Fall Happens Fast, Eggs, New Section to the Left

Fall Happens Fast:

This is our garden now.  Harvested and a little bare but not quite put to bed for the winter either.  We have compost to mix in, straw to cover it with and a few more things to do.  We harvested the last of our tomatoes and dug up about 10 lbs of carrots.  Onions are still in place.  We transplanted the sage and oregano to containers and will continue growing them in the basement windows.  We also started containers of basil and cilantro.  We are now reviewing how we felt things went this year with a few corrections.

• Tomatoes need more room and better support. Their carrot companions need to be reachable.
• Zucchini needs more room and protection from the squirrels
• Acorn Squash has the same needs.
• We will be growing corn next year.
• And the chickens won't be allowed in the garden because they add too much nitrogen to the soil. 
• Fencing is in our future.
• And we need a way to put up small hoop house like structures for fall and winter stuff.

Eggs!

All of our chickens are now laying eggs about 5 per chicken week each.  Which means that we will be working to supply eggs to others. They started by laying some of the cutest little eggs I've ever seen.  Yummy too.

"Whats Available":  The New Section to the Left

You will note a new section to the left.  I will be posting egg availability.  For those who want to have eggs, come on by and pick them up.  An email or phone call to me will get it all set up.  Donations for the feed bill will be accepted.

There will be other things available as well - mostly herbs for this winter but next year we'll be adding to the list.

EGGS...Henny Penny and Shirley Goodness and Mercy

Wow, I had no idea it would be this long before I could post about getting our first eggs.  First thing to know is that we brought in a ringer, an older hen who has been laying but finishing up on molt.  She is clearly bigger on all counts.

What fun to watch our younger pullets get to know a new hen and establish a new pecking order but ALSO the differences between the new hen and our girls.  As you can see in previous posts, our pullets are pretty at ease with our yard, our dog, our grass, our garden and all the humans that come walking through.  This was ALL new to the her.  First time we let them out of the pen she was shocked to be on grass (she was on mud previously with some out and about in a wooded field) so she tried to eat the lawn - all of it.  Our dog Obie had to put up with a screaming chicken for the first few times she saw him in the yard.  Our pullets, Obie and just about every other critter in the area stopped and stared at her.  She has now calmed down.  She was very concerned about every person that came through the back yard and would run for cover or into the coop. 

Almonds and a big change.

A few days ago Elizabeth wanted to enjoy one of those last tolerable evenings outside with the chickens hanging around.  We sat with the day coming to an end, birds, squirrels, chickens, dog, cat.  We fed the chickens by hand and the new one figured out that maybe humans are *ok*.   But then, we were finishing up some dry roasted unsalted almonds and we decided to crush 'em up and see what the chickens thought of them.  HUGE HIT - we got mobbed including the new hen.  And, from that moment on, she is like the others.  Confident, curious.  She runs to great us.  She waits at the door for us to come back out.  She makes welcoming noises when she sees us.  Its all about the possibility of more almonds.  

AND...She has since rewarded us with a little bit of perfection as shown in the picture below.

Fall arrived, Ending Summer Projects, Rain Barrels and Planning Next Year

Fall Arrived

Whammo, September 4th, 2010.  The sun didn't come up for forever.  The temperature was in the 40s for the first time since May.  The humidity was down near 50% for the first time since May.  Leaves began to fall.   It turned to fall.  Just like that.  Over night.

Ok, not really.  I know we will have more hot steamy days this year but for this weekend it seemed like it was late fall.

Ending Summer Projects

Elizabeth, with help from our chickens, is finishing up painting our purple fence.  I have to replace and repair a section of it. But we are close to completing that project.  The fence was in need of new paint when we moved in.  It took awhile, and possibly all my butch credibility, to find the correct color purple but there it is.


I have started the process of closing up the chicken coop for winter.  I count that our chickens are about 16 weeks.  So we have another month before eggs start showing up and even then I want them to have enough light and enough warmth to produce through the winter.   That means putting proper frames together for the windows and closing up the underside of the roof.

