Tag Archives: greenhouse

Hey, It’s Me Again

Posted on February 20, 2022 | Leave a comment

So I’ve had a few readers of this blog reach out to me lately, wondering if I’m ok. I guess I did kind of disappear off the map, didn’t I? No, it wasn’t because of anything bad. The opposite, actually. My last post mentioned that I’d gotten a promotion at work. Well, I’m no longer in *that* position any longer! An opportunity came up for a full-time job with amazing benefits. My boss really wanted me to go for it because I would be her right-hand woman and she knew we could work together as a great team.

And apparently I completely rocked the interview. The head boss was leaning hard toward bringing in some new blood and didn’t want to hire in-house but I overheard him talking afterward about how I’d shown that ‘experience really matters’. I was the hands down top pick of everyone on the interview team, even the ones who had never met me before.

So I am now a full-time employee at the Library which means benefits, more money, and…not nearly so much free time. Do you see where this is going? Yeah, no time to blog.

But I’m starting to figure out how to get my life into a new sort of balance, so I hope to get back to blogging at least occasionally. I like this blog for me, too. I like having the record of what I’m doing, and pictures of all my critters to look back on.

So here’s a catch up.

Last time we spoke, I had a goose.

I really did love that goose, but she was an experiment that didn’t work out. She bonded too strongly to me, and started trying to keep the chickens away from me. The chickens are my favorites, and when she grabbed a chicken by the wing and shook her, even though the chicken wasn’t hurt, I knew the goose had to go. I found an awesome home for her, with a family that wanted to raise a few friendly geese. Last I heard from them she had been given a clutch of fertile eggs, and was happily preparing to hatch out her own little flock.

I still have everyone else. The pigeons, the quail, the rabbits, the guinea pigs, and of course the chickens. I have also added a pair of turkeys.

The tom is a White Midget, and I originally had three poults I bought off a local. I was hoping I’d end up with a pair. Nope. All three were toms! Dang it! I saved the nice one, and put the other two in the freezer. This type of turkey won the blind taste at Mother Earth News, and wow, were they right. I have never tasted such a glorious and tender turkey. I generally am not a particular fan of turkey meat, but I definitely was of this particular turkey!

Turkey Boy (as he is known around the farm) is very protective of his Turkey Girl. She’s a Royal Palm, since I was unable to get another White Midget. He does NOT like me petting her, but she wants to be petted all the time, so he struggles with jealousy issues. I can handle him strutting his stuff to intimidate me and occasionally giving me a wing slap, but if he gets aggressive, he’ll have to go too. I won’t tolerate aggressive animals…even when they act aggressively only out of love. Right now I like him, because he doesn’t bother the chickens at all and doesn’t care if I pet them. He also goes charging to the rescue if anyone (even the chickens) sounds the alarm, so I like having him as a potential guard in the flock.

Everyone always asks about Ellie, my special miracle hen, so I’m happy to inform you that at thirteen years old, she’s still alive and as much of a diva as ever.

She’ll be turning fourteen this summer, and while she’s visibly slowing down, she still demands the best of everything. Every morning she comes out of the coop and goes to the gate, waits for me to open it, then goes and stands at the kitchen door – loudly complaining if I take too long feeding the other animals. She then struts her stuff into the kitchen, and waits (impatiently) for me to fill her special bowl with leftover treats. She’s been enjoying raisins and banana bread lately. Sometimes she’s happy to go back to her run after that, sometimes she tugs on my pants leg to let me know I need to sit down so she can have a cuddle on my lap. If it’s cold outside, she wants to get underneath my jacket for a little extra warmth. She has me on a schedule, and heaven help me if I don’t follow it exactly!

I decided to change up the back patio a bit this Spring, switching out the pots for raised beds. I was going to build some, but then I remembered the cost of wood has skyrocketed – and I don’t have time, anyway. So I bought some metal ones.

The wire over the top of the first one is temporary – Ellie liked to get up in it and scratch the dirt out while waiting for me to come let her into the kitchen. The “box” in the other is a Subpod.

I don’t have the worms yet. I’ll be getting those when things get a bit warmer. One of these metal beds will be for herbs. There is a special magic about setting outside your kitchen door when you’re cooking to cut a few herbal sprigs. The other three will be for hardier greens, things I might want to overwinter, or start early in the year. I have little greenhouses to fit over them.

And, speaking of greenhouses, I’ve been promising to build the chickens one for two years now. I was going to make a nice one out of wood and greenhouse siding, but now I have a lack of time. So temporarily at least, I bought them a cheapie one.

It won’t last forever, but I’ll be able to see how it works out, and if they will actually use it to escape from the weather. Our winters are becoming more severe here, with temperatures sometimes going as low as 4 degrees F.

I know. Those of you in other parts of the world are laughing, but it’s cold for us. It’s rare for us to go below 20 degrees, and most of the winter we’re above freezing. And we’ve been getting more snow, which my chickens hate with an unholy passion, delicate little divas that they are. I’m hoping to grow a bunch of comfrey in their greenhouse over the summer, then open it up in fall, let them eat the comfrey, then use the added warmth of the greenhouse to give them a more comfortable winter experience. Especially for the older girls.

Things coming this year? New digs for the quail and pigeons (I’m going to get a pair of fancy fantails to add to my White King pigeons, and drip irrigation for the raised beds.

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New Greenhouse, Ducks, and Garden Stuff

Posted on May 16, 2015 | 4 comments

It has been so busy here.  One day, we think, we will be done with all the major builds/improvements, and then we will be able to relax.

Or, you know, at least be able to keep up with the work that we want to do.

