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  • The Other One

    A couple of days ago, I introduced you to Ms. Houdini. When she gets out, she comes running toward me to be let back in the pen and coop at dusk. This is Ms. HA (Houdini’s apprentice) who discovered she too can escape, however, at dusk, she does not come running to be put away with the other hens. For the past two nights, I have found her here…

    She lets me pick her up and as soon as we round the end of the house, she begins a mighty struggle to be free.

    Yesterday, I left them locked in the coop until early afternoon, hoping that they would all lay their eggs in the nesting boxes. I only found 4 eggs.

    When we got home from the Farmer’s Market and Nursery this morning, I lured Ms. Houdini and Ms. HA back to the pen, hoping they would lay their daily egg in there. At the Market, I purchased an Elderberry and wanted to get it in the ground promptly, so I gathered my tools, water, hole filling soil, a ring of fence, and a stake and set about the task of digging into our very rocky soil, looked up and there they were again, in the yard. The Elderberry was tucked in and watered and the ring of fence staked over it to protect it.

    As I was taking my update picture for one of the spinning challenges first thing this morning, using the succulents that were moved outside yesterday as backdrop, I remembered that I also needed a bag of Cactus, succulent soil which I got at the nursery while we were out. The pots need dividing, some bits discarded, some replanted.

    I had two peppers growing in the hydroponic garden that needed to be put in the ground or in pots and decided to pot them and put them in the herb part of the walled garden. While I was doing that on the side of the house, I heard the “egg song” and dashed around the front of the house to see if I can figure out where these two are laying their eggs, but though she was standing near a garden, I couldn’t spot any eggs. I guess I’m going to have to us longer poles for their enclosure and run monofilament or bird net a few feet higher than the 48″ fence to see if I can keep them in. I don’t want to keep them locked in the Palace as it is dark.

    The fig half barrel was shifted to near the walled garden so it get watered when the garden gets watered and the smaller half barrel of herbs was placed in the walled garden with the two peppers in pots near where the other planted and potted herbs are located.

    The rest of the vegetable garden is going to get seeded before the rain comes in tomorrow, hoping it gets watered in well, though I do have a second sprinkler in the vegetable garden plot.

    It has been a fairly productive early part of the day and we still haven’t gone for our walk. I think I will go plant some seed while I wait to do that.

  • The Blanket Challenge

    At the rate I am going, getting at least two squares from each sample of wool, I’m going to have to assemble two blankets, or it will fit a king size bed. There are 23 squares done so far with one on the knitting needles and most of the breeds done have 2 or 3 squares with wool left over. The squares are spread out on a double bed and the rough outline is already 40″ by 40″.

    And this basket is full of the breeds I haven’t begun yet.

    Every inch of the yarn has been spun and plied on Jenkins Turkish spindles and every square hand knit. I am awaiting the return of my largest spindle that I use to ply as it was returned for repair. It’s absence has kept my quantity small enough to limit me to two squares per spin and that is a good thing. There will be wool left over to be spun when the year is done and a different project to utilize smaller quantities of various wools will have to be decided. Having a spindle and a small knitting project with me at all times, keeps my hands busy and my mind distracted.

  • Blackberry Winter and Growing Things

    The littles aren’t little anymore and they don’t walk anywhere. They flap and flutter out of the coop and once all are out, bump breasts and fly across the pen. They are an entertaining morning event.

    Yesterday we walked bundled up like for winter in a chilly, breezy day. By last evening, it has gotten milder and stayed mild over night and today is pleasant. Our walk was around the pond today, which was teeming with new life. There were thousands of tiny tadpoles, turtles the size of quarters, and small fish but I couldn’t get close enough to get any good photos of them. One of the geese has hatched 4 goslings and she and proud Papa had them out and about, pretty fearless of the walkers on the path.

    Salamanders sunning on the retaining wall.

    And flowers providing some color where there was none only a couple weeks ago.

    The peas in the garden are climbing the trellis, potatoes are sprouting tufts of green leaves, garlic and onions standing tall. The tomatoes and peppers aren’t showing any new growth yet, but as soon as it warms again, they will. The fig moved to the half barrel is showing new leaves and new growth as are the transplanted raspberries. Soon it will be time to plant the cucumbers, corn, beans, tomatillos, and ground cherries. Every year, I plant some lettuce, spinach, and chard or kale and every year they don’t do well and I purchase it cut and clean from the Farmer’s Market. I am still hopeful that the transplants will provide some food for us. The hay is thick and as tall as the deer bellies as they walk through it. Mowing of hay will begin around the area soon, if the rain doesn’t throw the schedules off like last year. It is definitely taking a turn toward warmer weather.

