Toads ~ Just Kidding!

The meat chickens are growing into toads. They are huge! They are a White Cornish Cross and they are bred to be super fast growers and holy sh*&, they aren't lying! These soon to be dinner chickens (I am still struggling to be OK with this) are six weeks old and giants already. We actually take their food away from them at night, which a lot of people don't do, and they are still amazing growers. Imagine if we left food out for them 24/7. Taking the food at night slows down their growth a little so that they don't tip over for no apparent reason. This kind of chicken does that a lot. I am happy and proud to report that none of ours have. Yeah us!

 

Hard to believe they were just tiny little fuzzy guys (and girls) a mere month and a half ago. Nuts. Thank goodness people don't grown like this:-D

 

On a happier note, the laying chicks are 17 days old now and were starting to fly around the brooder so we let them out of it tonight. I think they love it. They run around and try to fly and bump chests. Sheesh, I hope that isn't the male trait coming out in my female ordered chicks. They better all be girls, that is what the hatchery was supposed to send. Roosters are currently out of my league and I don't want to have to find homes for roosters, that seems an unlikely to succeed task.

 

We had to put them into the run for a few minutes while we took the brooder out of the chicken house. They weren't sure what the heck was going on. It will probably be at least another week before they go out again, I want to make sure they are feathered properly for temperature control reasons. They have grown a lot already and still seem so small. 

Good news is that I have one very friendly chick. All the others are afraid of me. She comes right up to me and sits down in my hand. It is pretty cute. I named her Monica. She is also the smallest chick we have, kind of a runt. The next 5 friendly ones I can pick out of the bunch will become Rachel, Ross, Joey, Chandler and Phoebe. Can you tell what my all time favorite show was?

What To Do.....

I am in a quandry this morning. Do I murder a plant that got out of control or leave it and see if there is any way to make it look pretty again. Daisies are the problem in this equation. I love them but they can be so unruly. This one was not supposed to 'flop'. Yeah, right.

 

Not only did it flop, there are 5 of them in the island bed and they all flopped. We have had some uncharacteristic heavy rain for the last two weeks in this part of Idaho. Although I am thankful for the precipitation, I am furious with the these dang flowers. Stupid flowers. There, I feel better. I actually planted these pencil sized starts last fall and look what they did. They grew like they were on something. I think they like the soil here and the rain. But now they are all laying down and squashing some plants next to them. I just don't know what to do, so for today I will leave them. It is supposed to be 81 degrees today and we will see if they perk up at all. I am not, I repeat, not.... holding my breath. I may yard them out of here this weekend.

This bee balm is new to me too! Same thing, I ordered them as pencil sized starts on ebay and they really took off. Which really is amazing as I planted them in the heat of the summer. Silly me. It was cold this morning so everything is heavy with dew. This plant is 3+ ft. tall already and so far it doesn't look like it is slowing down yet. I can't wait to see what color it is. I ordered some double bloom varieties and I hope those survived. It will be another nice surprise.

 

This is yard art in my flower bed. This chair was being thrown out and I "borrowed" it out if the dump pile. I think it turned out to be the perfect thing to add some whimsy to this bed. The flowers in the pot loved the rain too!

As you can see the final cuff has been taken out of the potato bags and each pot is now full to the brim with compost. These things are growing like weeds. OK, like daisies, but who minces words this early in the morning? They are really going crazy and I sure hope (fingers crossed, here) that the cloth pots are chalk full of baby potatoes. I have a funny way of growing great greenery with no reward, so we will have to wait and see.

Wood Shaving By The Yard

Our friend, Dolan, asked Doyle if he would like a truckload of wood shavings from the mill in town. We were needing to get some for the chicken house so the timing could not have been more perfect. Dolan said he would bring them early the next morning and he was right on the money. I thought he was bringing a dump truck load. He brought a humongous truckload. 44 yards to be exact. That was much larger than a dump truck, it was like 4+ dump trucks. He put it way in the back of the coral and it is a monster pile. We filled as many bags as we could find places for and stored them in the loft of the barn. We had to lock the cows out of this area until we could finish. It was scheduled to rain so time was of the essence.

We finally let the cows back into this area. The cows love to be up on any hill they can climb. Doyle says this will "enrich" the future compost these shavings will become. This is basically how we got the last mountain of compost. We made it with a similar pile of sawdust. It took about 3 years and lots of stirring with the tractor but it made some very good stuff. It is wonderful to have a huge pile of pretty compost at my disposal.

The pile has been smooshed down considerably since is first arrived. The cows went ape-crazy over this fun stuff. It liken it to ball pits at Chuck-E-Cheese. Except for cows and not children.

Even the bull had his turn in it. I wish I could have seen this sight first hand but Doyle got the pictures while I was away at the dental conference. I would rather watch cows frolic in the wood shavings pile.

We added more to the chick brooder too. They love this stuff! We waited until they were here for about 5 days before we uncovered the shavings and removed the overlying newspaper. I didn't want them eating it and not the food we put out. Once they know where the food is, that isn't a problem anymore. This little one thought she was hidden from sight. Pretty close but not completely.

Here you can see just how far down she burrowed into the fluff. I thought that was cute. They are still afraid but I do have a friendly one, a little barred rock that comes right up and isn't fearful at all. She lets me pick her up and comes back for more when I walk in. I wish the rest of them would get over their fear of the new mommy (me). I think that looking down at them makes them feel like prey, it should get much better when they are out of the brooder. I hope.