The greenhouse (Early Bloomer, by Solexx) is almost finished.  It’s up, and usable – there is just a few remaining details, like the door handle, the solar-powered automatic window opener, and some trim.

There is also quite a bit of landscaping to be done around it.  I’ve already planted some peas and sunflowers around the back.

Inside, I built raised beds, and spent several hours shoveling compost out of the chicken coop’s deep litter, and carting it by the wagon load into the greenhouse…only to shovel it back out into the beds.  Lots of work, but somehow enjoyable, all the same.  I’m finding that there is true pleasure in hard, physical work.  I used to be a total night owl, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, then sleeping in.  Now I’m so excited to work outside, that I wake up early, work all day in the garden, then collapse in bed around 10pm.

As you can see, the inside floor still needs to be installed.  We’ve bought some lovely brick.

At the far end, will be a potting bench, once I have time to build it.  To the left of the door, is shelving for starting trays of seedlings.

I’ve planted a bunch of tomatoes, melons, and peppers in the beds.

In the front vegetable garden, I came up with a good idea for trellising my beans.  I put in two t-posts, then built a frame of wood and wire that fits between them.  It is zip-tied securely into place.

At the end of summer, I can cut the zip-ties, and store the frame out of the weather.  Next year, I can put two more t-posts in a different bed, and put the frame up there.  Some years, I’ll have a frame between the posts, other years, I’ll use the posts as tomato tie-ups.

The Indian Runner ducklings are getting so big.  Their chests are completely feathered in, and feathers are coming in on their backs, faces, and wings.  They are still very, very cute.

They’ve changed so much from just a few days earlier…although they still like to snuggle with each other.

Josie and her chicks are doing great.  I need to get some more pics; this video is from a week ago.  They have lots more feathers on their wings now, and their tails are coming in.

What’s this I see?  What’s that in your hand?

You have a new camera????

Well, then!  Time for some beauty shots of what’s blooming in the garden!

Peonies.

And roses.

And after years of never seeing butterflies, I’m finally seeing visitors in my garden.  This one seems to come here a lot.  It’s very shy, though, and even though I hunted it as stealthily as I could, this was the best shot I could get.

Is that a Painted Lady butterfly?

And Peabody and Nefertiti say goodnight.

For those of you who are interested in keeping quail naturally, a friend and I are running a new facebook group: Natural Quail Keeping.  Feel free to join and start posting pics or asking questions!

 

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Ducklings, Quail, and a Greenhouse, Oh My!

Posted on April 25, 2015 | 6 comments

First off, the Indian Runner ducklings, Maisie and Millie, are now a week old.  Ducks grow so freaking fast!

We’ve been letting them out to run and play in the living room, and today, because the weather was so lovely and warm, they got to go outside and have a bath.

While I was outside with the camera, I also took a few pictures of the quail.

A gratuitous shot of Peabody because he is a camera hog:

And then I visitied Loki and Isis.  When I open the door to the coop, Isis always comes running right up, expecting treats.

If I don’t immediately comply with a handful of seed or greens, she sometimes attempts to walk (always very calmly) out of the coop to go get her own greens.

It’s at this point that I give in to her wishes…

I really, really like these Golden Italians.  They are so docile and sweet-tempered.  Though Loki is always slightly suspicious of my motives.  He’s a good male, and protective of his girl.

Speaking of quail, I said I’d show you pics of my new coop.  It’s smaller than the others – I originally meant it to hook onto the from-scratch greenhouse I was going to build.  I wanted to make sure they had an outside area they could escape to if the interior of the greenhouse got too hot.

The entire top lifts, for easy access to the quail.  I wouldn’t have a top *quite* like this, if I didn’t trust my quail to be so tame they wouldn’t fly out.  As it is, one of the girls does *pretend* she’s going to fly out if I’m not quick enough with the treats.  But once I drop seed or greens in the pen, they all let me pet them, clean around them, and do whatever else needs to be done without fear.

Notice the chickens looking on.  They have severe quail-food envy.  The highlight of their day is when I scatter a few quail crumbles on the ground for them!

We aren’t doing a from-scratch greenhouse any more, for a variety of reasons.  The biggest one being that we found a kit that is everything we want, for a reasonable price.  It’s the Early Bloomer, by Solexx.  We have the frame up, but we were accidentally sent the wrong size of anchoring/tie down pieces, so we can’t put the skin on it until we get those in the mail.

The company, Solexx is AMAZING to deal with.  They are willing to answer all our questions over the phone, and after we bought one, the guy who gives help on building it gave us his personal cell phone number in case we had trouble and needed help after hours or on the weekend!  Wow.  That’s customer service you don’t often see.

If you’re looking for a greenhouse, I highly recommend checking them out.

And what’s new in the garden?  My beans are coming up like wildfire!

I’m growing so many different kinds of snap beans this year.  I want to can millions of them!  Seriously, those beans I canned last year are so yummy.  I’m also growing a couple of varieties for dry beans.  Black Turtle and Saxons, neither of which I’ve done before, and Scarlet Runner Beans, which I do every year.  The hummingbirds LOVE the flowers, they are gorgeous on the trellis, and the dry beans are wonderful.  Similar to a pinto, I think, only creamier.  Since I tried them as dry beans, I don’t bother picking any of them as young snap beans.

And here’s a picture of one of my favorite flowers, Forget-Me-Not.

Oh, and I almost forgot – we’re getting three new chicks this year!  My broody hen, Josie, went broody at just the right time this year, so I reserved two Ameraucanas, and one Speckled Sussex.  Every time I get an Ameraucana, it ends up being a rooster.  Every. Freaking. Time.  So this time, I’m getting two.  My luck couldn’t be that bad, could it?

Don’t answer that.

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