One Month Old!

The Little Dudes are one month old today! It's hard to believe that we have had them for almost that long! They have been a lot of fun...and I can't get over how they change almost daily!

Just 3 days old when they came home with us almost a month ago.

They are pretty good buddies - sometimes Lenny can be without Sheldon, but Sheldon certainly doesn't like to be without his big buddy.

Lenny made short work of the pac choi in the hoop house and then told me about it...

Sheldon doesn't get to sit in the "pool" very often, but when he can...

I wanted these dudes to be protectors of the chickens, but they have bonded with us - mostly me - and I have to admit that I do tend to baby them a little bit. They might be a little spoiled too.

They have enjoyed being in the sun this week.

The thing I am noticing more over the past few days that they are becoming a little more independent and don't really mind being in with the big chickies and roosters. Except for this morning, they were very reluctant to go into the paddock at all. Generally being little stubborn waterfowl. They were escorted in...FINALLY. We'll see if they want to come out after I get home from work. If they do that would be fine, but if not...well, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Foraging with the chickies earlier this week.

Looking forward to seeing Mr. Lenny all feathered out. His little buddy has feathers on his chest and belly and is quite smooth. He is starting to look handsome! Once Shelly has all of his feathers he'll look something like this -

Not too bad looking huh...

Here's one last video from this morning. Lenny was being extra cute this morning...

From Cold to HOT...

In no time flat!

Early last week was pretty chilly then by the end of the week and into the weekend we jumped over twenty degrees - which is just wrong. How are we supposed to function when the clouds go away and there is blue sky to be seen? Fortunately for me, I didn't have to be stuck indoors all day everyday last week. My goal was to get gardening stuff done. It took all week, but we got it done - well, started.

A couple of weeks ago, the weather wasn't so bad so Tom rototilled the area that was mostly "free range" last year. The area is approximately 24' x 55' at least that is what I am remembering. My plan is to just have rows that are 30" wide by around 15' long. Well, the length went longer the further down we went. Doesn't matter, I'm not going to be all weird about the garden. Well, not totally.

By the end of last week this is what we had - this is the side that is closest to the house.

By late morning on Saturday we had all of the raised beds dug out! That would be thirteen total. Yep THIRTEEN! It was a lot of work, but we got it done and the planting could begin!

On Sunday after returning home from church I got to work! It was pretty warm by the time I got started - so I took a lot of breaks.

The whole thing is a work in progress with pretty much everything being an experiment. The dimensions will be a new thing for us and I'm hoping that all will work out. If not, we just call it a learning experience and move on the next season.

Anyway, with 13 raised beds I have a lot of space to grow all sorts of stuff! The first day of planting was all about the tomato plants that I started earlier this year. I ended up with 15 tomato plants with 4 different varieties. Each variety occupies space in one of the raised beds. Each bed will also have plants that will play well with the tomatoes (i.e. Borage, Onions, or Greens). Since we had rain for almost all of the spring, I am hoping that the sunshine will be with us for an extended period of time. Some rain will be nice so I don't have to water as much, but more sun wouldn't be a bad thing.

Here is the break down of the varieties/plants that are in the beds so far:

• Mortgage Lifter (4) - a favorite from last year. A nice slicing tomato which kind of took it's time to finally produce fruit, but once it did, we had a lot of them!
• San Marzano (4) - this is a new one for our garden this year. This is in lieu of the Roma Tomato that we had in the hoop house. I wasn't disappointed with the romas, I thought I would try something a little different, but kind of the same.
• Blush (3) - this was a variety that I got last summer from Johnny's Seeds. Go HERE to check it out.
• Garden Peach (4) - this was too interesting to pass up. From Uprising Organics. Check it out HERE

The planting went well ONCE I got the goose to stop trying to nip at the plants.

It's hard to stay upset with these little creatures - they are too stinkin' cute!

Once I was able to deter his little bill from nipping at the plants, he decided to settle in nearby and just watch. He may have been plotting, it's hard to tell.

The other thing that I was able to get done was the potatoes. Those were purchased a few weeks ago and just sitting in the fridge until it was time. I was pokin' around on Pinterest one day and found a very interesting method for growing potatoes - laundry baskets. We have done a couple of different ways - the traditional dig a trench, drop in a piece of potato and cover with soil until new growth and cover. With the potatoes actually being hilled up at least six inches or more. The first time would be way back when we lived in a rental house not far from our current home. We had potatoes galore! A couple of years ago after reading an article in Mother Earth News or the Farmer's Almanac magazine we thought we would try to grow them under straw, but that wasn't nearly as successful and there were only a few potatoes. Last year we used a bulb planter which worked great - we didn't dig a trench, or maybe not much of a trench. The harvest was pretty plentiful, but once we got through all of the plants, we kind of wished we had planted more.

