Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun...

The sun decided to make an appearance this weekend!  Seems he (I am assigning a male gender due to the song that is my title's inspiration) is here to stay for a few days, although this year, one never really knows.  I know the weather people certainly have  no clue.  I decided to post some garden pictures that I took with my new camera last week.  They will be at the very end of this blog.  No fair scrolling down either. 

So, the little seedlets are now sproutlets.  The beans, peas, tomatoes, squash, parsley, and cilantro sprouted quite nicely!  The peppers are very slow to sprout and at first I thought  that maybe they weren't even going to sprout at all.  They are peeking out of the soil today, so I guess they decided to come out after all.  Now, I have to get them out in the sunshine, so they will get big enough and hardy enough to plant in the garden.  I would just set them out, but I'm pretty sure my feathered friends would eat them all up.  Blast!  I will have to come up with something creative.  Maybe some chicken wire to protect them from the chickens.  I have plenty of that!

Speaking of chickens, husband says I can get more peepers!  He said that I can get maybe 6 more little chickies to add to our flock.  I am very excited about this!  I just got a little part time job at the local farm supply store...I am in there on a regular basis.  Every time I go in there, the girls all tease me and say that I should just work there.   One day, one handed me an application.  I turned it in more as a joke than anything else...then they called.  A brief interview, which consisted of, "Oh yeah, I recognize you.  Can you start next week?" and I was hired.  I have a feeling that all my paychecks will go right back there...oh well...

Okay, on to the garden photos...

Some sort of crabapple.

Also a crabby apple.

I'm not sure what these are...the actual bush/tree thing is below...

It's sort of a thicket...

Big Bird...nothing like his Sesame Street namesake.

I just liked this shot...I was attacked shortly after.

One of our fancy Wyandottes.  There were two, but Avery took care of the other one.  Boo.

Thunder, the Rhode Island Red rooster and one of his women.



Rain and Other Bugaboos

The local tv station has a weather guy, of course.  Like any weather guy in any city, he has no idea if what he is telling us is even accurate.  I personally feel that the only accurate weather is the current situation...look out the window and tell me what's going on.  But that's sort of silly, since I can look out the window all by myself.  Anyway, they have this feature called "Storm Warn" where they predict doom and gloom as far as the weather goes.  I'm pretty sure that if any of my relatives on the East Coast were to catch a snippet of this, they would find it absurd that a "storm" that brings an inch of rain over 4 hours is considered worthy of a title like "Storm Warn".  I tend to agree. 

In any case, the weather predictors had regular updates warning us of impending rain...something about it being the storn of the century etc.  Whatever...  What did happen was a pretty decent rainfall that lasted more than 24 hours.  While I personally did not feel it was worthy of the hype of "storm of the century", it certainly did dump a great amount of rain on our little area.  Our ground doesn't know what to do with so much water and therefore "Flooded" signs sprang up all over the place.  A few of the roads I travel had small streams running across them and many fields had small lakes forming in them.  The mallards were in heaven!  I happen to love rain, so I thought it was pretty cool to watch the rain.  Especially when I'm indoors...although I did brave a very rainly, windy, and  muddy rugby game last Saturday. 

The chickens were a little put off that their coop floor had turned to mush, but they rallied through and still laid 10 eggs one day and 9 the next.  With it being so squishy, they may as well stay inside the condos and be productive.  They were.

Now, speaking of being productive...I had been extremely productive a couple of weekends ago and had prepared half of the vegetable garden.  The rain and wind managed to undo most of what I had so carefully done.  Ugh.  The plastic was blown off of the rows and the rain made big puddles everywhere.  Looks like I might need to start over once it gets a little drier.  That won't be for a while though.  The tv station has started up with the Storm Warn nonsense again...today it was 61 degrees, by the way...  Apparently there will be another 3 or 4 day deluge on it's way starting tomorrow.  I'm actually okay with that, since this desert valley really needs the water and the rain makes the mountains look really pretty with all the snow. 

The seedlets are getting to be kind of big though, so I am not sure what to do with them during all this rain.  They are still pretty content on top of the dryer.  All have sprouted except for the peppers...and yes, my "map" was backwards on top of the seed house.  I was wondering why the peppers looked so much like squash.  ha!!

