So, it’s not technically a barn. It’s actually what the chicken world calls a chicken tractor, or a moveable coop with attached pen. I’m pretty proud of this farm structure. I built it completely on my own and with no blueprints of any kind except the ones I’d pieced together in my mind from things I’d seen on Pinterest.
It is currently home to our three broody hens, Louise, Puddin, and Shug (who’s original name was Louise, but when she moved here we thought it best to NOT have two Louises. If you know anything about our Louise it’s that one of her is plenty!).
The coop is designed to be moved to fresh grass every couple of days so the girls always have fresh forage. It’s only big enough for three hens so we thought it was perfect for the three who went broody. This way, they have their own space where they don’t have to compete with the other hens who want to lay eggs. There’s less chance of them getting bullied off the nest so another girl can get in there to lay her daily egg. I fashioned a PVC feeder for the girls so I wouldn’t have to go into the tiny space to feed them. I just remove the cap at the top and pour in the feed. Gravity does the rest.
You technically only need one nest box for every three birds. But, when they’re all broody you have to give them their own box so they can incubate the eggs for long periods of time. So, when Shug came to us we had two boxes, one for her and one for Louise.
But then, Puddin went broody the same day so I had to throw another box in there real quick. So, it currently sits under the roosting pole. That wouldn’t be a good set-up if there were any non-broody birds in there because she’d be right under their bottoms and would get pooped on. But, she’s fine for now since everyone started incubating on the same day and no one really uses the pole for long-term sitting right now.
I was able to snap this shot via the hinged roof panel. I added this feature so I could collect the eggs without having to go in. I can just raise the roof panel and reach right in without disturbing anyone. Of course those lower boxes will have to be mounted higher so I can reach them but I’m not worried about that until the girls are done incubating those eggs.
Louise is a pro at this and doesn’t play around. She gets out with the other girls once per day to eat, drink, and poop and she gets right back on those eggs.
Puddin’ is having a little bit harder time staying settled because Shug is so spacey and sometimes wants her nest. But she’s pretty much a pro at it too and she just tries to wait Shug out.
And here’s Shug, in the corner, trying to decide if she wants to get back on that nest or not. She’s a mess.
All in all, I’d say the Broody Barn is working out perfect. The girls seem to love it and I can keep a daily watch on their progress with those eggs. And when the little ones hatch they won’t have to worry about the rest of the flock messing with them. So, even though it wasn’t built with the intention of housing all these hormonal girls, it’s turning out to be a great maternity ward and future nursery.
So, we’ve got a couple of experiments going on in the garden and around the yard. One of those experiments is our inter-planting of corn and crimson clover. In the past we’ve never successfully grown or harvested a good deal of corn. Either the soil was too poor or the bind weed took it down or 110 degree temperatures scorched it. Either way, we’ve never gotten more than a few ears of corn from some rather large plantings. One reason is because corn has some very specific growing requirements and it’s not very forgiving if you don’t provide the proper environment. Corn is what the farming world calls a “heavy feeder”. That means that it takes a lot of nutrients from the ground as it grows. The three primary nutrients in healthy soil are nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. The main nutrient that corn requires is nitrogen. But that doesn’t even matter so much out here because our soil is deficient in all of the major minerals and nutrients. We have been building our soil for some time now so it should be better but corn really just takes the life out of a plot of dirt by the time it’s done growing, so we’re just now returning to corn.
We decided to try an experiment with some of the crimson clover seed we had on hand. Crimson clover is often used as a “green manure” in areas that need a little TLC. This means that the crop is used to add nutrients and organic matter to the soil in the way that manure would also add value to the soil. These plantings are also called “cover crops” because they cover an area that is not being grown with a market crop. Clover might seem like a boring thing to plant since you don’t harvest it for human consumption but, let me tell you, it’s definitely worth planting. Clover is in the legume family. The legume family includes beans, lentils, alfalfa, peanuts, and peas. What’s special about this family is that it ADDS nitrogen to the soil. So, instead of taking something from the soil as it grows, it actually gives something back. In the meantime, cover crops like clover help with soil erosion and water retention. The roots of the crop hold the soil together during the heavy rains and the crop’s lush growth shields the soil so the sun doesn’t evaporate the water as fast.
