eggplants producing. I tied up the lazy ferny stalks of my first-year asparagus to get them out of the way. The horseradish plant seems to be doing well; I have to consider what to serve it with at Christmas. My dad loved horseradish sauce, as do I, and I grow it as a memory of him and our Polish heritage on his side. I used to make him his favorite soup, borscht, but I would never taste it because I just don’t like beets.
Tomorrow, if I can move my joints after many days of weeding, I’ll clear out the remaining ’empty’ bed and cover the unused ones with compost and straw to sit until spring. I am so glad that I can garden almost year-round!
- Bees, Chickens, Gardening adventures, Other Insects, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Vegetables
Crazy-Pot Seeds
Today, the palindromic 11/11/11, was also Veteren’s Day and a day between two rainy weekends. A perfect day for spreading lots of seeds. With winter rains on their way in a month, it is important to hold the topsoil with rooted plants, and why not use a cover crop that also fixes nitrogen? My choices were hairy vetch and a tall native lupine.
I would also have liked to use white or sweet clover but sources were sold out early this year. Both my choices will have flowers that offer plenty of nectar to bees, be lovely, hold the soil, set nitrogen, and can be, if needed, sacrificed. When you ‘sacrifice’ a nitrogen-fixer, you can either turn it under or cut the tops, leaving them in place on the soil surface to decompose.
I don’t agree with disturbing my soil microbes any more than necessary, so I won’t be tilling ever again. When you cut a nitrogen-fixer, the roots release the nitrogen they hold into the soil as the tops mulch then decompose bringing lots of nutrition to the soil surface. Vetch should be a winter crop, and lupine a spring crop, if they can tell the difference here in San Diego!
My method for spreading these two was to mix handfuls of each with a bucket of mushroom compost, and hand spread it in the most bare and most unfertile areas.
Adding the compost, I thought, helped the seed distribute more evenly, gave it a little cover since I wasn’t going to rake it in, and disguised it from birds a little.
Once done, I decided it was also a good time to do something I had been looking forward to doing for years: spreading old veggie seeds. I’d done a little of this in a raised veggie bed, with some success. I have so many old packets of veggie seeds that I’m not going to use in the raised beds (I have all organic seed now), and I can’t believe that it isn’t viable. If they sprout seeds found in ancient Egyptian tombs, then I’m sure mine can sprout, too. This seeding is a very important step in the edible forest garden.
This year’s abundance of herbs, squash and tomatoes has been fabulous… I still have some ‘feral’ tomatoes putting on enormous fruit which I pick, polish and eat out of hand in the garden while I’m working.
I opened all the packages of seed for cool-weather vegetables, such as carrots, radish, dill, broccoli rabe, and lettuces. Some such as garlic chives and onion I separated out and sprinkled near roses, since alliums are a companion plant for roses and help ward away aphids. The rest of it was mixed up in a lovely crazy-pot of seeds. I didn’t mix with compost this time, as there were fewer and smaller seeds involved. I sprinkled them then covered them with soil using my foot… the professional way to plant!
I am eager to see what comes up after the rain this weekend. It truely will be an edible landscape. Even if I allow the veggies to go to seed, the blooms will all be excellent bee food sources, especially the carrots and dill. None of these were nitrogen-fixers, because I used all the extra peas up in the vegetable beds this spring (see archives) improving the soil. Beans, and other warmer-weather seeds I’m holding back for February or March planting. I do have sweetpea seeds to plant out, but the lupine and vetch will be working their magic anyway.
About ten years ago I had a short story published in the young person’s magazine Cricket called Taking Tea with Aunt Kate. In it a girl lived with her mother who was a wild, messy gardener, spreading seeds all together and having veggies and flowers mingling in riots of color. The girl’s aunt is, by contrast, perfectly coiffed and takes her to a formal ‘high tea’ at a prestigious restaurant. The girl decides that she can be a little of each woman, a little wild and a little formal. I think I’m that child! I clean the dirt out from under my nails so that I can go to the opera.
I’ll be walking the garden in the next few weeks, waiting for tell-tale sprouts (and trying to figure out if they are weeds or not!), and watching the bare areas come to life. How fun!
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Bathing a Hen
Between harvesting, drying, weeding, watering and keeping out of the sun, we’ve been very busy with the garden and animals, so I apologize for not writing often. If you’ll remember one of our hens, Evelyn, passed away due to egg binding. Egg binding is just what it sounds like: they don’t come out, and it can be fatal. Another of our chickens, Kakapo, showed signs of trouble and we gave her baths and babied her, and now she is laying enormous eggs (poor girl!). Now Lark, the darker of the two Barred Rocks, is having trouble. She laid one egg and perhaps a weak-shelled one as well, and then nothing. We had her in a cage in the living room, gave her warm baths then put her out. Still nothing. Then yesterday she was acting very strangely during the day, so we gave her another warm bath and a massage.
There isn’t much else to do. Of course, we’re leaving for ten days starting tomorrow, and although there will be a housesitter living here, I don’t think chicken bathing is on her to-do list. Things always happen just before going on vacation, of course, so one of our cats isn’t looking good but refused to be caught, and our desert tortoise Homer is still missing. We have signs up (if people would stop taking them down!) and hopefully he’ll make himself known to people.