In other news, we have again lost a chicken.  Avery seems to have gotten loose yet again...and plundered another hen.  Not good.  I thought she was going to get one yesterday, when the boy let her out of her indoor kennel and she plowed through the screen door.  Someone (the boy) didn't think to hold on to her or to open the door first.  She ran full speed through the screen, followed by the boy on all fours through the new "doggie door" in the screen door.  Seriously???  Funny now...not so funny yesterday.

Well, I am now finishing this post on Wednesday...the day of the big STORM!!!  It has started raining and as predicted, the general population is either griping or acting like they have never seen this stuff called r-a-i-n.  I shudder to think what they would do if snow actually started to fall...not hail, which often times gets confused for snow here in the Central Valley.  Aaaaahhhh...well, almost time to head home to let the flock out for their afternoon of bug hunting and other shenanigans. 

Big Bird Should Watch Sesame Street

It seems that our rooster who goes by the handle of "Big Bird"...thank you creative teenage daughter...is a bully.  I've mentioned the fact that he chases the hens and causes undue stress for them with his less than gentlemanly intentions...  Lately he has been unleashing his fury on the men of the house.  The boy came in the other day...the boy who stands 6 fett 3 inches tall...and told me the rooster attacked him and tried to scratch up his legs.  He asked permission to kick Big Bird...I think that's acceptable, especially if one's limbs are in danger.  Husband had a run in with this beast as well.  Big Bird kicked up his claws or whatever they are called...it was quite a sight to see.  I'm just wondering if he he's been researching cock fighting and thinks he's going to be the next big fighter.  Ugh...all I know is he is on notice.  Perhaps he should start watching Sesame Street and see how someone named Big Bird should be conducting himself.  Probably a good idea if he plans on living out his days in my chicken coop! 

Random Observations and Thoughts...

Every day at lunch, I go home to eat, do a chore or two around the house, and let the fowl out for their afternoon of bug hunting and other shenanigans.  When I let them out, they crowd around the door and then spill out into the yard falling over and stepping on each other to get out.  I just stand there as I'm afraid to get caught up in the traffic and inflict accidental (??) harm to one of them.  Then I take my egg basket and go into the coop to see who has been productive.  I always make Coop Mama angry by removing 5 or 6 eggs from underneath her.  Coop Mama is mean and I might have to start wearing gloves to retrieve the treasures under her.  She takes it so personally.  After I take the eggs, she stands on top of the condos and squawks letting everyone know she's been robbed.  I wonder if the other hens get mad at her for allowing me to take their babies.  Maybe they shouldn't leave them in someone's else's care, you know?  Well, there are a couple that lay their eggs in other condos, so obviously they either don't trust her, or are bad parents.  Anyway, Tuesday, I forgot I had left the egg basket over by the back door the other day, so I collected the eggs in my hands and took them inside.  Husband was home too making lunch and he told me to come take a look at the cat.  Usually this means the cat is doing something funny or just weird.  It was worth walking over to the back door.  Ninja cat has decided that this is now her basket and that this is a good place to just chill.  See below...

Now for the best part...Ninja decided to give herself a bath in the basket.  I had just gotten out my big fancy camera to try to take a picture.  I wish I had gotten the picture..Ninja cat and  the basket toppled off the railing.  I learned that cats, contrary to popular belief, don't always land on their feet.  She hasn't been in the basket since.

Lunch yesterday was delicious...provided by the girls in the coop.  I read in my chicken bible about the proper method for hard boiling fresh eggs.  Seems you have to let them sit a day or two before you can boil them successfully.  I had no idea.  I guess the whites of the eggs don't "gel" the first day or two after being collected.  Anyway, I boiled some the other day and yesterday I made an egg salad sandwich.  I discovered, much to my dismay, my girls' hard boiled eggs do not peel well...the shells are super thick and hard to crack.  I know that unboiled, they are hard to crack.  Must be all that oyster shell calcium I give them!   I learned on one of my favorite websites, http://casualkitchen.blogspot.com/, it is better to crack eggs on a flat surface than on the edge of a bowl or counter.  The shell sticks to the membrane and doesn't shatter and fall into the bowl.  True statement!!  So, I managed to peel my hard boiled gems, but after being peeled, they looked pretty rough.  Rough or not, I chopped them up, added some mayo, and some garlic seasoning, and yum!  The picture below is my nearly consumed sammy. 