  • Let me introduce you

    I want you to meet Ms. Houdini. She is a beautiful bird that was supposed to be an Olive egger, even has green legs with face puffs and a beautiful gold necklace. But she lays pink eggs and there is no enclosure that can keep her contained.

    For the most part, she is submissive to me and will squat when I approach and I can pick her up and return her to the enclosure. She is also, the leader of the pack, the head hen and always the first one out of the coop in the morning.

    Last Sunday, I found her, the two Olive eggers that lay green eggs and a New Hampshire Red on the north roofed porch, lounging on the chairs, table, and under the swing. They were unceremoniously chased off and a lemon juice spray generously sprayed around the deck perimeter as I read that chickens don’t like citrus and citrus smell. That didn’t even slow them down, so they were penned up while we went to meet Son 1 and family for our Mother’s Day picnic. When we arrived home, near dark, Ms. Houdini greeted us from under the cedars. I put window screens across the porch opening and they started coming under the rail on the east end which is a bit higher off the deck than the rest, so more screens were added.

    Unable to easily get on the porch, they began going under it. I don’t want eggs layed there to attract snakes, skunks, and rats, so I am in the process of moving bowling ball sized rocks to make the opening too small for a hen to enter, but larger enough for air flow.

    Since hens love to scratch and dig in soil and since their move to the Palace, several of the hens decided to forgo the nesting boxes in the coop and have begun making hidey holes in the soil in the flower gardens. I wouldn’t mind that if they weren’t tearing up the day lilies and digging up the Calendula and Zinneas, so fences have had to be erected everywhere.

    This slows some of them down, but i am still finding at least one egg in there each day. I can’t see if there are any under the porch, it is too dark even with my brightest flashlight. In total frustration with them last night, after dinner, I took two 25 foot long pieces of fencing, an armload of unused garden stakes, and made them a containment pen. This morning, they were turned loose into the new pen with a scoop of scratch and a clean bucket of water. It didn’t take Ms. Houdini any more time than I took to fix my coffee and yogurt before she was on the front porch which I hadn’t blocked off yet. She can get out, but has no incentive to get back in on her own and if I catch her and put her back, she will eat, drink, and get out again. Short of a 6 foot roofed cage, I just can’t keep her in. I wonder where I will find her egg today, if I ever do.

  • A Most Wonderful Day

    Midweek, Son 1 asked if we had Mother’s Day plans which we did not. He suggested a halfway meet up for a picnic with Grandson 1 and DIL. I asked if Daughter and her two kiddos should be included and got a resounding, “YES!” back, so she was asked. We divvied up the picnic goodies, and in a “I don’t ever want to own one of these” rental SUV, headed 2 hours East, they headed 2 hours Southeast and we met up at a picnic ground on the Blue Ridge Parkway north end. It was wonderful to have two of my children, 3 of my grandchildren, and 1 of my DIL’s there to share an afternoon of food and social visitation. We had a slight adventure getting there because I used Google Maps to take the “shortcut” through Stuart’s Draft to get on the parkway and it led us up a narrow gravel road for about 3 miles before intersecting with the parkway. Daughter said it was reminiscent of childhood auto adventures, her daughter thought is was kind of cool out in the middle of nowhere woods, but the teenager wasn’t so sure about it. The woods at the picnic ground were full of Mayapples in bloom. Ours are up but not blooming yet. There are one of my favorites in the mountain woods.

    Before we headed out, Daughter presented me with a gift bag and card. The card was adorable and it is funny that her son picked the same card for her. The gift bag had two much needed new kitchen towels. In spite of the photo, they really are the same color and match my tea kettle.

    DIL is an multi-talented artist and she presented Daughter and me with hand thrown planter pots with saucers. That was perfect too as I love the one she gave me for Christmas and was looking for another pot for a bathroom plant.

    Son had on a hat that I was admiring and he said, “it is your yarn, but you didn’t make it” and followed with an explanation that one of his co-workers had made it for him. A further explanation was that through another co-worker, she had discovered my blog and has twice purchased some of my handspun yarn which she in turn made part of into a hat for Son. I thought that was such a neat crossing of paths. She and son knew the connection, but I didn’t until today.

    Before we all said goodbye today, the tallest scrunched down after arranging us and took a group selfie. Back left is Grandson 1, Hubby, Grandson 3, me, DIL, Daughter, Granddaughter 2, and Son 1 wearing “the hat.”

