The Chicken Wrangler

Rooster boy, staring straight into the camera.

  Yesterday was a busy beautiful outside day.  Temps never got above 72, the skies were sunny and bright. I got my old lazy butt out there about 10 o'clock and started spring cleaning the hen house. I raked all the straw out, took the feeder and water bowl and laying box out.   Took an old broom and swept down all the cobwebs from the walls and ceiling,  Then I drug the hose over and started spraying out the inside, poured half a gallon of white vinegar onto the floor and started scrubbing down the floor, roost, and whatever else needed it. It was a nasty job that took about 3 hours, start to finish, including drying time. Then I went out into the chicken run yard and started digging up some of the wetter places out there and spreading soil around. I brought out the bag of pine shavings I was using in the little pen and spread some of those on the floor of the henhouse and on the ground outside. They are a great deodorizing absorbent material. .  Then, I went to the other side of the run and cleaned out the little cubbyhole that the big chickens will be sleeping in for a couple of days, until everybody gets used to each other, and put in clean pine as well as some straw.  I pulled the fence divider across the middle of the run and went in the house to start bringing the chicks out.

  That was fun.

  I decided that using a cat carrier would be an easy way to transport them by myself, and so I brought one ion and started catching chicks. That was an ordeal, as when I opened the top of the pen to get them out, I caught one and picked him up, put him in the carrier...and 2 of them flew out into the room, screaming their bloody heads off.  LOL So, I had to catch them and that took another half an hour, as I had left the closet door open and one of the Orpingtons headed straight in there.

 Understand this: it's not your ordinary closet.  It's a pantry/Fibber McGee's closet.  Plenty of places for a frightened chick to snuggle into and try to hide.

  I finally had them all out into the great outdoors. Actually I put them into the coop, where they stayed most of the day...finally venturing out near evening. They would come to the door and look out, but not come down the ramp.  I tried to entice them with some greens and seed sprinkled at the doorway and at the bottom of the ramp, but they were having none of it. Finally I just left them alone and they came out on their own.

  This morning I went out and unlocked the door to the coop and within minutes they were out scratching in the dirt.  So far, so good.

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  I planted the Christmas Pole Lima beans yesterday too.  At the base of the teepee trellises.  Last night, while I was gone to a birthday meeting, himself planted butternut squash. Today, I am going to plant the salad bed. And maybe mow some more. Looks like himself is going to be working OT again this Friday, so more of this stuff is falling on me. It's okay...

  It's a cool morning today, about 58 degrees.  Supposed to warm up and not rain,. so that's a blessing. Lots to do and I am stalling to not get going, lol.  Think I'll run out to the garden and snip some chives and some kale and come in and have some scrambled eggs before I get too busy and don't eat. It's 10 AM already, and I've wasted about enough time.  :)  

  Everyone --have a great day. Go easy. Have some fun.  Look for the beauty in your world.

  I'm gonna go fill some bird feeders!!

Namaste.

That Fickle Mother Nature...

 MY chives...and now Mama Pea tells me I should have chopped them before the flowers. Dang! Well, even at my age, you live and you learn...lol   But...they're soooo pretty!!

  Yesterday barely missed 90 degrees. It hit 90 the day before and today is supposed to be the same. The humidity is brutal.  We seem to have warped straight from winter to summer and almost left out spring. With all the rain we've had the last few weeks around these parts, it's nice that things have dried out just enough that we can plant. And by we, I mean me, and the farmers. I get stuck behind farm machinery every single day now out on the road.

  I finished the corn, green beans, edamame and a few errant peppers that the Irishman missed planting. This was yesterday. It kept threatening to rain out my planting day, but never quite happened. When it did rain (after I was finished) it was just enough to wet things down a little and then go it's merry way. South of us, they got some pea sized hail. We had thunderboomers, but that was all. It's amazing how different the weather can be just 15 miles south of us...

  I will spend today housecleaning and cooking and puttering around before I leave for MissB's. Taking it a little easy...

  Tomorrow I will drive down and pick up my baby sister and bring her up here to Honeysuckle Hill to spend the day. She hasn't seen my newly painted walls yet, or the gardens. She had a little setback on Monday, so I will try to cheer her up. I had a rotisseried chicken yesterday and the leftovers will make a nice chicken salad for us for lunch. Today I will fix some kind of  wonderful  thing for my husband's supper tonight while I am gone...something he can easily heat up in the microwave after his 10 hours at work.

  Hopefully the sweet potatoes will be in by the weekend and we can get those in and then except for the marigolds and nasturtiums that I border my beds with for bug control, the garden will be fini! (I just realized that I didn't put any parsley or cilantro in yet!! I can tuck those plants in about anywhere...in the salad bed maybe, or near the chives.) This is life on the little homestead...it's never finished, and just when you think you're done, other things pop up.

And I wouldn't trade it for anything...




Namaste.

May Day..

  It's the first of May, and unseasonably cool. The chives, however, have flaunted their flowers and look sweet.

      
  The red maple is breathtaking this year..the colors are magnificent and the tree is finally filling out and growing taller. It's the one we brought from our little cottage in North Carolina. (You can click on these to see them closer).

  Here's the far end of the giant hosta bed. They are about 6 inches tall and will be well over 2 feet tall in another month.  There's a big bed of bee balm at the very end there...but it looks like it's being taken over by mint.  More investigating needs doing there.

  This is out on the front side of the house where we planted the edamame last year. You can see the rose of sharon there, plus the apple and cherry trees. The Irishman has turned over the dirt and added the new load of manure...

  It's time for us to figure out where we're putting things in what garden beds ...we always rotate crops, and that's one reason I keep a garden journal every year. lol  (Like we could ever remember what was where...)  We'll still plant the old standbys, like sweet potatoes and butternut squash. I'm planting a few yellow crooknecks this year, and maybe one zucchini.  No acorns or Hubbards though. They take up too much space and are too prone to insect infestations in these parts. Since we garden organically, I have to be pragmatic. I also have a bag of red pontiac seed potatoes ready to be dusted with sulphur and put in the ground. Someone told me the other day that potatoes should be in the ground by St Patrick's day. I laughed and said, well...not at Honeysuckle Hill they don't.  We never plant them that early, as you often can't get anything in the ground around here at that time.  And we always have a good crop, one that gets us through over half the winter, at least. We'll have tomatoes and okra, cucumbers and salad stuff.  We'll plant more green beans this year, as we ran out a couple of weeks ago. And I have enough edamame seed to plant again this year.  I want more stuff that I can can and dry and not freeze, as the plan is to try and be less and less dependent on electricity run machines. And this year we lost some stuff to a freezer brerakdown. Yuck. Don't want to go through that again.

   We worked out in the yards on Friday all day, then went to Mr Curry's for dinner. It was great. I did a little too much mowing on this old raggedy yard...there's nary a 2 ft stretch that is halfway level.  lol  On Saturday I had a little gig...I cooked lunch for 16 people at a yoga retreat out at the La Vista Ecological Center. It was 2 soups, salads from the gardens, bread and dessert. I worked for about 4 hours putting it all together..the vegetarian soups won rave reviews, and everyone had at least one bowl of each. It was quite fun, and I hope they ask me back to do it again. Also won a couple of promises to be at the Harvest soups workshop I'll be teaching there in November.  All in all, it was a lovely day, and I was basking in the attention and compliments.

  I have to get some granola bars made for Patrick's lunches and throw together some kind of lunch for us. He has a business meeting this morning after the Sunday group, and he'll come home after...I have to leave for MissB's at 2:30. So...I'd best be getting my butt out of this seat and into the day.

  Happy May, all y'all....



Namaste.