Flower Garden Update

It's been awhile since I posted an update on the flower garden. HOURS of time have been spent weeding all of the crabgrass, dandelions, thistle, and other wild plants in the tiered beds outside of the front door.

The front row is virtually weed free, except for some very persistent ditch lilies that refuse to die, and consists of a large butterfly bush, Black-Eyed Susans, Dutch Iris, Coral Bells, Columbine, and petunias. A large portion of the space was occupied by zinnias, but I dug those up on Monday and replaced them with an assortment of dwarf coneflowers.

The butterfly bush may end up moving to the end of the second tier. It's too big to have smack dab in the middle.

I also planted a Pow Wow Wildberry Coneflower on the left side of the bed, along with three blanket flowers, and a Coreopsis.


The second tiered bed is still quite a work in progress. There is either a)one very large colony of ants or b) many colonies of ants in that bed, so the weeding usually stops once the little buggers are disturbed. I'm confident it will get weeded eventually. So far, about eight feet of the bed is weed free. I transplanted the pink Dianthus plants that were growing in front of the house to this bed. I wanted something with color, but I didn't want anything too tall so the rocks behind the flowers would still be visible.

I also succumbed to temptation at Lowes earlier this week and bought a couple Coreopsis. There was a void in the front garden bed left by an ornamental grass that never thrived, so the new addition was planted in with the day lilies and the Hot Papaya coneflowers.

LOVE soaker hoses. I don't love the brick red mulch, but the local store was out of the mulch.

One of the few inconveniences of transplanting (especially during a drought in August) is water. I have cut down on the amount of time I need to physically be outside watering by utilizing soaker hoses in the vegetable garden. I had an extra hose lying around, and decided to use it in the flower beds with the new plants, and it works wonderfully! I also found that mulching plants really helps cut down on the amount of supplemental water they need.

Replacements Update

The Replacements haven't gotten much attention on the blog recently, so here are a few updated photos. They have entered their "awkward" phase and are rambunctious and like to spread their wings. They also enjoy fighting for a spot in their dust bath-- a shallow plastic tray filled with dirt. They'll only spend another week or two in their brooder before they're released into their half of the coop.

Fun Friday Photo

I Shot a Possum, and Other Chicken Tales

My lack of posts due to the absence of interesting events was interrupted yesterday as Wednesday was highlighted by three dramatic episodes for the chickens and their keeper. The major development of the day was that the vermin that brought much pain, heartache and anxiety was apprehended. 

As I was heading outside after dinner to feed the chickens their daily treats, I noticed that the live trap next to their pen was closed and something furry was contained within. Upon closer examination the furry-something ended up a being a possum, most likely the one who dispatched of the Black Australorp back in mid-July. The trap had been set since mid-July. In fact, I had planned to give up and put it away last weekend, but was feeling lazy. One of the grossest things about the incident was that the bait (can of cat food) had been in the trap at least two weeks, which should tell you a lot about possums and their food preferences (and I guess that tells you something about my trap-keeping skills. Who says laziness can’t lead to success?) 

Don't be fooled--it's not dead in this picture. It's just playing possum.

Despite the vicious predator contained in a trap just outside their fence, the Originals seemed to sense it was no longer a threat.

 I immediately phoned the neighbor, picked up the cage with the musty, sour smelling critter and carried it to the row of pine trees that would serve as death row. My neighbor arrived with a rifle and Mr. Possum quickly met his maker. I had no qualms about shooting the little sucker square in the noggin, especially since he ate livestock that would have produced many eggs for eating. 

Possums carry diseases that can be fatal to horses so there was also an interest to keep Jubilee and Charlie healthy. (You may also recall that we had a possum problem back in May 2012 that was resolved in a similar manner).

Prior to the excitement of the possum incident, I arrived home from work and went about doing the daily chores, the first of which is walking through the barn to visit the vegetable garden. Upon entering the barn I found a very distraught Dominique who was standing on top of the chicken coop. She must have flown out of the pen, reentered the barn and was desperately trying to rejoin her buddies inside. After trying to coax her down, I gave up and went to the garden, where I contemplated my strategy to get her back where she belonged.

Brief side note: Dominique and Brownie had escaped not 10 days earlier using the same technique-they were discovered wandering in the barn aisle. Brownie was herded back into the outdoor pen after about 10 minutes. Dominique proved harder to catch since she isn’t used to being handled—I cornered her by the barn and electric netting (which had been turned off). In her urgency to get away from me, she ran into the netting, which allowed me to grab her. Despite her initial squawking, she settled right down and allowed me to carry her back to her buddies).

So, after picking quite a haul of green beans, squash, cherry tomatoes, and cucumbers I returned to the barn determined to get the chicken down off the coop. She could be tempted with treats, but  would flee when I tried to pick her up (which was kind of hard to do standing on a step stool). Finally she got close enough to the edge of the coop’s wire ceiling that I was able to prod her to the ground using the handle of a pitchfork. She was quickly ushered into the coop where I found…

TWO EGGS! Woo hoo! One (or two) of the Originals is starting to lay. The eggs were right by the human entrance to the coop, so now the challenge is getting the chickens to lay in their nest boxes (stay tuned for updates). 

The eggs aren’t very big—I’d say one would be considered medium-size and the other is small. Obviously, I am really looking forward to breakfast tomorrow morning.

Bears!

Okay, truthfully (and thankfully) we've had no bear sightings on the farm. But, here's a fun live-video feed of Brooks Falls in Alaska where the brown bears fish for salmon.


Live streaming video by Ustream

Out in the Rain

A few weeks ago the horses were in their stalls eating their dinner of oats when it began to rain.

Charlie wasn't fazed by the rain, but Jubilee wouldn't tolerate the ping of the drops on the metal roof of the barn. She hightailed it out of her stall to the barnyard.

Farm rule: if you leave the barn during mealtime, you don't get to come back in.

 Charlie was content to wait out the storm in his stall. (Mostly he stayed inside because a certain human didn't want to go outside and take off his halter in the rain and mud puddles.)

The chickens wisely stayed inside with their dry coop.