In the garden we are dealing with the march of the squash.  Acorn squash and Pumpkins have begun winding their way through everything, even through our fence out into the drive way.  We are working to expand the gardens for next spring.  This will allow more planting area that we know we need.

Rain Barrels
 
Finally!  Just in time for fall...rain barrels.  It took awhile to find some that were appropriate.  The installation of them seems to be easy for stage one: a barrel at the end of the downspout with spigot and over flow pipe.  State two will be to hook these together in some way, including our sumps, and feed that water into a barrel where we can use a pump to water our garden.  Sounds easy - I'm getting there, just not as quickly as I would like.

Planning for Next Year

We are planning crops for next year.   We want more tomatoes and better onions, we want to grow some sweet corn and we want more cucumbers.  In short, we need to make more garden so we can have the room we need to plant more food.   I will explain this in more detail later.

Of Sunflowers and Squirrel Wars

My Grandmother lived in a home that had 3 HUGE Oak trees in the back yard in Columbus, Wisconsin.  Those trees formed a cathedral of sorts towering over her home and the large back yard.  They were magnificent. I have been told that my grandparents chose to build their retirement home there, on a lot across from the home where they raised their family, in part to save those trees from being cut down.

We spent hours and hours watching the gray squirrels and song birds that frequented the feeders on her deck overlooking that incredibly beautiful space. The song birds were all identified, adored and welcomed with specific food for their needs.  The squirrels were not.  They were greedy little rascals that provided some limited entertainment but ultimately were destructive. There were many iterations of bird feeders to prevent the squirrels from stealing all the food. When we shooed them away, they would stomp their feet, clearly curse at us and bite a chunk of wood off the railings.  This was a decades long relationship...to the point where she finally had her rails covered in metal.  She was in her mid to late 80s when I brought her a Super Soaker squirt gun.  I can still remember the delight in her eyes when she realized she could load it, pump it up and aim it and shoot the squirrels from 20 feet away.  One my very favorite memories of her is watching her stand in front of the door to her deck silhouetted by bright morning sun in her night gown and slippers with the loaded supersoaker at her side telling the squirrels they better look out, "I'm armed".

So, I am familiar with squirrels and their bad habits and the utter lack of long-term real solutions to the problems they present.

In my home, I love the morning light that comes into the guest bedroom.  I hate the street lamp our neighbors put up over the alley that is now closed off.  They are quite sure it prevents break-ins.  I am skeptical but we pay our share of the bill and maintenance anyway.  It makes for terrible light beaming in the back windows of our home.  The sun never really sets.

To preserve the peaceful light in the guest bedroom and screen out the painful midnight sun, I planted Mammoth Sunflowers right in front of the window.  Those are the ones that grow 15 feet or so, they provide a little bit of  a screen for the evening light and don't shut out the wonderful morning light and won't add too much to the leaves and such in our gutters.  I planted 15 or so of them.  We lost several to our 87lb rabbit (Obie loved the small seedling leaves) and we ended up with 5 that grew big enough to provide the screen.  Beautiful.

These two anecdotes comes together here.  I said I am familiar with squirrels earlier.   It turns out that our chickens have the same opinion I do  about the squirrels.  They have decided to protect our back yard for all manner of rodents including the chipmunks, red squirrels and the gray squirrels.  The chipmunks and red squirrels simply avoid the confrontation.  The grey squirrels, well, they have taken a different approach. After vacation, I discovered that our chickens were running all the rodents out of our back yard.  Some unsuspecting gray squirrel would come into the yard and the chickens would descend on it.  This lead to a great deal of squirrel cursing, stomping of feet etc.  This escalated into a more general declaration of war.

The squirrels took to using our back entry way and sidewalk as their toilet and throwing nuts of all manner at the chickens.

One of the pathways exiting our back yard turned out to be our sunflowers growing up near the back of the house.  The squirrels were using the sunflowers to get from our roof down to the garden.  They would also use them as a quick exit when the chickens chased them out.  And, I am sure, would stomp their feet and take a chunk out of a sunflower on the way out.  They lopped the heads off 3 sunflowers.  The chickens have taken to hanging out under the sunflowers to catch the squirrels.  We have 1 tall sunflower and 1 much shorter sunflower remaining.

