No Turning Back Now

 

I have been wanting to do something with this boring and barren area right in front of my house for quite some time now. I guess there is no time like the present. Especially when you are right in the middle of building a Big Intimidating Row Garden and a Chicken House mixed with a garden gate for the lawn mower to pass through and moving an aging and disabled father and all his crap. This week. I always do this to myself. It must be genetic. Anyhow, I have been playing with a drawing and design plan for this space on earlier posts and decided to just start. Then I couldn't talk myself out of it and put it off until next year.

Do you like the camper in the front drive? We also had plumbing issues last week had to use the camper for our bathroom. At least we had the camper and didn't have to rent a porta-potty. That would have seriously freaked me out. One power auger rental later and some very unsavory moments of cutting roots from the sewer line, we once again had plumbing. I love old houses. I really love old plumbing. Good times.

 

I suppose you are now wondering what the trench is. Well, I will tell you. I don't know, it just seemed like the first logical step. I was planning to define the new planting bed with an edge then cover it all with cardboard and start layering dirt and compost on top of that. I figured the cardboard would turn the underlying turf into compost and it would allow me to not dig all that lawn out. I like to edge all my planting beds with river rock and thought I would raise this planting bed to kind of give it that garden room feel. Then after a rain, it dug up pretty easily and I decided..... well, I am not sure what I decided. I just thought I would start. I think I already have enough rock to edge it and will have to get dirt and utilize our huge compost pile in the back field. This area is always wet and I would like to get plant feet out of the soggy parts. It is a low spot in my yard.

 

As you can see, the outline of the planting bed only loosely follows the plan. Flat rocks are hard to find around here so I will make a paver walkway instead. The flat rocks I already found  will become bench landings or a nice spot for a little table and chairs. I suppose I will decide that one on the fly too. Funny how I plan to plan and make a master list to add to the things to do list. But my plan always changes at the last minute. Maybe that isn't so funny and I should seek help for this problem. But it works for me and Doyle has learned to roll with the punches.

Finally Thundercloud Plum, Finally!

Since this is a garden blog, and chickens are not actually flowers, I thought I would share a few blooms in my yard right now. We planted this Thundercloud Plum 5 years ago, at least. It has done absolutely nothing in my landscape. It's bloom is pathetic and the thing just does not seem to grow. Except from the base of the trunk. It grows there just fine. 'Weedy tree' comes to mind when I look for descriptors for this species. Last year I poured on the water, killed off all the grass around it and fertilized the heck out of it. Well, I'll be. It bloomed more than one bloom. Finally. I am not a very patient person and this tree was about be yarded out of the landscape. If you don't perform and I don't kill you, you may be on the short list. It was. It still might be but a stay of execution is in force at least this year. I think I might like it after all. I just seriously hope this isn't it's last 'hurrah' before it dies. Sometimes that happens to me too.

One thing I am still unhappy with is it's scrubby growth habit. All the limbs seem to go up and not out. Doyle actually fashioned some spreaders out of wood for me to push the limbs apart. Hopefully they will grow that way now. The nursery I purchased this from says the limbs will "relax" as it grows and it will be full and round. I think they are pulling my leg. Dang nursery. They actually no longer guarantee their trees for a year (or even a season) anymore either. I don't think I will buy from them anymore. The very, very, very old man who owned it his whole life died. The people who took over (possibly his children) don't seem to understand customer service very well. Poor Mr. Carnifix, I sure hope he can't see what is going on in his earthly nursery. I don't think he would like it very well. But he might like my Thundercloud Plum now. It does have nice blooms.

Inspiration Chicken House

 

Everyone has to have an inspiration piece, right? Well here is mine. I admit to being more than a little chicken crazy. I talk about it to my captive patients all day. My boss and his assistants hear about it all day from the next operatory. My husband hears it as he tries to fall asleep at night.  It seems to be all I can talk about, because quite frankly it is all I think about. I dream about it, and I obsess about the details. I hope that the chicks will arrive alive, and that the promised 90% sexing accuracy is way low and they will all be pullets. I want all the feeders to match and the waterers to be easily heatable for winter. I want to stock up on pine shavings now, nevermind I have no where to store them. And last but not least I wonder what to name 30 chickens. Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, Joey, Chandler, and Ross are just some I have thought of. My husband has a whole other plan, guaranteed.

 

My friend, Brenda, has the chicken house that changed my husbands mind about keeping chickens. Hers is fun and quaint with lots of attention to detail. Her husband, Dolan, is quite the craftsman, and built her this dandy chicken house. The 'Girls' have a huge fenced in run but they chose to fly over it and free range in the field. Very cool. Her eggs are also the most amazing eggs I have ever seen. No one believes me until I crack one of hers next to another farm-fresh egg and then the difference is plain. She feeds those lucky birds to the letter and they get lots of the good stuff in the fields next to her house. Happy, healthy, friendly chickens. That is what I am trying to duplicate. 