    What a great day. Now I want to see Son 2 and his family too.

    Happy Mother’s Day!

  • Walk On

    When spring came and we dedicated ourselves to a daily walk, we expected to have a day or two each week when the weather was uncooperative. We have walked 28 out of the past 30 days. Only one of those days did we cut the walk a bit short, only doing 2 miles, when we could see a thunderstorm bearing down on us. We thought today was going to be a washout. There was no rain in the forecast, but gloomy gray. Yesterday, I purchased replacement tomato and pepper plants for granddaughter’s garden as something ate every pepper plant to the ground and most of the tomato starts I gave them didn’t take. Today, we planned to take them to daughter’s house after lunch and after picking her up from the car servicing center and helping daughter and granddaughter plant them in their garden. I took two of the flexible poles and bird net to cover the peppers, T posts and the pounder to create the Florida trellis for the tomatoes. On our way to pick daughter up, it started raining, continued to rain while we waited for her to get her car checked in, and part of the way back to her house. Then it stopped. The garden is replanted, the tomatoes a bit larger than the ones I started, the peppers now protected (we hope) by a dome of bird netting. And the only picture I managed to take while the three of us gardened was the variety of lichens on the neighbor’s fence that provides one side of daughter’s garden too.

    The picture was accompanied by a lesson for the 9 year old on symbiosis, which her mom said was a refresher from last year.

    Our walk followed the garden session, still cloudy, but no more rain. Each week our miles for the week are recorded and shared with a virtual walking group in our community and each week we get a cummulative report with photos. A fun way to keep up with neighbors.

  • Another beautiful day and more work

    Night before last, we decided to go have dinner at our favorite Local restaurant which has a large outside patio shaded partially by a canopy, partially by trees, and nearby buildings. When we arrived, surprised that there was no one on the patio, we noticed a sign on the two doors stating that they were closed for two days for upgrades. There are two other nearby restaurants with patios, one of them a new micro brewery so we decided to try it instead, though neither of drinks anymore. It was a huge mistake as far as I was concerned. They had no shade, no umbrellas, and it was in the 80’s in the hot sun around 5 p.m. I didn’t care for their menu and ended up with a small spinach salad that was ok, but nothing special. Hubby got a burger that he liked, but thought there fries were just so so. At any rate, I ended up hot, headachy inspite of consuming two large glasses of ice water, and getting too much sun for my first day in short sleeves and a skirt.

    Yesterday, we met our daughter and granddaughter at the local nursery to pick out peppers for both of us, perennials for the walled garden, and flowers for the front of her house. They must have had a dozen varieties of pepper starts, some already in 4″ pots, some still in the 4 cell starters. They picked out their varieties, I added Seranos, Cayennes, and one of the Red Bells she bought, that came in a 4 pack and she only had room for 3. Daughter picked Tubrous Begonias and Impatiens for the front of her house. I got a Shasta Daisy, Sneezeweed, Yellow Sedum, and a purple Button Flower for the walled perennial garden. They will bloom at different times and are all perennials. After digging them in, the chicken challenge was faced again as I found them in there yesterday morning and daffodils dug up. There were 5 unused tall fake bamboo poles that were placed around the perimeter and the mesh cut in half lengthwise so it is about 3.5′ wide. The mesh was fastened at the upper edge with tomato tie tape and anchored at the bottom with rocks, and now surrounds the walled garden. The edge along the rocks in the lower left corner of the photo was fastened to a couple step in posts with one that I can lift out to get in the garden and to fill bird feeders. Though the poles are visible, the mesh you can barely see.

    The new flowers were well watered in while we went to the pond for our daily walk before dinner. After dinner, since the long range forecast looks mild, I planted the tomatoes and peppers, put a thin layer of straw around the tomatoes and ran the first row of string trellis. As they grow, more straw will be added and additional runs of the string trellis. The garden got a couple hours of water too, to soak the peas, potatoes, and newly planted tomatoes and peppers. The row cover over the lettuce and brassicas isn’t allowing enough water into that bed. And yet again, I got overheated and too much sun. Though not to sunburn level, it is time to get new sunscreen and move my gardening to early morning and after dinner.

    At the nursery today, I looked for a fig. That is where I got the one planted in the ground that doesn’t stay warm enough in the winter regardless of how I wrap it. They didn’t have any, so I will monitor the planted one, last year it put out leaves when I thought it was dead. If it does again, I will try to transplant it to the half barrel that can be moved into the garage during the winter months.