Public Note to Self...next year, plant more sunflowers and plant them  farther away from the house so they do not become the squirrel highway.

Growing Chickens, Guilds and Nest Boxes.

Growing Chickens

Our chickens continue to grown putting on a little bit more weight every day.  We are still more than a month away from getting eggs.  We are starting to let them out to wander in the back yard.  I have enjoyed watching them weed the garden (not really go for the veggies just grass and weeds).  They clearly like hanging out by the compost the best because they find more worms and bugs there.

They are also much more experienced with our dog, Obie, and cat, Ralph.  Obie kind of watches over them.  When he is laying down next to us on a quiet evening, the chickens come over to us and pick unseen things out of his fur until he gets up and moves.  Ralph has had thoughts of getting a chick from the time they were inside in their brooder and he was able to watch them grow.  They are very big by comparison and his dreams of getting one vanished in front of my eyes.  He came out back and was sort of stalking one of the chickens.  I was getting ready to grab him when the chicken turned around, walked over to him and given him a significant peck right between the eyes.  That was it, Ralph ran for the door asking to go inside.  From that moment forward, he hasn't even looked at them.  He won't go out when the chickens are out.

We have hawks that are of concern and as a result, we do not let them just hang out on their own.  I have seen a hawk fly by, see me, and leave.  That was enough for me to plan a better roof for the outside pen.



What the Heck is a Guild?

We are using some ideas borrowed from a kind of farming/landscaping practice called "permaculture" in our backyard.  If you remember, I ripped out a Viburnum to build the coop.  I left one in place and since then we have planted a variety of native plants in and around the drip line of the remaining tree.  In our case we planted Spiderwort, Thistle, and Ramps (native leeks).  This community of plants working in harmony with the shrub is called a guild.  There are more of these communities coming was we plant Cherry, Apple and Pear Trees to complete the permanent additions to our yard/farm.


This area is our chickens' favorite place.  Under the Viburnum behind the ramps and spiderwort.  Shady, cool, buggy.  Perfect.  Wish we'd planned it that way.  They are cute in it, I think the plants benefit from the scratching of the earth and the bug removal.  I think the plants suffer from being stepped on periodically but not enough to discourage the chickens.


Nest Boxes

I am simply announcing here and now - more than a month before they are due to start laying.  The nest boxes, two of them, are nearly complete way before they are needed.  This is a victory for me.  Figured I'd just say so.

Garden imps and the 87 pound rabbit.

It has been too long and I am sorry.  My life became a whirlwind of unexpected proportion all of a sudden.  Now, with a couple days of quieter time, I have a moment to write.

Garden Imps:

Our garden has taken off.  I have harvested more peas,  lettuce and strawberries than ever before.  I am currently trying to keep up with the kale, cucumbers ans zucchini. Breads, soups, and kale crisps. 

Each time I walk about the back door there is a chirp or squeak and a trail of moving plants in this garden.  Some significant numbers of strawberries and cucumbers have been eaten but not enough to really make me upset.  

I was finally able to identify the imp by noting the holes in the sand under our chicken coop and patio pavers...5 stripe chipmunks.  Now, that left me with a question:  who is eating the strawberries and cucumbers? They were getting eaten whole.  I've seen a rabbit or two and thought it I had a solution that question too.

The 87 Pound Rabbit

Our home is set up so that the bedroom windows look out onto the garden.  I am usually the first one up and I have a routine.  I check out the back window on the gardens and the chickens and see that all is well in the morning sun.  I like the peacefulness of the space we have back there.  I feed the dog, make some coffee and let the dog out and sit down to my morning emails. Nice, quiet, peaceful before the day gets going.

It happened that walking the dog a week or so ago, I got badly stung by hornets - never saw the nest, 3 maybe 4 stings on my hand.  It blew up to be the shape of a latex glove used as a balloon and caused nights to be uncomfortable.  All of this is relevant because I was not the first up in the morning.  I woke up to hearing my partner in the kitchen letting the dog out and getting something for breakfast.