I'm not sure how well the laundry basket method will work, but I have a lot of extras which will be planted in a traditional manner just to be sure we have a decent crop of potatoes.

I just can't bear to get rid of good seed potatoes - I have quite a few pieces that have eyes that have sprouted. We'll put those in the front yard that needs a second rototilling.

The weather has been cooperating, however it is a little warm. Too warm really - I am not a heat loving person. I like the sun, but I would happily do without the heat of anything above the high 80s.
The temps have cooled the past couple of days which has been very pleasant in the evening. Which makes for an enjoyable time of sowing seeds and putting plants into the raised beds.

This week I have been working on getting the other Tomato friendly seeds or plant into the garden and thinking of what to plant next. I'll be trying succession planting this year and even starting seeds for the Fall/Winter garden at a more appropriate time and not at the end of summer like last season. I think that with our garden season just now starting up I'll be starting new things for later this year in a couple of months.

The dudes will be much bigger and possibly no longer free ranging with me in the garden. It will be harder to keep Mr. Lenny away from the plants. I supposed a little taste here and there wouldn't be  a problem though.

as of today these two are 29 days old!

Who is SHE and What is She Growing?

Well, I know that my blog is called She Grows a Garden. However, the garden is getting very little action since the chickies and the boys happened since I was on vacation.

The reality is that with all of the rain recently I have not been all that interested in going outside. When it rains here, it is pretty serious and it's also pretty depressing. Even if I were out in the hoop house, which is my happy place, I do get tired of the rain that is just crazy and out of control. What is really crazy is that between October 1, 2016 and April 30, 2017 there were 146 days of rain. It's no wonder I'm tired of all this crazy!

The sweet thing is that this past week though has been fairly decent and over the weekend I started working on getting the garden boxes weeded and ready for something.

Leeks in the first box!

After getting the leafy greens into the next bed on Monday last night I went in and got my pea seeds in and then used up all of my pelleted Bolero carrot seeds from Johnny's. Those didn't seem to work out when I put them in the free range garden, so I thought maybe in the boxes would be best. Also, they needed to be used up. Now I have many short rows of carrots in with the peas.

This year I need to be proactive in the area of protecting the seedlings in the boxes - my peas were all nibbled on last year and that irritated me so much that I just whacked them all down and let them just go.

This morning Tom discovered that the box with the leafy greens seeds had been pawed through...so I'm not sure what I want to do about that. I mean really, I spent the time to FINALLY do something in  the garden and a stupid critter comes along and messes it up. In the past a deer would do a walk through, but this was something much smaller. Sigh. I might just smooth it out and then put something over the top to protect it. I'm not really in the mood to try to defend against some critter that I don't even know is out there.

The boys got to forage in the box that is planted with clover. Leonard was enjoying the greens quite a bit, while Sheldon was actually rooting around under the plants. I am not sure what he found in there, but they were both happy so I wasn't going to deter them.

Next week I'll be taking some vacation time - just working from 0800 to noon and then spending the rest of the day working in the garden at home. For some reason we just keep running out of hours in the day to do things in the garden AND the weekends just whiz by in a blink of an eye. I have vacation time so I should use it! Also, this way I can still  keep up with whatever projects I have going at work and not have to worry about leaving  behind things for others to keep track of.

The best part - I now know what the "free range" garden dimension are and I can start digging out my raised beds. There is enough space for 13 beds that are 30" wide and 20' long with 18" paths in between. That will be the best laid out part of ALL of the spaces that we use for gardening. I have a few items that are Direct Sow and some plants that I can transplant. The tomato plants will be ready for sure! At this point I do not have enough home made tomato cages, but that is easy to fix so we'll get right on that! There are also a few onions that I'll be able to transplant as well - and they need it! So many different things that I can sow/plant and I'm now getting excited to grow my garden!!

 I'm not sure how we are going to plant the front yard yet - I need to get into the seed box and see what I have OR I could plant it all in some that will grow BIG!

OHHHHH....YES!! I just realized that I have Filderkraut seeds!! Those would probably do well in the front yard! Check it out...

photo credit Uprising Organics

Say hello to the Filderkraut (from Uprising Organics). This dude is a conical shaped head of cabbage that has the potential to reach 10 pounds or more! Isn't that crazy?! Last fall I tried a super easy sauerkraut recipe and it worked! However we went through the quart size jar very quickly and I only had one good head of cabbage from the garden. That made me a little sad and I didn't want to buy cabbage at the store. However, once I saw this and the size that it could get to I was sold! Can you imagine...10 pounds of cabbage? Made into Sauerkraut?! Man, I can't wait to see what these will look like when they start to grow!

Additionally, I found this on the Johnny's website:

photo credit Johnny's seeds

This is the Caraflex. I am into this shape for some reason, it's just a unique look and I'm experimenting right now. This might be our slaw cabbage - that would be cool!