    This evening, I need to begin the string trellis for the peas which seem to be recovering from the freeze and will likely improve more now that they were well watered last evening. I’m not sure I have enough cotton string to make their trellis. That should go on my shopping list.

    The Tomatillos and Ground cherries are in peat starter pots, but not yet germinated. Soon I will start the cucumbers and the winter squash. The popcorn can’t be planted for at least a few weeks to a month, so I don’t want the winter squash to get too large as the corn needs some size before the squash starts it’s runners. They are a short runner variety, but I still don’t want them to crowd out the popcorn. Bush beans need to wait for another month before they go in the ground as well. The garden is coming along, though I still see no growth from the potatoes and the lettuce and brassica area needs to be uncovered and weeded, there is a lot of spinach coming up. A nice vegetable for baby spinach salad.

    I do love this time of year. We have another day in the 80’s but cloudy then tomorrow a return to the mid 60’s for a day or two but the nights stay mild, so the garden is good to grow.

  • A Walk and a Garden

    The beautiful day was not wasted. A walk along the river was enjoyed, followed by a trip to the Nursery and home with 2 Coral Bells for the front, a nice perennial so those pots will just need pruning and feeding for years to come. There was a smaller one in the back that got too much sun, and one in the daylily bed that got no sun, so they were put in the front in pots as well.

    They are shade lovers and should do quite well there. A matching set of pots is on the other side of the stoop.

    Two pots of red and candy cane petunias came home and since they were in nice pots, they didn’t get transplanted, just put in place to compliment the red Geraniums. This morning while enjoying my coffee and egg, the Hummingbird was checking out the red flowers.

    A six pack of full sun sedum and a Ruby Hen and chicks were added to the cart and they were planted in the terra cotta strawberry pot and added to the back steps as well.

    There is one pot on the bottom step on the right that I don’t know what was planted in it before and I’m waiting to see if anything emerges from the tuber in it before it is dumped and replanted with something else.

    As it appears that my fig either didn’t survive the winter or at least burned to the ground again, I will get a new one and plant it in a half barrel that can be brought into the garage or basement during the winter. Rather than buy another larger half barrel, a smaller one was purchased and the buried pots of mint and lemon balm were transferred to it and buried to their rims.

    I had wondered why the daily quota of eggs had been so low, thinking that the hens were just aging out, but when I went to remove the mint and lemon balm from the barrel, I noticed in the small space between it and the house, was a cache of 8 eggs. They can’t be more than a week old because the hens have only had free range for a week.

    The smaller half barrel is now in that spot but I left their depression, at least I know where to look now. Those eggs will be kept separate and cracked in a bowl one at a time, to make sure they are okay before using. The first one used this morning was fine. Silly hens, I don’t want daily egg hunts.

    The littles, not so little anymore, even though they are in the pen during the day and back in the coop at night, still come running for treats.

    This flock is so pretty with the variety. The eggs will be so interesting with 5 breeds. And two of the pretty all black Marans with black legs and beaks. Three have feathered legs, the other two do not.

    This morning, the bed for the tomatoes and peppers was remeasured and drawn out on graph paper to see if it will all fit and it looks like I’m in good shape. I need to go pound in the posts for the Florida trellis for the tomatoes. More volunteer raspberries have been dug and pulled, I guess that will be an on going challenge for a year of so, but if they are removed often enough, eventually they will give up.

    Today is another beautiful day in store, so I will go get to work and take a walk to enjoy it.

  • Olio since it isn’t Sunday for Musings

    Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things.

    The outlook forward is spring (with summer for the next few days.) In a week’s time we have had freezing nights, snow flurries, strong wind, chilly gray days, and 83 f expected for today, tomorrow, and Thursday.

    This morning, the Geraniums took up residence in their deck pots. Last summer, those pots would blow off the deck and down the steps in strong wind, and they are too deep for the root system of most decorative plants, so this year, I filled them 1/3 full of fist sized rocks before adding the soil and planting the bright red flowers.

    Geraniums and Petunias are my favorites to put in pots on the deck and steps. There are two empty pots on the top steps that will hold a pair of Petunia plants as soon as they are purchased. The two pots on the stoop on the north side of the house are always a conundrum. I want color, but it doesn’t have to be flowers, I have used Coleus in the past with some success but I think a variety of Begonias that was successful in the past might be what will go in those pots. The Spider plant babies that overwintered in the utility room need to be planted in the hanging pots and put out on the porch.

