Saturday’s are drive thru breakfast out and on to the Farmer’s Market. A couple of days ago, I reseeded lettuce, spinach, kale, and Lacinato kale in the garden. At the market this morning, I scored spinach and Lacinato kale starts and came home to add them to the mini head lettuce starts from a few weeks ago. They will provide greens before the seed is up and providing. I didn’t bother to water them in because the afternoon and tomorrow are rainy. Mid week, I will cover them at night for three nights because we have three nights of upper 20’s expected.
Once a few dandelions coming up around cardboard in the paths were dug and the mulch respread, I set about making a “chicken run” from the end of the chicken’s enclosure to the Chicken Palace where the big girls will be herded this evening and locked in to acclimate to their new digs.
That is the chicken palace behind the burn barrel which is making short work of all the scraps from the old boxes and the rotted barrel staves. I just kept adding wood until it was all gone from outside the garden. Whatever is left after I build the compost bins from the remaining boxes, will be burned another day. I sat out near it with a garden hose at the ready until it began to thunder and lightening and I moved to the inside of the garage where I could keep an eye on it. Once it was just a smoldering layer in the bottom, the rain began hard. I expect it is mostly out now, but the new plants got watered in.
One of the display pieces, I have wanted for vending events is a decorative ladder. I have looked for one unsuccessfully, so yesterday, a trip to the big box hardware store and a purchase of two oak boards, two oak dowels, and a package of screws gave me the supplies I needed to make my own. It is put together, given one coat of poly stain and finish and ready to take with me tomorrow to the museum for Founder’s Day.
It is the same height and rung spacing as my folded rack seen in the left of this photo below.
Tomorrow, I will leave the piece that can attach to the table at home and use the rack and ladder to display items for sale. I expect it will be too warm to sell many knits, but maybe the yarn and woven bags might sell and I am going to hold an end of season sale. What I am taking is packed in the car and ready to go.
The chicks were moved to the garage last week into the large RubberMaid water tank to give them more room. At 4 and 5 weeks old, they are no longer the cute little fuzzies that they were, they are gawky teenagers with feathers, long wings and a propensity to try to escape whenever the screens are moved off to add food, water, or clean shavings. I have raised the heat lamp well above them, but left the heat tables in. They may need it mid week with the colder nights, but they are only a couple of weeks from moving to the coop. Daughter is going to loan me her power washer and I am going to powerwash the inside of the coop, repair a few pieces of outside trim, and repaint or stain it before I move them over. The narrow run off of the pen is going to be removed and the pen enlarged to give them more running around space until they are large enough to free range. I will cover the top of the pen with bird net to keep the hawks from picking off the chicks to feed their own chicks. I lost three young birds a couple of years ago before the pen and run were covered.
There are still 15 in there, but 3 or 4 are so much smaller than the others, I need them to get some size before I can turn them loose in the pen.
After I move the adult birds this evening, I will work on the coop and fencing next week and get it all ready for the littles.