I went to the window and saw with my own eyes who has been taking the cucumbers and strawberries.  Its Obie our dog.  I watched as he walked over to the garden, poked his nose under leaf after leaf, take that one, and this one, oh, that one is good too.  87 pounds of rabbit.

He likes kale stems, strawberries (they're done now) and cucumbers.  We have to watch him because he really likes the cucumbers and he's sneaky.

Next post: growing chickens, plant guilds and nest boxes.

A Choosing Time

Wow this came so fast.  I am calling this time on our tiny homestead A Choosing Time. I am guessing there will be more than one.

Choosing Chickens: 

We have had to choose our chickens.  5 Cockerels/Roosters went back to our wonderful breeder including the ever-fun foster chick I *rescued* at Recreation Park.   He was clearly a rooster from the beginning but we enjoyed him a great deal while he was here.  We may have one more that will have to be returned and one that may come back as time tells us more clearly who is hen and who is cockerel.  For now, we are down to 4 chickens and our coop and pen are much much quieter.  The hens are deciding on the new roosting options now that they have more room.  They were scared the first couple days, opting to stay in the coop tempted by their favorite treat, sour clover.


Choosing for New Crops and Next Year:

I have learned a great deal in just this few months about what has been successful in our gardens.  Good news: not many looser crops so far.  Bad News: I want more of everything and thus need more gardening space.  We are loving our large cache of Kale.  Love it.  I want to specialize in Dinosaur Kale but I will see how it goes over the winter.  Swiss Chard...lovely!  It is a big hit with us.  As a plant, it is a heavy feeder but I think we can handle that.

Along adding to the volume of the things I like, I want to try a bunch of new crops: Patty Pan Squash, Pumpkins, Potatoes and I want to try mushrooms. 


The next project will be to close the ends of our gardens in with more gardens to get the space I want. 



And Some Good News:

Obie was allowed to keep his tail for now.  The cyst/abscess nasty thing began to heal nicely in the time between the diagnosis and the scheduled surgery date.  Given the choice, I  opted not to hack it off.  That said, if it gets infected again, we're back to that question.  He did have two large cysts removed and did get the world's worst haircut but he has done surprisingly well. He does insist on walking our block clockwise so his naked patches don't show to the street. He is now back to being our 87lb rabbit eating sunflower leaves, lettuce and strawberries when he gets the chance.

First Havests have Started and a Flood

First Harvests:

We are feeling lucky to be starting to harvest from our gardens.  It is mostly greens but they are wonderful.  We have a couple kinds of lettuce that we love.  One is something called a Trout's Back lettuce.  The Butter Lettuce is especially bright right now. 

We continue to receive seedlings from friends including a series of heritage tomatoes: Purple Cherokee, Speckled Roma, Mr. Stripey and some others.  Our onions are now all in and the peas are starting to climb.  The squash are moving into larger leaves and they starting to reach out a bit.  Our broccoli is showing its head a bit.  On the whole we are pleased and are thinking about the next steps in converting our yard into our homestead.

As you can see the chickens continue to grow and look more and more like they will as adults.  They are curious about everything now that they are outside.  Robins and Blue Jays frighten them and they run back into the coop when one arrives.  I have not seen the hawks I saw earlier this year but I do have the outside run now completely covered in chicken wire and avian netting.  

We are particularly lucky because we had a deluge of rain that left most of our block with flooded basements and flooded yards.  So much so that I spent Sunday pumping out the flood next door so that our yard wouldn't get flooded.

The Flood of 2010 (so far):
The house next door is vacant.  They were long time-residents and a much beloved family here and the neighbors do what we can to keep it up until they are ready to put it on the market.  Including using our spare sump pump to move more than an olympic sized swimming pool of water out of their yard.  7 hours of pumping.

This was the same set of storms that did so much damage in Toledo, Oh and Dundee, MI.  We slept through the whole thing but we got pretty busy the next morning.  Some water in our basement but this pond...this one was going to do damage.  What you see is me standing with the electrical cord in my hand (dry and above the water) and the PVC pipe and pump leaning on my thigh as it pumps water out to the storm drains in the street.