Okay, maybe I'm feeling better about the gardening thing. Now that I have more things in mind to get into the garden in the next few weeks. The vegetables will happen - they always do!

How about these two...Little Sheldon just can't do without his pal Leonard.

These two are two weeks old yesterday!

Three Weeks Later

How is it that it feels like we have had the little chickies for a long time, but it's only been three weeks? This week the Little Ladies are 4 weeks old and boy have they changed! This is the day after we brought these little ones home with us. So cute and teeny-tiny and fluffy!

April 18, 2017

Now we have...

May 9, 2017

Yeah, they have entered "puberty." They certainly have changed a lot in the last few days.  This photo actually shows all of them in (even if it's just a little snippet of them).

These little ladies will be slow to mature, which means that egg production will most likely not start until fall at the earliest. All I am really interested in is making sure they are healthy and happy. 

I think they will be happier once we can graduate them to the mobile chicken coop once they are all feathered out and don't need the lamp as much. The fortunate thing is that they probably will get out on grass sooner than we think and have all sorts of time foraging and doing chicken stuff. 

Still hoping for a rooster.

Sunny Weekend...Whaaaat?

It's true, the wet soggy Pacific NW had SUN! Both Saturday and Sunday! 

Saturday was my Girl's Breakfast Club...that was my project for the day. I thought that I would do some stuff outside in the hoop house and the garden boxes, but not a lot happened. Actually, I did do some weeding,  but these two little goobers happened:

Seriously, these two are so cute and they don't venture far from either of us. This made for a short weeding session in the garden boxes. Which was fine, because this is what happened next:

Yep, it was easier to just sit in the grass with the boys and enjoy the sun! I don't know if this is a good thing or not, they just don't go too far from either of us and they LOVE to hang out close to me. Actually, Leonard (gosling) is more attached to me, Sheldon just follows his big brother (from another mother). I am concerned that they might not want to commune with the chickens when it comes down to it. Maybe we need to plop them into the brooder with the little ladies sometime soon.

I don't know though, these are the little ladies in their almost feathered state. They are older and the boys are only 13 days old...not terrible aggressive and quite needy. 

Overall, the weekend was good and our feathered friends all got some time outside in the sun. The forecast is calling for showers/rain/drizzle after tomorrow (Wednesday) so we'll have to at least get the little dudes out as much as possible. They will be missing their time out foraging in the yard.

Here are the boxes - 3 of them weeded and the one at the end is chock full of clover. Got out last night to get the Kale, Spinach, Mesclun and Romaine seeds sown. If I'm lucky the peas will go in tonight.

It was easier to plop these two in with the leeks while weeding. They were enjoying foraging the weeds in the box and then sunned themselves for a very short time. 

They Grow So Fast...

BWAHAHAHA...Oh..ahem...

Sorry, I know a person who used to say that...

A LOT! And it was just ridiculous ;)

In our case - the birds are  growing SO FAST! The chickie babies are almost 4 weeks old and they are as happy as can be! In the past few days they have discovered their jumping abilities and have been jumping on their waterer with inceasing regularity. It's like one of them sees what the other does and then decides to consider jumping and then does it. WoW!

This happened for the first time after their first outing...brave little chickie!

The NEW thing that has happened is that they are now jumping on the edge of the brooder and just standing there. Mostly because they don't know what to do next. What's happening now is that they are realizing that there is a world outside of those four walls! So the couple of times that has happened I shoo them back in and they look up at me like I'm a mean chicken momma. I am, but that's what I do!

When the weather has been nice (which hasn't been that often) we have taken the birds on a field trip. Last Friday (April 28) was the first outing. They were still the only birds that we had at the time so it was a total pay attention to the girlies time!

This was the first outing last Friday.  

This happened last night - May 3. 

The first thing I noticed when I started picking them up out of their brooder was that they were starting to feel a little more bird like which all those feathers and some developing leg muscles instead of their little baby chickie bodies. They are getting girthy!

Another thing that was fun to see was this...

Look at her wings! She got to stretch her wings a little and get some sun. It isn't the greatest photo...I was just looking to get a group shot of them. The little ladies are jumping a lot and "fighting" each other now and then. Mostly they are just chowing down and getting bigger. They'll outgrow the brooder sooner that we think and I am hoping that they will be a big enough size to live in the Chicken RV for a little while. At least until they are big enough to kind of defend themselves. When they are big enough we'll be able to let them be free during the day so they can forage and be chickens.

Since adding the boys we have had to let them have outings too. If we don't they just cry and cry and cry. Yeah...they know how to tug at those heart strings!

