The raised beds are finished!

 After much work the raised beds are finished.

We ended up with 6 beds each 4ft wide by 16ft long. This gives us a total raised bed square feet of 384. This doesn’t sound like a lot considering our garden is just over 900sq ft. So we have about half the area; this also means we have half the area to weed and water. Saving time, water and money. We are going to do a planting method called intensive planting, which is basically the same as packing as many kids into the minivan as possible. 

First we cut the boards to length and set them up in position.

Second we drilled pilot holes so we wouldn't crack the wood.

With the help of my two beautiful assistants we attached the boards with 3in deck screws.

Screws are out of line to keep the wood from cracking later on. ;)

All filled up! This was the hardest part of all. Two back breaking and time consuming days were spent filling these up and sifting out the rocks and weeds. But they really look nice. 

This is the end of the garden where our compost piles and raspberry bushes will go. The tree is alone for now, but the raspberries will be here soon and the old metal bucket will hold the strawberries when we bring them from inside.

This will prove to be a really interesting season, since most of the gardening stuff we are doing this year is new to us. Kelsi and I have already learned so much since we planted our starts earlier this month. We haven’t ever planted our veggies from seed, we will also be watering with drip irrigation, and we have raised a raised bed system, also new. 

As always, thanks for reading.

Mean mom!

So, every other Thursday I have to stay awake late to prepare myself for my week of overnight work at the hospital. So now I have time to post some updates! 

This particular update has to do with Kelsi and her meanness towards the smallest of the chickens that run around our land. 

Our coup is a multipurpose purpose building housing the hen’s quarters, a storage area, and an old meat animal side with a lot of pens to raise the meat animals (Rabbits/ Chickens/ ETC). This side of the building has turned out to be a perfect place for the little chicks to grow until they are big enough to join the ladies. 

We have to check on the chicks a few times a day still because they are still pretty needy/cute, either way. We check on them a lot. On this day, Kelsi went into their area before she went to work so she could check on the little ones. 

A few hours have passed and I am coming outside to check the flock and I hear this awful yelling. The kind of yelling that can only come from a hen that is really pissed off! I run across the yard to the source of the noise and find this..... Naturally I grab the camera

This is Jane, our Banty Auracona cross. She is very well trapped in the small area reserved for the cheeps.

If you can't tell from her stride, she is frantic. Free range hens don't tolerate being locked up very well. She is so worked up! I can't even catch her to show her the way out. I eventually had to grab a stick and nudge her in the right direction. I guess her small stature made it possible for her to sneak past Kelsi and get locked up for the afternoon. Lesson learned.

She even left a present for us. Even though she spent all of her energy pacing and yelling for us to let her out. Turned out she left us a tasty egg too! We used it in our teriyaki stir fry that night.

Thanks for reading!

Picture Update

It has been a busy week so I thought I would post some pictures to show what's been going on. The chicks are getting big and Kelsi and I have gotten a boat load done in the garden I will add more about that later.

Audrey sunning under the heat lamp

The Meaters are growing fast!

Negus' is the first of the new chicks to get her comb. Looks so pretty,

doesn't she?

Mere and Gene. Same age. Very different size.

The Aerogarden is in full bloom

Julies keeping an eye on her land, She loves this spot because she can watch the chickens roam and also make sure no one is sneaking up the road.

That's it, thanks for looking.

The Tale of the $204 Chicken

I was off that day. I was sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal, when I heard a bunch of squawking coming from the chickens. When I looked out the window, I saw a strange dog  chasing them and an even stranger man chasing the dog. Immediately, I knew what was going to happen. I called Juliette (our 100 lb. Airedale), who had been sleeping at the time, and she sprang into action. I opened the front door and told her to go. I have never seen her run so fast. Keep in mind, that normally, she is a very lazy dog. I ran after her yelling at her to get 'em. She did. I followed her around and behind the coop and saw the strange dog gnawing on Fancy. Jules leapt into action and immediately began dominating the other dog, pulling him off of poor fancy.  She had him on his back pretty fast. I was pretty impressed. There were pretty gray feathers and blood everywhere and fancy couldn't even walk. The feathers trailed all over the lawn and around the coop. I scooped her up, call Jules off the dog, and ran into the house. I wrapped Fancy in an old towel and called the vet. When I got off the phone, the strange man and his strange dog were waiting in my kitchen! He handed me a piece of paper with his contact information on it and said to call if we take her to the vet. I took the note and said thanks. It feels like things were going so fast at that time. It seems like a blur now. This was the first attack on one of our babies.