I’ll be without Internet on our trip. We will be birding and looking at historical and natural wonders in Cornwall, England, including Land’s End, Penzance, Jamaica Inn, Camelot, and the Isle of Scilly. I wanted to blog on the trip but we are keeping our luggage to carry-ons, and the choice between hiking boots and a laptop was a clear one to me. So I’ll post about our travels after the 16th. Send happy thoughts to our animals and housesitter! Take care. - Chickens, Gardening adventures, Heirloom Plants, Permaculture and Edible Forest Gardening Adventures, Photos, Ponds, Rain Catching, Vegetables, Vegetarian
The August Garden
Plants have been enjoying the beautiful weather and the constant irrigation from the well, and the garden is flourishing. So, unfortunately, is the Bermuda grass, but that is another tale. Since I see it everyday I don’t notice the change so much, but when I show someone around I am thrilled all over again with the incredible change that has happened on this property. There are so many birds, insects, reptiles and other animals either already here or scouting it out that I know the project is a success. It is a habitat, not just for me and my family, but for native flora and fauna as well. It wasn’t so long ago that I had a cracked, weedy asphalt driveway, a termite-ridden rickety porch that needed pest control, a house with a stinky deteriorating carpet and old splotchy paint, a tile kitchen counter with the grout gone in between and a cleaning nightmare, and a yard full of snails, weeds and Washingtonia palm trees, with the embankment eroding each rainfall. Over the last four years we’ve survived some pretty intense construction projects (none of which were done on time, no matter what they promised!). My house still has some repairs that need to be done but I no longer am embarrassed to have anyone over. The garden is wonderful to walk in and explore. I’ve taken some photos this evening to show you how things are growing:
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Dedicated to Evelyn
We’ve gathered seven eggs from the girls this week. We believe the first one was Evelyn’s, the beautiful blond Buff Orpington. The next ones are Miss Amelia’s, followed by a blue/green one from Chickpea and unbelievably, a brownish one from our other Americauna, Kakapo.
The two Barred Rocks are too young yet to lay, but they certainly are interested in what is suddenly so popular about the nesting boxes.
The nesting platform in the chicken tractor isn’t deep enough to keep straw from being kicked off, so I’ve put up three bee ‘supers’, which are four sides and no top or bottom. Until something else can be arranged, they do just fine.
Watching the girls as they become hens has been interesting. Miss Amelia sat in the nesting box and panted.
She allows me to pet her now, as she squats into the mating pose. It is a little disturbing, and doubtlessly frustrating for both her and Emerson who is caged separately.
Chickpea, the big girl, jumps from box to box annoying everyone trying to nest in there. She kicks as much bedding out as she can, sending it flying across the coop with her big feet. When she’s ready to lay she goes into a chicken trance. You can wave your hand in front of her eyes and there is no response, just some panting. Then, voila! A beautiful greenish egg.
Kakapo is the nest builder. She’ll squat down in one of the boxes then lean her head far out of it, almost losing her balance, to grab a wisp of straw to throw over her shoulder into the box.
We hadn’t seen Evelyn lay, but assumed the first egg which was pointier than Miss Amelia’s, was hers. She’d been in a mood for several days and had settled down. Yesterday, though, she sat down in the corner of the pen by her beau Emerson and took a nap in the daytime which was uncharacteristic. She appeared perfectly healthy; in fact, I commented on how red and full her wattles were. This morning we found our dear Evelyn dead on the floor in the corner of the coop. We also found two eggs with transparent shells in the lay box. There was no evidence of what made her die, but I’m guessing it had something to do with the egg-laying. We don’t know who laid the shell-less eggs, but that shouldn’t kill anyone. It is remedied with more calcium in their diets on top of their lay pellets. Perhaps she was egg-bound, or just couldn’t handle the eggs. We were horrified and greatly saddened. I buried Evelyn under the lime tree just behind the coop. Now we have five hens and a rooster. We gave the girls crushed egg shells and kale leaves, and I’ll sprinkle calcium on their food tomorrow. We’ll miss the beautiful Evelyn something terrible.
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A Little Brown Gift (and it isn’t what you might imagine)
Yesterday’s blog post was my 100th posting. I was wondering what kind of post I should write to celebrate, when my animal family took the decision right out of my hands… and put something else back into my daughter’s hands that was cause for celebration:
I had just been reminding the girls (hens) that their egg-laying should commence in August, and since they didn’t have a calendar in their coop, what the date was. This afternoon I stepped into their coop to fill their food dispenser, and saw the first egg! So small and so perfect. We aren’t sure whose egg it is, except that it doesn’t belong to Chickpea or Kakapo the Americaunas because they will lay blue and green eggs. Our bet is on Evelyn because she was squawking a lot this week, and since she’s at the top of the pecking order, perhaps she felt that it was her duty to lay first and impress her beau Emerson. Emerson is separated from the girls by chicken wire so that he may keep company, albeit frustrated company, with them. We separated him just in time to not have fertile eggs!
So the egg is in the refrigerator, the nesting area is replete with straw, and we are eagerly awaiting more eggs. Miss Amelia was showing signs of being disturbed about something. Passing the first egg would be quite uncomfortable, I’m sure. As a mother of two, I’m actually positive about that. Chickpea – who reminds me a bit of Meryl Streep playing Julia Child – was determined to kick all the straw off and bother her, so maybe tomorrow. What a great little brown gift!