I'm starting to feel a little like I'm living in Jack and the Beanstalkland...I got up the other morning to have a look at the seedlets...oh my...they have grown so much, they pushed the lid completely off of the tray.  The picture below shows the beans and peas at one end.  Herbs are on the other end, so they are not quite as tall, or strong for that matter.  The other tray is also sprouting, but since I moved the tray around so much when I was watering, I think I might have it backwards...not sure what is sprouting with such a vengeance.  It says peppers, but they look a lot more like squash plants...I don't know...hopefully they identify themselves shortly.  I didn't take a picture of them...didn't want to disturb their little habitat just yet.

It's raining today, so hopefully it will rain enough to get the soil wet enough for me to finish "tilling".  I still have the other half of the garden to do, which will be for the squash and cucumbers.  It wasn't so bad last Saturday, but of course, I started with the easy section...why do I always do that??!!   Oh well...I do have teenagers, so maybe I will just put them to work.  Novel idea...

Rooster Be Damned!

So...I was doing outdoor house chores yesterday and carefully placed my phone on a table as opposed to keeping it in my pocket...I learned that lesson when my last phone ended up in the toilet...egh.  When I went to get my phone after completing chores, I noticed a "hair" on the screen. I tried to wipe it off...only to discover it was a crack in the screen. Oh, but not just one crack...multiple cracks! Aaaaahhhh! So what happened? Well, the only thing we can think of is that Big Bird got curious and pecked the screen. UGH!!! Good thing I bought the insurance on this phone. The girl at the Verizon store was entertained by my latest phone exploits...although I am not. Stupid rooster!

Loss, Plans, Shopping, and a Workout!

We had a sad day in the chicken condos last week...we lost a chicken. Avery, our rambunctious little labbie, often manages to free herself from the ties that bind her to the porch.  As you may recall, she got a hunk of one of the rooster's tails a few weeks back. Apparently, she made an escape last Thursday,  and felt like showing off to big sister, Jetta. She decided to "fetch" a chicken.  Unfortunately for the chicken, being caught was fatal.  It was reported that she was quite proud of her conquest...standing with the chicken in her mouth...which was followed by yelling and being banished to her crate.  We are still getting seven or eight eggs a day, so I think we didn't lose anyone terribly important to egg production.  The others seem to have moved on with their lives...actually I'm pretty sure they are all quite thankful they escaped the jaws of death.

Plans are done...next on the agenda...shopping!

So today I visited the local Home Depot to get all the things needed for the garden.  I think I did that and more...I bought soaker hoses, male and female hose thingies, stakes, string, garden soil ( a very large man named Larry said that was just as good as fertilizer...he'd better be right!), a plastic greenhouse for the herb seeds, a trellis for the peas and beans, and a few other random things I felt I must have for success.  When I got home, I planted the herb seeds in the little greenhouse, which are hanging out on top of the frig now.  Then I decided that since I bought all the stuff, I should probably get crackin' on getting the ground ready.  The weather was pretty nice today and I needed a workout! 

So, here are the perfect tools for getting the garden ready...

I set a goal to get at least a third of the garden hand "rototilled" with the fabulous garden "weasel" I borrowed this morning.  Not sure why it's called a garden weasel...it is more of a garden torture device...for the person using it.  I finally tossed it aside and opted for the garden "claw" that I had in the shed.  It clawed all the big weeds quite nicely and things started moving much quicker.  On a side note...I would like to know who comes up with these ridiculous names for all these implements..."weasel", "claw"...and let's not forget the "hula hoe" which I have never found to be very useful...although I have two.  Anyway, after "weaseling" and "clawing" for a couple of hours, I managed to get 4 rows ready for the nutrient rich garden soil Larry at Home Depot talked me into buying...how could I go wrong at 4/$10.00????  So once I got the soil ready,  I decided to cover the rows with black plastic (garbage bags) to kill the remaining weeds...I've been reading and that was suggested by the Farmer's Wife of The Farmer's Wife Guide to Growing a Great Garden & Eating From it, Too!  She's a farmer's wife, so she muct know something.  I managed to get half the garden ready and have thoughts about finishing tomorrow...we'll see...I'm quite sore. 

After a couple of hours of work, this is what I accomplished...

 This is what I have not accomplished...maybe tomorrow...if my body doesn't protest too much.



Seeds, seeds, seeds...was that a chicken??