More Veggie Pictures

My potatoes are apparently on steroids this past week. I know that potatoes like it cool but this is insane. I added more compost on Monday and one other time about a week before that. I had actually covered the stems up pretty well and as you can see it is time to take the last cuff out of the bag and add even more. I sure hope there are lots of baby potatoes in these sacks.

 

This is my first year growing potatoes and I am very hopeful. I am using only soil and compost as the  bag directions stated but have read about many people using straw and layering it that way. If this does not work for me I will try something different next year.

I also have bell peppers. With the cool down of that last week and a half, I am suprised I have them but happy nonetheless. This variety is a Big Bertha, which I might add I chose because I loved the name. I have 16 of these planted. Last year I took my excess peppers and chopped them up like I would cook with them and used my foodsaver to bag and vacuum them, then froze them. I did not buy a bell pepper to cook with until March of this year. I love that since bell peppers are several dollars here in the winter. Mine were free.

 

And this is a North Atlantic Giant pumpkin plant (or three). Doyle likes to try to grow big ones for the kids every year. This year he says he is only keeping three on the vine, surely that will put some size on them. We will see, last year the cows ate every last one that crept through the fence into the pasture. They didn't even remove them from the vine, just ate the fruit. Crazy cows. Who says happy cows are from California, I am thinking they live happily ever after right here in Idaho, snacking on pumpkins.

New Row Garden

I thought I would share some progress pictures of the new garden. This garden was built in the field north of my house and was likely used to feed the previous owners dairy cows in the winter (for 65 years). Very pretty soil in this area but lot of weeds now that the earth has been disturbed. I know that if I just keep up on it for the next two years or so, it will become a breeze to take care of. It is always just the beginning that is overwhelming. We have had two weeks of cooler weather and lots of rain. I am behind on my weeding but thought you would all forgive me my weeds.

These little mountains are the hills for pattypan squash, summer crookneck squash and zucchini. I haven't grown squash type plants in several years as I have always hosted some kind of squash vine borer and they gross me out. I gave up and rely on someone else's surplus. It has always worked in the past but since we had a new location, we thought we would give it another try.

These are the bean beds and they aren't looking so hot. The tree limb teepees are for climbing pole type beans. I have yellow wax and Kentucky wonder growing on these three. The other beds are pinto, dark red kidney and green bush beans. Something is attacking my beans and I have yet to figure out what but they seem to come up without leaves and none grow on the stem. If they get past the first week they seem to be OK, it's just the first push through the soil that is problematic for them.

The corn is doing well. We spaced the first two rows to 8 inches and had to replant some bald spots so we over planted the last two rows and thinned. Thinning is hard for me because it feels so wasteful but it does save time.

These mounds are for the cucumbers. They have been replanted to fill in bald spots several times. For some reason they are having a hard time getting started this year. Hopefully they will take off next week. Beyond those are the tomatoes and pepper beds (wide rows).

These tomato spirals are new to me this season. I have always searched for prettier ways to cage my tomatoes and I hope this works, it is prettier to me. The other beds of tomatoes have some other methods going. I will let you know what I like best.

And this is a view from the other end of that area. I am basically standing in the bean bed to take this photo. I am off to a dental convention for the next two days so it will be heavy weeding when I get home. I am still finalizing the trim details on the chicken house and need to finish the new flower garden bed but I am going to get them all done, one at a time. I can't wait to start eating out of this garden.

Miss Baylee and the Goats

Our granddaughter, Baylee, loves the goats. I have mentioned this before. She tries to make goat sounds and knows right where they are when she comes to visit. All she has to do is point and Grandpa takes her to see her friends. Baylee is 15 months old now and pretty good at getting what she wants. She is so cute it's hard to deny her anything. 

After a visit on Thursday I posted some pics of the goats and her mom got on to look at the newest post. Oops! Baylee saw the goats and wouldn't let her mom log off. If the screen went to sleep, she cried. If Nichole tried to log off, she cried. She wanted to see the goats.

 

This funny shot is Baylee kissing Mama Goat through the computer screen. This would never happen in real life, Mama Goat is a big chicken but Baylee does not know that yet.  I just had to share. We laughed till be cried when Nichole sent this picture. Kids are pretty funny creatures.

My Goat Needs Dentures!

Is this not the funniest thing you've seen? I cracked up when I uploaded these pictures and they showed her gummy smile. She is the mother goat, affectionately called Mama Goat. She is also ferral. She was mistreated when we got her and her then 4 week old baby, Clementine so she has been shy the whole year we have had her. She now bites, which is great because it's her way of trying to play and that is a big step forward. Just goes to show that a year of grain and anyone can be your friend.

 

Here is Ollie, who is almost always photogenic. He actually only wants to smell you so he is pretty easy to get a good picture of.

 

And Clem with Doyle and our granddaughter, Baylee. Clem is the sweetest goat we have and really loves it if you'll brush her. She is also our ill goat. She has some kind of lung problem. We have treated her with several things and antibiotics. No dice yet. I am starting to think maybe the poor little thing has allergies. She wheezes like my daughter.

 

Of course Baylee loves the Mama Goat, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her. Baylee just points and smiles at Grandpa and off they go. Back to the goat barn. I know who's wrapped around who's little finger.

 

So this post is for you, Daffodil Planter. You can live vicariously through my goats until you can get your own!