Anywho, as soon as I got into the car with my burrito wrapped chicken, I broke down. I called Mike and we decided that we would meet at the vet. Poor Fancy would barely move and she began to open mouth breath (which means she was really stressed out).

I was a mess. I knew she could go down hill quick and I really didn't want to lose her.  I arrived at the vet with swollen, red eyes and hiccuping. Literally, I was a mess. The immediately took her out of my arms and into a room to be checked out.

Fancy had really big gashes all over her back and the vet said that out options were to just give her antibiotics and hope for the best or to give her a little anesthesia  to pluck the feathers around the wounds, clean it, put in a drain and sew it up. He also thought she could use an x-ray.  We chose option 2, but without the x-ray.

We went home and returned a few ours later to pick her up.  They handed her to me right from the incubator. She was a little unhappy about leaving the warm. When we arrived home, we placed her in a kennel in the storage room to give her a chance to heal before putting her back into the coop. She was there for two weeks. She was so funny during that time. She would cuddle with me on the couch to watch a little TV, fly onto the baby gate and then run around the living room pooping everywhere! That silly chicken!

So, all in all, we paid $4 for Fancy as a chick and with her vet bill, she is now a $204 chicken. We were so lucky that the strange man paid for the whole bill.  If only we had someone that nice and honest when Dolly got attacked...

If anyone in Spokane needs a good chicken doctor, I would recommend Pontys in Otis Orchards. They were wonderful!

Our First Tree!

Kelsi and Penelope

Securing the tree to our study new fence posts

On saturday Kelsi and I went to Costco to buy some potting soil for our starts that are a bit too large for the starting trays. Costco has the large bags for like 12 bucks or so. While we were there we happened onto some mixed fruit trees. These trees were very special. They are variety trees that have more than one type of fruit per tree. We decided on an apple tree that we named Johnny..... Like Johnny Apple seed. It has 3 types of apples, golden delicious, golden crisp, and an unlabeled branch that will be our mystery fruit.  We went to home depot and bought a huge plastic pot as we hope to take this tree with us when we leave to our permanent farm, whenever that may be. We came home and planted it. That makes Johnny tree, the first tree we have ever planted and the first thing to grow in our newly fortified garden (damn deer). Anyways, just wanted to share that, as we thought it was a pretty cool thing that we planted our first tree.

Rhonda Keeping an eye on the flock

Hoping for the best here! Keep you fingers crossed!

Collect-Conserve-Characterize-Distribute

I found this cool website through another blog's mentioning of their experience. The USDA has a plant preservation resource called the National Plant Germplasm System which tries to catalog all sorts of plants. Then, in turn, after research and propagation, the plants are available for "research" purposes, in which people can request plant seeds, starts, and much more. I just requested potatoes, yams, blackberry, raspberry, and some flowers that are deer resistant. I think the total number of different plants and starts I requested was 15 or so. So hopefully we get all that we requested and I will post an update of what we get when it comes and how awesome it is. Also it is free, so get your request in! Thanks for reading. let me know if you have any feedback (positive/negative)

Picture Updates!!

From chicken to frying pan in less than an hour! 

I believe this one is from Fancy (the gray cochin on our header picture)

DELICIOUS!

This is Dory. She has decided to become broody over the last couple of days. We keep kicking her out of the coop and she keeps returning! She sure is persistent! So.. We decided to test her out...

Whats this under her?? Cashmere (Right) and Dolly J (left)! 

They sure did like being under Dory. I think Dory liked it too. Whenever another chicken would come near her with them under her, she would screech! 

Aren't they are precious. I love my chickens. Sometimes, I think a little too much.