I am pleased with my decision to keep the pump with a faulty on/off switch (always on) as a spare.  It really came in handy AND the new pump I replaced it with worked wonders.  I was even more pleased that I found a flat spot for the pump and I could get out of the water. 

And with that, I think I will take my chair out back and enjoy the evening.

First Post: Chicken Progress

Just a quick note: there will be two posts today.  I have the time, I'm goin for it!

Building a chicken coop for city chickens can either be incredibly complicated or very simple.  Ours is not at the complicated end of the spectrum but its on the way there - formal walls, doors, windows, and a proper structure and roof.  I went this route for two reasons.  First, the more sturdy the coop the better I'll sleep.  Second, I had the vast majority of the materials sitting in/choking my shop.  They are what remains of my former workshop.

First it was a foundation.

Then came walls.

 Then a proper roof.

And last but not least, The chicks!

I took the opportunity to sit with them in the fresh bedding for a while.  They are very cute in their new digs.  The windows are working perfectly.  I still have to build some nest boxes and their outside runs (coming soon).

 They have adult sized feeder and waterer and a dust bath.  The still have their chick-size roost but more are coming.  The human door is attached, the chicken door still needs to be installed. 

A couple things I did along the way:

First many thanks to the wonderful person who put her storm windows up on craigslist for free.  These are the windows you see.  I installed them backwards so they could be opened from the outside.

Second: The all of the sides and windows that are not covered by wood are covered with either hard cloth or chicken wire.  This coop is critter proof.


Third: I planned for winter now.  The walls are insulated if they aren't a window or door.  Second, I set up a way to simply insulate under the roof when winter comes. 

What do to from here?  Plenty.  I have to make two outside runs for these birds.  Both of these runs will be solid and set up for winter ahead of time too.  I plan to put plastic sheeting on at least one to help warm the coop.  Also, I have a spot reserved for nest boxes and those need to be in by late August.  And lastly...roosts.  These birds prefer to sleep off the ground and the higher the better...so I need to put in a few roosts.

So there it is:  Coop warming party will happen soon.

Second Post: The Yard

Our Yard is starting to take shape.  In the beginning, I said we had very little to go on in making our little home in the city into an Urban Homestead.  We have made some progress.

Half of our front yard is in deep shade.  We transplanted ferns from a friend's home early on.  They seem to be doing well.  We added two kinds of Hosta (variegated, and plain) and a bunch of Sweet Woodruff to the mix yesterday- about 20 Hosta and an equal amount of of the Sweet Woodruff.  These came to us from my Mother's front yard.  She has a bountiful supply and offered.  I will try to dig up some more next time I am there.

In the back yard, our veggie gardens are starting to take off and our other plantings are too.  I transplanted my peonies as soon  as I couple and both are blooming wonderfully.  We are trying to make the back yard more mower (meaning the person no the machine) friendly and will be taking up more and more bits of lawn as the summer continues.  For now we have made the peony patch bigger and added a couple Lupine and a Feverfew plant  to that.  We have also added another raised bed garden for asparagus.  We have planted a few roots of cultivated asparagus and, honestly, we'll be heading out to get some wild asparagus too. 

Our next steps are all based on managing water.   Rain barrels and  probably a wetland on the side of the house to clean and use gray water from our sump pumps. 

Coop Construction and Busy Time

Coop Construction: 
The Chicken Coop is under way and is taking shape nicely.  It is going to have a skinny human door, two chicken doors (there will be two outside runs) and a little front porch to get out of the weather. 

In general fully grown chickens need about 3 feet of coop space provided there is an outside run.  7 feet each for the outside run.  Our required max is 4 laying hens. The inside part of the coop has 30 square feet so we're good.  The outside space for birds is something like 8 feet per bird.  We will be WAY beyond the 32 feet minimum. I am ahead of myself.