 

And in closing, I will show you more progress on my chicken house. As I had my hands deeply entrenched in a patient's mouth yesterday, yacking all about my new chicken house and how big it seems, I shoved my own feet in my mouth. This actually happens a lot in my life. She asked if I pulled permits. What? Yep, permits. Seems her relation is the building inspector in our county, the real one, not Ollie. Whoops! Do you need a permit for a chicken house? Maybe if I could learn to call it a coop instead of a chicken house, I would not. But coop sounds dirty to me and I dream of clean chickens with no poop. I know that is very unrealistic but let me have my moments before reality sets in and I scoop the good stuff every day. One can dream can't they? So, I am hoping none of the neighbors that we don't like turn us in. That would really be uncool. I know the building would pass inspection but I don't want to deal with it this late in the game. Does it count if all we are doing is replacing the coop that once sat in this place? I sure as heck hope so.

1 3/4 More Walls Up!

We built two more chicken house walls on Sunday. The wall they guys are holding up is only 3/4 done as it still need 4 more feet added to the top to make it even with the side wall on each end. That portion of the wall will have a 12" tall, 5' wide window across the south wall, up at the top, to add light into the coop so the girls will lay all winter. I will still need to add extra light in the morning but that will help. The east wall (far wall not yet built in this picture) will also have a big window that slides open, that will provide much light without cooking the poor things in the summer. My husband said he reached the end of his ability with framing after these two were done so now we wait for our friend to come back and help finish the framing. Maybe Wednesday. It is so nice of him to help us, he has so much of his own stuff to work on. But I am seriously impatient. I tried my hardest to talk Doyle into trying to build the rest without help but he wasn't biting. Darn it! Just thought I would show the progress!

The First Wall Is Up!

The first wall of the chicken house is up! Whoohoo!!!!! I am so excited. I spent the whole grueling day in Boise trying to pack up my Dad's house and hating every minute of it. When I got home, I got this! Life got much better after seeing progress on the new chicken coop. This picture does not really show how tall this is. I am actually shocked it is so tall. The south wall is 12 ft tall to accommodate the pitch for shedding snow. I don't visualize very well so I was aghast at how tall that is when you stand right up next to it. We wanted to be able to stand inside the whole thing. The footprint of the coop will be 10 x 16 with 6 foot of that an ante room you walk into first. I plan to store all my supplies and feed in there so we don't have to treck around in the snow in the winter. We also preplanned a pop door in this area so that in the future, one side can be used as a brooder. You know... just in case we go totally chicken crazy. We are no construction gurus. Our friend, Monte, is helping us build this. Actually he seems to be building while we watch and get what he needs. He is one meticulous fellow. I thought I was bad. He is seriously anal. All in a good way, of course. He will need to really like chicken and eggs. We are on the barter system around here, with the lovely economy and all. So I plan to keep his family in the good stuff for as long as they will take them. The main body of the house only has one roof elevation and off the back side, there will be a covered run. It will look a lot more even when it is all there. I will keep you all updated.

And last but not least, the Inspector showed up again. Ollie loves to smell the hammer just before you swing it to drive a nail. He also likes to lick the tape measure and is absolutely in love with string line. Lime green is his favorite. What a pain in the rear end when he is putting his feet up on your legs when you are squatted down to look something over closely. Kind of throws off the balance a bit. We finally had to put them away. Way too curious for safety reasons. Osha must have some kind of rule against livestock on a construction site.

Mowing in April- Awww Nuts!

 

This time last year we still had a pretty good bit of snow on the ground. Last year wasn't normal and this year is proving to be equally odd. Here it is, April, and I had to mow the big yard today. We call this area in the center of our circle drive the 'Big Yard' because it is, well, big. It takes over an hour on a John Deer Riding mower and that is only one of the lawns. The other is inside the fence, around the house. That is the one I am currently trying to convert into flower beds and less lawn. I love how this space looks in the spring. As the summer wears on and I have emptied the lower pond trying to flood irrigate it, I like it less. It does all seem worth it when just one person compliments our efforts. It takes a lot of effort. Last year we began killing off the lawn around the trees and that made our mowing job 348% easier. That is a lot easier! As everything begins to leaf out you can hardly tell my husband is a chainsaw pruning addict. 

 

This is a Flicker hole that the Flicker or Flickers have been madly preparing. There is actually one equal in size on the opposite side of this same tree. You can't seem to kill a willow so I like to have the birds around. Magpies are a whole other story. We have watched this bird getting mouthfuls of sawdust material and spitting it out of the hole. Fun to watch. What does that tell you about our lives? We might need to get out more.

Planted In the Garden So Far

 

Well, so far I have most of my cool season crops planted. A few of this years plantings are new to me. This list is as follows:

• Swiss Chard - Mixed Color
• Swiss Chard - Fordhook Giant
• Lettuce - Butter Crunch
• Lettuce - Simpson Elite
• Lettuce - Rouge d'Hiver
• Lettuce - Red Salad Bowl
• Spinach
• Beets - Detroit Dark Red
• Peas - Maestro (shelling)
• Peas - Green Arrow (shelling)
• Strawberries (already growing)
• Onion - Lisbon, White Bunching
• Onion - Red
• Onion - Yellow
• Leeks
• Asparagus
• Brocolli
• Brussel Sprouts

I only have one of the smaller raised beds left and was waiting on another type of beet for canning to show but Park Seed has failed me once again. I may plant Sugar Snap peas in that spot. Funny how we just expanded the raised beds last year and this year I am out of space. Good thing the new Intimidating Row Garden is under construction or I wouldn't have a place to put everything else I plan to grow.