Who needs TV?

I have said that animals are often more entertaining than TV. The chicks and the geese are proving to be a constant source of entertainment. The chicks are fun to watch as they go about their usual business and I find it amazing at how quickly they are getting their feathers. Being a city girl, this is all very fascinating and the kids are having a blast.

Plymouth Rock about one week old.

Rhode Island Red about one week.

 They have now been moved outside into the chicken tractor so they can have more room and get used to being outside. We have started construction on the coop and I plan on buying the fencing this week so we can get one paddock put up. If we can buy materials every payday, then we can have the entire system set up in just a couple of months. They have actually gotten a lot more feathers since I took these pictures so I will have to take new ones soon. They are almost three weeks old now and it is becoming more apparent which ones are the males.

The chicks in the chicken tractor.

 Right now it looks like we may have about four male Plymouth Rocks and 2-3 male Rhode Island Reds. It's still hard to tell but they are beginning to challenge each other. One interesting thing I've learned is that 5 goslings can out eat and drink 20 chicks. They are also noisier and smellier. Within the first week the geese were going through as much food in 24 hours as the chicks were in two days. That doesn't count the water! We have gone to letting the chicks out during the day so they can eat grass in addition to their feed and they now have use of the 1 gallon water container. They are going through at least half of that a day plus what we put in a large dish for them to splash around in.

We have also started taking them to the creek once or twice a day to let them take a dip and cool off. The temperatures have been pretty warm the last couple of days and they enjoy being able to get in the water to swim around. We will wait about introducing them to the pond until they are bigger. They actually have done very well about staying by the house when we are not outside with them. As long as they have shade and water, they will stay around the house munching on grass. Of course the funny part is how they will follow us around. We have taken to calling them our fuzzy children.

Let's go for a swim!

The garden is hanging in there and I plan on harvesting the Romain lettuce soon. The potatoes are growing like mad and we added some soil to them today. We are beginning to think about what we may want to plant for a fall garden. It's almost June so we have to start planning now. We are also thinking about ordering some berry bushes so we can get them planted this year. It will be a slow process to get all of the trees and bushes that we want but we just have to take it one step at a time.

As we make progress on the chicken coop I will post pictures and keep you updated on the progress of the chicks and geese. In the meantime, Happy Memorial Day!

Potatoes before we added more soil.

Spiral Herb Garden

I have finally been able to implement a project that I have wanted to do for some time. I took a Permaculture Design course before we moved here and part of the class was to build a spiral garden. We did this during the class as a group but I have wanted to build my own ever since. When we moved last summer I just didn't have the time or the materials to do it but now that it's getting warmer I have finally been able to build one!

First I placed some hay on the ground to help serve as a weed barrier and it will compost and add to the soil. Then I laid out four bricks in a square that measured one foot square and filled in the rest of the shape to form the spiral.

Once you have the initial shape it is simply a matter of continuing to stack the brick to build the walls. You can start in the middle and build that area up first to get to the height that you want and then finish the walls. As you finish the outside walls, you will want them to taper down allowing sunlight into different areas of the spiral. By doing this you are creating microclimates for various plants.

3 courses of bricks

Getting closer!

It took about 3-4 hours to rake and clear the area and then to build the spiral. I have put some old hay in the spiral that has already begun to compost and will finish it with some fresh straw. Once the new straw is in, all I have to do is move the hay aside to place a couple of good handfuls of soil in a hole and put the plant in place. The idea is that the plants will get the the nutrients that they need from the soil and the roots can spread out into the hay in search of water. As the hay composts I can add more until eventually the entire spiral will be full of soil. I would like to build some more with stone just because I think they look prettier. You also don't have to build them this tall but since I was working with brick I knew this was out it would turn out. Here's a picture of the final product.

If you look on You Tube you can find some videos of various spiral gardens and how they were made. I will put a picture up when I get all of the plants in so you can see how it looks. In the meantime, happy planting!