The first time we just held them and they were pretty content. Last night was different. I held Leonard (goose) for a few minutes but then decided that he would be okay to walk around in the grass. It's pretty tall where we have the chickie corral so I knew that he wouldn't be able to maneuver very quickly. 

Lenny was doing so well and just eating on grass and generally enjoying not being held. Tom, who had been holding Sheldon decided to put him down on the grass as well. Well, he made a bee-line to Lenny right through the chicken  corral which surprised the chickies as they stood their and looked at him skeptically. He did stop in the middle for a few seconds but then continued through. He really does need his pal. Although, I'm not so sure that Lenny is all that enamored with Sheldon. He is always content while being held and makes his happy noises while Sheldon is crying up a storm!

Best Buddies and 8 days old.

So these two got to do some exploring in the area where we were sitting and they really enjoyed their dandelion heads and grass. They adapted pretty well - quicker than the chickens. They still don't forage much.

Sheldon & Leonard really don't stray too far from one another which makes me happy. When we were told that geese need to have a friend I wasn't so sure, but they are both pretty cute and have adapted well. They will be a great addition to the flock. I'm just hopeful that the little ladies will appreciate them when they are bigger and protecting them.  Well, that's Lenny's job. Sheldon will just direct the whole operation!

The weather has been so nice yesterday and today. Tom mowed the area this morning and it looks great! Now we just need to get ready for the rain to return. Should be this weekend. This grass will grow fast too!!

FINALLY...

tired of the stinkin' stupid rain.

You'll remember from my week off -

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

Last week was a whole lot of rain with major downpours a few days even.

This past Saturday was decent - until the evening and it started up again. The good thing is that we were  at a charity event and having a lot of fun while the rain came down. Then Sunday was fairly decent again with only spits here and there.

On Friday evening, the little ladies were taken on a field trip and got to go out on grass for the first time! It took a minute or so, they weren't sure what exactly they should do. After awhile they figured out that it was warm and they started to forage in the grass...you know, act like chickens. One even found an itty-bitty slug and commenced to run around in their very cramped enclosure. She finally decided to settle down and gulp down her prize. The others were still getting used to the great outdoors and one figured out that being outside meant more than just Chick Starter food.

They were treated to a second trip after church on Sunday. There are no photos, but their enclosure was a little more roomy. I thought why not use the corner posts from the Electric Poultry fence kit for now. So this fence material was zip-tied to the posts at the opening and the bin that we used to transport them was a safe place/block for the open side. While they enjoyed their little trip out and we had to bring out...

The baby duck and baby goose. Yeah, we came home with a couple more birds for the brood. These little ones were 3 days old on Saturday when we brought them home. In all the time that we (my family) had all the chickens, ducks, geese and other winged creatures, I do not remember ducklings or goslings. I'm guessing that we had broody ducks and geese...who  knows? I think there were little ducklings running around the property...how else would we get more?! Anyway - I promptly forgot what breeds we went away with. I want to say that the goose is an Embden, maybe. The duckling? Unsure. Maybe if we find ourselves out at Wilco again I'll see if they still have some of these little guys.

The goose is very sweet and very needy. As of today they are both 6 days old and still very much babies. I have to keep reminding myself of that. They don't have a momma to help them get food or to keep them warm, so we have  to do our best to keep them fed and watered and happy. Boy do they cry A LOT! The moment they lay eyes on us it's time for them to start talking! So we do what needs to be done and then pick them up and give them some attention and a little bit of time out of the box. They will be stuck in the box until they get too big for it and we have to get a bigger bin or until the Jersey's are big enough to get out of the brooder. However, I have a feeling that they will grow faster. Which would be okay, because as soon as they are able to defend themselves better we'll introduce them to the flock and they will need to start living together with some understanding that they both belong.

This coat has a duck pocket!

Another thing that will most likely happen within this week is the addition of some older pullets. We made a trip to Thrifty Feed yesterday to take a look at which breeds they had and about how old they are. I had my eye on the Cuckoo Maran chicks a couple of weeks ago and the fortunate thing is that they still have quite a few in the brooder. YAY!

I found out that these little ladies were delivered to the feed store on March 24th. So they are supposedly all pretty healthy and active. The question now is how many and where do we house them?

Since the Chicken Mobile is essentially finished they could live in there - and I'm thinking that 5 or 6 would be a good start for the egg layers. The reality might be different, but a girl can hope right? However many we end up with will have super deluxe accommodations for sure since the Chicken RV is 6 X 6 and will seat many chickens comfortably as well as the goose and the duck :)

Soooo, the weather forecast for later this week is predicted to be in the 80s. Okay, that's just not right. Why can't we ease into the heat? We are thinking that the weather is just a tease and that it will be back in the high 40s and 50s for a little while longer. Summer will arrive and last precisely one week.

Wouldn't that be awesome? (she said with a sarcastic tone)