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Monday, May 19, 2008

Veggies, Chickens, and Summer; Oh My!

Today we worked almost all day on our garden. We pulled up weeds and spread old bedding/straw from a brooder around tomatoes. The chickens definitely enjoyed having the weeds tossed into their cage!! One garden consists of lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, and onions. In a second square of dirt is our corn. Everything is looking wonderful, and the lettuce is fabulous! A scarecrow was put up, then decorated with a T-shirt, red yarn for hair, streamers from a kite, gardening gloves, and tin pans hanging from 'her' arms.

We now actually have two or three setting hens: the heritage RIR that has hatched 5 chicks, a Silkie hen, and the white Cornish (which, if you don't mind me being self-expressive, I think that Cornish are a pretty ugly and weird looking breed...oh well, she was free!). We moved the RIR from the rabbit cage that she's been staying in to the watering trough, so that her two chickies would have room to stretch if they wanted. Then we put the Cornish into the rabbit cage with her eggs. After some persistent begging and pleading and pushing and shoving, she settled down on the nest finally! The Silkie chicks are doing fine, and I haven't seen any pips in the other eggs. I wish we had a candler so that I could check fertility! The closest I've got is a flashlight in the laundry room....

I'm glad that it's finally almost summer. I can go outside in shorts! No more sweaters or jackets, sweats or long pants. And the best part, I can walk barefoot around the yard. Not so much in the chicks coop, or the chicken coop, but around the yard. We've been letting the chickens (not Silkies/OEGB) out into the yard, and they love that as much as I love them. The two golden laced Polish are the funniest things (other than the ducks), as they run like mad women when anything like the door slams or a motorcycle goes by happens!

Not much else is planned for a while. I have a couple weeks free, till something big. Tomorrow we may go strawberry picking. Yuuummmy! I wanna make some jam!

~chickengirl~

2 thought(s):

Don said...

Sounds like you have a lot going on, as usual! I am planning on getting my garden going today and tomorrow. Lots of work, but, you gotta spend your time doing something, so it might as well be something productive!

Is your Cornish one of those breeds that gets really huge?

chickengirl said...

Yep, lots! We're going down to our lake house right now. Our garden is very productive!

Well, Cornish X or whatever they're called do, and Cornish is a breed used for meet. Ever heard chicken meat be called Cornish at fast-food places? We went strawberry picking, and the guy (which we bought chicks from last year) was raising Cornish this year. ALL Cornish!! He had hens, roosters, and tons of cute chicks of different ages!!!! For some reason, his hens were a LOT prettier then ours.....