Well, it's been many days since I last addressed the garden or the poultry.  Let me start with the poultry, because that is usually more eventful...

So, last week, husband and I decide to dismantle the old dog house that sits next to the chicken coop.  You'll remember that one of the girls likes to lay her eggs in the very narrow space between those two things, so getting rid of the dog house was a good idea.  Not to mention it was full of creepy crawly things that even the chickens didn't seem to want.  So, there was a piece of plywood propped up against the old doghouse...guess what we found?  More eggs...those sneaky girls.  So we took care of those hiding places...made for an awesome fire in our firepit. The chickens do not like the fire...must be some sort of inbred fear of very hot things...(think KFC).  We also decided that the girls and boys have had too much freedom...they have not been very conscientious about laying eggs in the condos...it's almost as if they are like little kids who wet their pants because they are too busy playing.  They spend their time running around looking for bugs and avoiding the boys and suddenly the urge comes over them and plop!  There is an egg!!  Or two or three...ugh.  So the plan is to keep them "cooped up" until late afternoon and then let them out to forage for a few hours before dark.  It's been somewhat successful...not as many eggs (5-6 daily), but the surprises have diminished.  Although one idiot came out of the coop, went straight to the Blazer, dropped an egg, which cracked on the metal surface.  This was actually observed, so the egg went immediately into the frying pan.

Just a quick note on eating eggs from your own chickens...YUM!!  I have to admit, I was leery of eating something that I actually witnessed exiting the rear end of a chicken.  Now, I'm not sure that I will ever enjoy a store bought egg again.  There is just something extra delicious about a freshly laid egg.  I thought they'd be a bit...well...gross.  The eggs have the most beautiful colored yolk...orangey rather than yellow...and they cook up like a dream.  The whites stay fairly firm and don't spread out as much as store bought eggs.  The flavor?  Buttery...not gamey at all.  I'm curious to see how they add to the flavor when baking something.  I wonder if eating fresh raw eggs is safe...I know they tell you not to eat raw store bought eggs, but the batter of most baked goods usually tastes better than the finished product...think chocolate chip cookie dough.  I thnk I'll research it before I put my insides to the test.  No need to ruin a perfectly good day with that nonsense.  Okay, so that wasn't really a "quick note"...honestly, did you expect it to be?  By the way, below you will see a picture of two of our freshly laid eggs cooking.

I had to throw this photo in too...ground beef hash with scrambled eggs and potatoes...yum!

Now, the best part of letting the chickens roam the yard is the comedic value they present.  The other day, we were all sitting in the living room watching tv.  Suddenly the yellow rooster appeared in front of the screen door.  Kind of just crept up to it.  The Ninja cat was right behind him and looked like she was telling him all about the land known as "Inside" and how to gain entrance. He got rather excited when I got up off the couch, but he beat a hasty retreat when he realized that I was going to slam the glass door shut...possibly with him in it.  Not too long after that, 2 hens sprinted across the deck being chased by a rather amorous rooster (this sort of X-rated activity happens all the time...a bit disturbing to watch).  The speed with which they moved across the deck was hilarious.  A short time later, they sprinted back, again being chased by Thunder who had less than noble intentions with the fair maidens.  It's like watching a cartoon...  A phrase often muttered in our house is, "Was that a chicken?" 

Finally...the garden.  More specifically, the beginnings of the garden...seeds...I decided that I'd better get busy with my plan of growing seeds.  I went to Tractor Supply (if they would just annex the grocery store, I would have very little reason to shop anywhere else...okay, Target) and bought one of those plastic seed starter contraptions and some soil mix designed for seeds.  After some confusion on my part, as to which seeds to plant, how many in each cell, etc., I followed the directions (!!) and planted peas, beans, and some herbs.  Put the lid on the thing and placed it on the dryer.  A couple of days later, I was at Walmart and got sucked in to the pretty seed packet display and managed to purchase more seeds...squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more herbs.  Back to Tractor Supply to get another plastic greenhouse.  Planted all of those seeds and painstakingly labeled all the cells on the outside of the lid.  Even made a paper map...of course, that was followed up by me turning the bottom around and around while I watered it, so now I'm not sure which end is which.  Hopefully when they sprout, I'll recognize something.  The first little greenhouse has already sprouted some peas...yay! 

My seed project...

This weekend?  Rototilling...I hope.