    The tomatoes are beginning to bloom, still in the 4″ starter pots on the deck. Mother’s Day is the magic date here to put them in the ground, but if the future forecast stays mild, I might sneak them in a week early. They are strong, healthy seedlings, the first successful tomatoes seedlings I have ever started. There are several purchased pepper plants also on the deck with some Thai basil. They live there unless the nights are going to drop below 45 f but that isn’t in the forecast for the next 10 days. Soon the tomatoes will be divided up with daughter for their garden and my 10 will get staked out in the garden. And a few more pepper plants, of different varieties, though I still have more than a half gallon of dried Thai peppers so I don’t think I will plant them this year. Maybe cayenne for crushed red pepper flakes that get used generously here and Serranos so Sriracha style sauce can be fermented in the fall.

    The Hummingbirds are becoming regular visitors again, though still no photos. I should make a fresh batch of nectar and clean the feeders for them. That is a weekly addition to the summer routine. Once the flowers and grasses are blooming and seeding, the other feeders will come down and be cleaned up until fall. I miss seeing the little flocks of small birds during the summer, but when they can forage on their own and the bears and raccoons are active, the feeders come down and are put away.

    The net on the walled garden has had little effect at keeping the chickens out, but at least they can’t scratch through it. There must be a solution short of an ugly fence around a flower and herb garden. Since the Baptisia either didn’t come up or was scratched up, I ordered a shrub already started. It is a perennial, so once it is established, I’m good. The Cilantro germination test showed that the seed was viable, so sprouted seed was planted and it looks like there may actually be some developing.

    A trip to the Nursery is in order to fill the remaining deck pots and decide on other additions to the walled garden. I garden full of blooms that will come back each year and spread to fill the area is my dream, a few plants at a time. There is a patch of Brown Eyed Susan that comes up on the edge of one of the fields they hay, I would love to transplant some of it before it gets cut down, but have had very little luck moving it. There is a clump by the garage door that has over the years established itself there inspite of the the chicken scratching in that area. Two of the clumps of daffodils I planted on the east side of the garage keep getting dug up by the hens. Once the daylilies and Iris in that bed begin to show, I fence off that area, but my fence isn’t long enough to go all the way around the daffodils too. I love having my chickens, but dislike the havoc they wreck doing what comes naturally.

    The two freeze nights last week burned the Peonies and somewhat the peas in the garden. I hope they recover as they are one of our favorite vegetables from the garden. The onions and the covered bed did fine. I fear the potatoes that were planted just before the freeze may or may not have survived. While weeding yesterday, one of the “weeds” I dug up was a potato I missed last year with healthy sprouts, so it was transplanted to the raised bed with the other potatoes. Time will tell if anything comes up. If not, they can be replanted until mid June and I’m sure a bag of organic potatoes left out in the light will produce sprouts in short order. The Peonies have never done very well where they are planted, they have been there for more than a dozen years and have produced fewer than half a dozen blooms. Perhaps they would be happier in the better soil of the walled garden. That is a move to consider.

    Enough musings for today. Enjoy the nice weather if you are having it and if not, I hope it comes your way soon.

  • Thwarting Chickens

    Late yesterday afternoon, 4 or 5 of the hens who had remained penned until a stop scratching up my gardens solutions was decided, had Houdinied there way out of the small temporary pen. I grabbed the roll of bird netting and a fistful of fiberglass poles and headed to the walled garden to at least temporarily stop them. As I was covering part, a persistent Olive Egger was trying to dig up my parsley and oregano. She was chased off and more netting was spread over the edges near the stone wall where they were hopping in. I fully expected to find one or more of them tangled in the fine plastic mesh when it was time to secure them for the night. It is not a solution I care for. The mesh is nearly invisible, but as plants grow, they will get tangled in it which will damage the plants when I try to remove it and will leave bits of plastic in my garden, neither of which I want. I foiled the deer from eating my rose by putting a tomato cage tines up, but that is a hazard in itself and I don’t want tomato cages all over the garden either. Until the bed it full of plants and flowers, it will continue to be a problem as long as I raise chickens.

    Once they were secured for the night, it was the littles turn to be locked in. They had other ideas, most of them still exploring the pen and the under side of the coop. I sat in the hay and watched them for about 20 minutes as they explored their surroundings and me sitting in their midst.

    What, you want us to coop up? Not ready yet.

    I wish this was a better photo, with two of the black Marans with their black feathered legs. Such pretty birds and I can’t wait for their dark chocolate colored eggs.

    They are persistent, stubborn, and inovative about getting what they want and trying to put them in a pen or coop before they are ready is akin to herding cats. Maybe I should teach the German Shepherd to herd chickens.