The Chicks

Our chicks continue to grow and continue to feather out.  As you can see they are all doing well.  The new arrival seems to have found its place amongst the rest.  They grow even when it rains - and that means I have to get this coop done in the next day or so to take advantage of the sunny weather.
A Busy Time:

It is a busy and challenging time here in our home.  Some of the news is difficult.  I have a friend who has fought breast cancer for 14 years and is coming to the end of her war.  Obie, our beloved golden retriever will be having surgery to amputate his tail soon.  He has developed a series of abscesses need to be tended too.  One is on his tail and there isn't enough skin to close it back up.  He is nearly 14 and this makes the surgery, while still needed, more risky.  I have more work both on our little urban homestead and for customers than I ever intended to have.  All of this is to say that I intend to keep posting at least once a week, I may miss a bit.

And I Got This Call...

a voice said "there is an adolescent chicken hanging out on the play equipment at Rec Park, can you rescue it"?

I was standing in the veterinarian's office with Obie who has an infection on this tail.  Visiting the vet today was not my plan and I certainly had no intention of chasing a chicken around in a public park.  But I said I would go see.

After our vet loaded us up with antibiotics and a satellite dish collar, I loaded Obie into the van and we went on an adventure.

Turns out this little chick was not an adolescent by any stretch.  More like two weeks old- same age as my chicks.  The people at the park said he was on the play set and slid down the slide.  And now, I have are 9 chicks.

I brought the chick home and started with it in a separate box with water and feed.  Obviously starving and thirsty, it drank and ate everything it could and feel asleep.  Then the music started: peep peep peep.  Then a return from the other box: peep peep peep.  Pretty soon it was clear that both boxes knew about each other.  Then, as if to explain how this chick was on the run, it jumped up onto the edge of the box and hopped over onto the top of the other box.  I lifted the lid and let this little one join the crowd.

So far, so good.  I have seen some minimal pecking.  The Buckeye chicks are very concerned about tall dark and beautiful but are getting used to it.  This new chick also seems to have a solid set of self-defense skills.  They all seem to be settling in nicely.

I sent several emails to the various lists of people around and I am hopeful someone will come forward to reclaim their chick.  If not, well, I'll be waiting to see if we have a hen or a roo.

Growing Chicks and Changes Outside

First the Chicks:
Lots of growing and changing on all fronts.  They are learning to view humans as possible food providers and have started eating food out of our hands.  This is good now.  I expect it to be painful later on.

As you will see, their digs have changed too - they needed a bigger box and a littler change.

This whole process, according to them, was the most traumatic event ever. Oh, the peeping! Murder most fowl.  I cut the end off the new box, set up the litter, feeder and water in it and moved the chicks in there.  Then emptied the old box and cut its end off too.  I married the two boxes together , added littler and added a wooden roost. I don't know if it is too early for the roost but they are climbing all over it and seem to very interested in the change.

There is one more change coming.  I arrived home after work on evening to find the door to the office wide open, the cat asleep on the chair and the dog asleep on the floor.  The chicks were fine but it is clear that I just got lucky.  So there will be a top for their box coming this weekend.  In this case, better safe than lucky. 

As you can also see - they are really growing.  New sets of feathers everyday.  It is warmer out so the move out to the garage is coming closer (unless I get the coop done first).

Now for the Gardens:  
They are growing too.  Sprouts everywhere.  We did have one loss with the continual rain and I will be replacing our "Trout Back" lettuce today at the Growing Hope Plant sale.  It just plain rotted out. Drowned.  The new additions for this week are flowers. Elizabeth wanted flowers as part of our back yard and here they are!  Zinnias, Pansies, Daisies, and Black-eyed Susans.    I will have to add the picture later...camera has to charge up. 

The Peep Show...

Peeps! They have arrived...

And they are now set up for a few days in the study because its too freakin' cold out to have them in the garage.

Buckeye Chickens
So, what kind of chickens did I get?  Buckeyes.  First, honestly, I didn't want the same old chicken I keep seeing all over the place.  So I did a little research on chicken breeds and, there was a somewhat rare heritage breed developed by Nettie Metcalf in Ohio.  She was trying to create a breed of chicken that was cold-hardy.

