Oops, I did it again...

Oops... I let another long span go by between posts... I had great intentions of keeping up much more closely with my blog this summer, keeping up with regular updates on the garden and whatnot, but that just hasn't happened.  Summertime is twice as busy for me as wintertime, since I have both the inside and the outside to take care of!

The garden is doing really well, things are finally starting to look like plants!  Our first crop of lettuce in the greenhouse is long gone, replaced by lots of tomato plants, the blackberries in the greenhouse are growing, and we've already tasted the first strawberries!  Outside the greenhouse, our outdoors crop of lettuce is getting gorgeous, the potato plants are shooting up and filling out with gorgeous foliage, beans and peas and greens are growing, and the cherry trees are laden with young fruits.  Our hens are doing wonderfully!  We now have 10 Buff Orpingtons (got two from Red's mom that are a couple weeks younger than the original 8), they're about 3 months old now and SO BIG!  They look full grown, but they aren't done yet!  They're probably only around 2-3lbs right now, if that, and Orpingtons can get to be around 8lbs!  They are a hoot to watch, fun to hang out with, though don't wear sandals (and especially not crocs!) cause they love to peck at toes!  The very best is letting them out of the coop in the morning.  They fly and flutter and run around, so glad to be out in the fresh air!

We've had quite a few run-ins with bears this year, far more than usual, and have had to stop composting for a while until we can get some electric fencing up.  We've never had problems with critters like this before.  We had a couple visits last year from bears, but there was a period of about two weeks where we had a bear almost every night, and several visits during the day, which is not so common around here.  We even had a bear rip the cam-strap off our trash can, which has never failed us as bear protection before, so now we keep the trash locked in the zircon up the hill.  We haven't had any trouble the past two weeks or so, but for a while it was getting pretty ridiculous, and we now have a rule that no one goes outside without the dog (at any time of day or night).  Whiskey has definitely earned his keep, chasing bears away!  I'm just thankful we don't have any grizzlies around here, that our bears are relatively smaller and less aggressive black bears.

I'm extremely excited, because a big order of all sorts of fabrics is due to arrive this afternoon!  I'm going to be rebuilding Red's work clothes wardrobe from scratch, and I'm actually really excited about it!  I've made pants before, but never anything with a true tailored waistband and fly.  It should be a really fun challenge, and I can't wait to take it on!

In the meantime, some pictures of the garden and hens, taken today!

 The lettuce and onion bed!

 Blackberries climbing in the center, tomatoes around the walls, strawberries everywhere else

 Pole beans

Some of the many potatoes!

This is a case of mistaken identity...

Well, two weeks of chicken ownership has been wonderful! We didn't lose a single chick, no health issues, they grew so fast, and are nice healthy birds! But unfortunately, not all of them were the birds we wanted... We *thought* we had 12 Buff Orpington chicks, and thought the 8 darker ones maybe just had different parents or were just darker birds or something... Well, as they grew, so did their feathers, and as their feathers came in with patterns, we realized something wasn't right... It took until they were very nearly 2 weeks old before we were able to positively identify the 8 darker birds as Rhode Island Reds, a very beautiful breed no doubt, but not the right breed for us.  For one, they aren't as cold hardy and wouldn't do well in the winter here, and for two they are prone to be a more aggressive breed, and probably wouldn't get alone with the 4 Orpingtons we did have once they got older.  But thankfully, thanks to Craigslist we were able to find the Reds a new home, and take the 4 Orpingtons to Red's mom Kayla, and get 8 new Buff Orpington chicks for ourselves, all in one day!  Ca-RAY-zy!  So now we have 8 weeny teeny little yellow puffballs (and yes, this time they ALL are Orpingtons!), they are 4 days old today (or thereabouts, we got them on Wednesday, and are assuming they were day-olds then), and already have grown quite a bit.  It really is remarkable the difference in their behavior even at this tender age compared to how the Reds were, the first batch of chicks were constantly peeping and chirruping, but this batch is quite quiet in comparison!  They aren't as fond of being fed special treats (cracked wheat and oats) by hand by us yet, whereas the Reds weren't too shy of a hand full of treats, but these are much more tolerant of being picked up and held, whereas the Reds were very skiddish even at 2 weeks old of a hand without treats... Anyways, this new batch are healthy and doing well, and we're excited to get our flock right the second time ;)

(On a personal note, today is Wyatt's 3rd Birthday!!! My poor baby boy is so sick with a nasty tummy bug, and we've had to postpone his party, but we still have special stuff to do with him tomorrow even if he can't have friends over :(  Poor kiddo!  I think Red and I are more upset about it than he is though!)

Here chickie chickie chickie!

Today we grew our family by a whopping 12 teeny little girls!  No, I didn't just have duodecuplettes (PHEW!), we got CHICKS!  12 adorable teeny fuzzballs, all Buff Orpington pullets (female chicks).  We've been planning for some time now to get chickens, but weren't sure if we wanted to go with day old chicks (like these) or juvenile pullets, or even if we could find laying hens locally, but after no luck of finding free hens, and no luck finding pullets of the breed we wanted, we decided to go with chicks!  And luck have it, the local feed co-op has Buff Orpingtons!  We picked them up this morning, and they are happily chirruping away in their brooder box in our living room.  They'll live in this box for at least the first few weeks, as they need constant heat heat heat!  The first week, we have to keep them at around 95 degrees!  Fortunately this is easily done with a couple 60 watt incandescent bulbs and some nice dry warm and insulating wood shavings for litter.

Bean and Tig are both absolutely entranced, clearly they think this is the best thing that has ever happened here... Though the chickies are nice and safe in there!  Wyatt is excited too, and all of our new favorite activity is just sitting and watching them!  I am so excited to watch them grow, get to know their personalities and quirks!  No names for them yet, for one they're very hard to distinguish from one another (and will continue to be, as their feathers will be in a constant state of change for the next few months!).  They will begin laying in about 5-6 months, so come early fall we'll be enjoying delicious eggs!  Three of the twelve will go to Red's mom when they are about 6 weeks or so, past the fragile chickie stage and well on their way to being big girls!  Buff Orpingtons are a heritage breed, originally bred in England in the late 1800's.  They're a heavy breed, hens reaching around 8lbs at maturity, and they will lay large light brown eggs.  They're very cold hardy, and have small combs and wattles (the floppy things on their heads), and that's a good thing cause the bigger the combs and wattles are, the more prone they are to frostbite.  Here's a shot of a mature hen- (borrowed from pluckandfeather.com)