A few days ago, I said I had given up on the fencing. Today is another beautiful day and I am less sore, and have more energy, so I attacked it again. There were two long pieces of garden fencing partially loose on the ends attached to several T-posts and it served no useful purpose. I started taking it down last summer to make mowing easier but it was really overgrown in the grass and I couldn’t get it free. It is now down, the T-posts all pulled, a dozen of them. Old rotting wooden fence posts that were laid along the bottom to keep the chickens in when there was a run that it enclosed were pulled up and stacked along the edge of the large A frame coop.
The row of tall weeds is where it was, the garden fence to the right, the orchard to the left, and I am standing with my back to the chicken run where they kick out the compost. That large coop was built so I could raise some meat chickens. Maybe this fall if the virus subsides, I will get a dozen or so Freedom Rangers and some electric net fencing and put that coop back to use. It becomes the holding coop when old hens are replaced with new pullets.
Feeling smug that the task was accomplished and going back to last year’s idea of a garden fence closer to the garden inside the original sturdier fence, making a run around the perimeter of the garden for the chickens was revisited. I had done that last year, but had used 3 foot fencing in places and the chickens would get a running start and go over it and get out or in to the garden. The fence I took down is 4 feet and the exterior fence is 4 feet and if I put a cover over the end near the coop, they can’t get a running start and fly onto the egg door. The first section of that fence was put in place, but then I got down near Mrs. Wren and she got agitated, so I left her alone to sit. I went back to it after lunch and got by her so she won’t be bothered again. I got the fence put back, and the chickens can have the run of that alley and scratch the henbit, chickweed, and other goodies looking for bugs. It helps keep the weeds down, gives them some running room and more area to scratch.
It didn’t take them long to find the feast, it won’t take them long to beat down the weeds in that perimeter. There is very little left to do inside the garden fence now. A few small areas of henbit, a deteriorated tarp at the farthest end to be removed.
When the leaves fall in autumn, we look forward to the new greening in the spring. Usually we see no green hints except on scrub until early to mid May. We aren’t even to the middle of April and the trees are beginning to leaf out. This is such an atypical spring. My seedlings are thriving and get a bit of sheltered time on the back deck during the day. Some heartier house plants have been returned to the porches. I watch the weather and if a frost sneaks up on us, some will be brought back in.
The hens are being generous. The nine of them produce about 5 eggs a day, but yesterday they were in overdrive.
The oblong layer is still producing odd oblong eggs and her shells are very thin and brittle.