Buckeyes are darker birds and have a pea comb that isn't as susceptible to injuries from frostbite.  The ones pictured to the left are the "parents" to my peeps.  The adults, I'm told are pretty easy going.  They are "dual purpose" birds.  This means they are for both eggs and meat.  I've been told that dual purpose birds are not as high volume in the egg department but they lay for a longer stretch of their lifetimes and have a more easy going temperament.  Bred by a woman, bred in Ohio...called Buckeyes.  I'm there! I grew up in central Ohio and I love the idea of buckeye chickens living in Ann Arbor (and Ypsilanti is the perfect spot for that kind of rebellion).

Turns out I am not first comer to that party.  There is a breeder here in the Ann Arbor area and he was fabulous to work with.  A visit to his farm was wonderful:  llamas were getting shorn; Tennessee Fainting Goat kids were running around; and he has some Guinea fowl that where fascinating.

Peeps

So far the chicks have settled in nicely.  Scratching and pecking in their box.  The office is warmer than it was and that is good for me because we are refusing to turn the heat back on and the rest of the house is cold. 

Right now they have a heat lamp over them.  They have a waterer and a feeder set up to one side.  The heat lamp gave me fits yesterday.  I had them in another box and it was clearly way too hot and the box was too short - they were almost jumping out of it.  So on to a larger box  with the heat lamp at a higher (meaning cooler) position.  It took most of the evening to get the lamp right (up, down - warmer, cooler).  The birds told the story.  They were either huddled on top of one another or all separate and panting.  I have a digital thermometer set up in the box too - just to keep track.  They seem to be happiest at an 84 - 86 degrees. 

Corn cob bedding...for chicks...not so good.  The cob bits look almost exactly like their food so until they know what their food is, don't use it.  I had to switch out.  Later on?  I think think corn cob, while expensive, is a good idea.  It is very absorbent and its kind of like really course sand.

Next Step
The next step will be a move out to a larger brooder in the garage (with a hardwire top).  It is just too cold to do that right now.   Plus, I think the closer contact with me is a good thing.  They were pretty scared yesterday.  They seem more settled today but I still feel like I am this invading giant.  Obie has made a couple visits too. He seems very interested but nothing like the cat who spent last night trying to open the study door.

Falling Asleep
We are just getting started but I can see all the typical chicken things I would expect: scratching, stretching, an early pecking order.  One cute thing to mention is that they fall asleep in mid stride.  Boom, out.  Then back up for more.  They do this as a group too - huddled in a corner and fall asleep slowly - the group looks like a deflating air mattress.

The are incredibly cute.

More Transformation Front and Back

So for this weekend, our continued transformation has brought us plants from the Growing Hope Seedling sale and a few additions from friends.

Our gardens are growing now with seedlings and seeds of various veggies.  The list is long but some of the highlights are a couple striped heritage tomatoes, black root lettuce, collards, bell peppers and Kale...we love kale, thus there is a bunch of both curly kale and dinosaur kale.  The dino kale is new but anything called dinosaur would probably find a home in my garden.  The idea that its kale is even better.




There a couple more additions to the yard that are worth talking about.  First up is the dark half of the front yard.  It has no grass, it is very dark shade and its wet.  We decided to make it into something resembling a woodland trail from the back of the house to the front.  This would include a walk way and ferns.  I went back to my desire for anything that is NOT grass and IS edible and thus today we spent some time planting Cinnamon Ferns (fiddle heads in spring).  I am very excited about all of this. 

Second is a replacement boundary for the hedge at the entry to the drive way.  Officially its an alley.  There is pretty useless hedge there now so what to do?  Well, another remarkable urban homesteader friend of ours showed up with a couple Hazel Nut seedlings.  Yup - nuts.  The trees grow to a reasonable size (in this case maybe 10 feet tall) and take about 3 years to start  bearing nuts provides there are both male and female trees in the same general area.  There isn't a way to really tell which are which so we planted two, we'll probably plant a couple more just to be sure. 

Rainy Day Pondering

We have had a glorious spring but very little rain.  Today is going to be all rain, all the time.

With that, I am updating my blog a bit.  Look to the left and see the links.  Does anyone have any suggestions on cool urban farming websites, urban chickens or local-vore websites?  I would love to get some to add to the link lists.

My seeds are spread out on my work bench.  Waiting for the right time to plan and I am enough of a wimp that I am not going to plant in the rain.

Playing With Dirt

OK,OK not really playing.  It was hard work.  That said, what better way to spend Earth Day?

The first gardens are in.  They are primarily for veggies and yes, we are generally using the square foot method.  I say "generally" because a friend gave me 25 strawberry plants and it just put them in without the square foot measure.  Another friend gave me a kale seedlings and I have tucked them into another spot but will transplant them again when the time comes.

I started with a decking planks and added 2 yards of top soil.  In all, 132 square feet of planting space.  I added some horse manure and will like add some sphagnum moss to lighten it up slightly. I did not put weed barrier down on the grass.  I got some advice that said that I could put down layers of newspaper or weed-wack the grass down to the dirt level and just cover it over.  I took that last option.

I am sore and happy and slightly sunburned.   Just about giddy with excitement about what we get to do next. 

A Day of Looking Around...

We have had some wonderful weather so far this spring and I took advantage of it by planting a bunch of irises given to us by our wonderful neighbor and a friend ours.  I also took the opportunity to look around a little bit.

We have great bird watching in the trees.  Chickadees, Nuthatches, Red Bellies, Hairies, Downies, Robins all over, Gold and Purple Finches,  Cardinals.  And...a Cooper's Hawk, well, actually I think there are two.

Our next door neighbor (other side from the iris gifter) had a huge, dead looking pine tree in their yard.  It sort of leans, no needles, no leaves.  Turns out it was not dead at all in any way and it is now greener that the rest.  It is a European Larch - deciduous pine of sorts.  It has a huge nest being built on one of the branches and I think this might be our Cooper's hawk pair.  We'll see but I am concerned for our buckeye chicks arrival and have a new emphasis on both getting the gardens planted AND getting the coop and chicken run constructed.  That coopers nest will weigh heavily on my mind during this next phase.  Don't get me wrong, I like them.  But they are a natural predator for the chicks.

 Next up: Veggie and Flower Gardens and "The Coop" - chicks are on the way sooner rather than later (meaning a week or so) and I have to get things going!  Rain Barrels and a herb garden will round out the spring works. I'm excited.

Free Compost Bins...sweat equity

This post begins with a shout out to Craigslist.org free stuff. People give the stuff they don't want away. Its a little like FreeCycle but without the joining the group and getting all the email part.

Next comes an introduction to shipping pallets. I love them. You need a van or truck to pick up a pile but they are often made out of hardwood and they make great project stock, fire wood, you name it. I have even seen a pretty cool chicken coop make from pallets. The down side? They take effort - sweat equity. They generally have to be taken apart or have things added to them to make them work for your project.  My goal was to make composting bins for free. 

Where do you get free pallets?  Craigslist.org (free)...it is a wonderful place to find all sorts of things for your home and garden.  

One pallet is in the back with a few extra slats to fill in the blanks. Then two pallets were unscrewed and re-constituted as the 3 walls. 4 hours - an additional hour to finish it off with front panels made from scrap shelves I found in the garage.

And then a funny happens.  We have a sealed black plastic composter for our kitchen scraps.  I felt that two bins would be enough for the pallet composter...this was not the case so, as you can see in the final picture, there is a third bin.  Made the same way as the others.Also, not that these are now FULL.  It took no time to fill them.

Some of the fronts are painted, this is because the wood was not sealed - I felt it would last longer if a little paint sealed the edges.

 We will probably need more bins somewhere else. But for now, we have compost bins for free.   This makes me and my empty wallet pretty darn happy.  Next up?  Well, its spring so there will be some planting.  Chicks are ordered and will arrive in a couple weeks and its time to put the gardens in.  None of this will be free.  After that - rainbarrels for $20...seriously, I'll show you.