So, we thought we’d capitalize on the many benefits of crimson clover and create a commensal symbiotic relationship by planting our corn straight into an established row of clover. In this way, the corn will “feed” off of the extra nitrogen being fixed into the soil by the clover and won’t starve to death. And, since corn roots grow pretty shallow, the clover will shade them from the harsh sun and keep them from losing valuable soil during a heavy rain, allowing them to be less stressed.
However, as you can see in the picture above and below, our clover was starting to outcompete our corn since it was more established before we put the corn in. This is after a couple of weeks in the ground and I was starting to lose my little corn plants in all the green clover. We don’t want the clover to choke the seedlings out before they can get established so it was time to get out there and give the clover a little haircut.
Here you can see that the corn barely peeks out and, in some places, is completely covered by the clover. No big deal. They’re still alive under there. I just needed to give them a little breathing room. The clover will be easy to deal with once the corn is tall and established. It will stay low while the corn towers over it. But, for now, the clover is a little thick and the corn needs the sun that the clover is hogging.
So, in true retired hairstylist fashion, I “cleaned up the edges” a little. I took a pair of shears out and got to snipping. You can see the little corn plants now!. I don’t expect to have to cut it back this severely again before the corn can get tall, but since this is my first time trying this little experiment we’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll keep you posted on whether the whole thing worked or not as the season progresses. We have corn planted in other areas without the clover so we can compare.
And, since we’re trying to use complete cycles when possible on the farm, the girls got a nice healthy snack (complete with several slugs I saw hiding in there). They really love greens and the clover has a higher protein content than grass alone so it’s great for egg production. Peck away girls! There’s more where that came from!
When I first started to grow food I had no idea how much there is to know! I really just stuck some plants out in the yard, watered them when I thought about it and picked things when I remembered they were growing. It was so haphazard that first year that it’s hard to believe that I now know so many of these things. But there’s still so much I don’t know. But I am proud that we are getting better at utilizing whole systems when possible. It makes me feel like that’s how it was meant to be done.
And while I wax poetic about closed cycles and such, Cinnamon’s just happy she found a slug! And Thelma’s happy Cinnamon found it so she can steal it. It’s the simple things….
With all the rain we’ve been getting since we planted the garden, we haven’t been in a hurry to set up our irrigation lines. I’ve just watered by hand in between rainy days. But, we started having a few hot days and the watering chore became a bit time consuming so we set up the irrigation pipes the other night. I am a lot happier with it and so are the plants. Look how happy those beets look alongside their irrigation. And the weeds. Nevermind them.
Gnocchi was pretty happy with the set-up too. This cat of ours is so odd. But we love him for it. I think he took a sip from each hole.
Meanwhile, his water fountain antics looked so appealing Turkey just had to join in. Yes, I know it’s super gross. There’s no telling what made a home in those pipes over the winter. So we let him join in for a half a second to snap this picture and then made him stop. And, yes he’s naked. Again. It’s just how he rolls. The boy feels confined in clothes. They cramp his style. Which is apparently Birthday Suit.
This is the second year we’ve used this irrigation and it has totally paid for itself and been SO worth the initial investment (which was quite cheap at $175 for our old 4,000 square feet set-up). We use a homemade drip irrigation system that we learned about from the Utah State University Extension. It saves a ton of money and water and time. And it lasts from year to year unlike soaker hoses so you don’t have to frequently repair or replace it. And it’s not as hard on the wallet as those fancy professional set-ups either.
Now for a goat update. Dolly girl has been ignoring her beau this whole time at the breeder’s place. The breeder says she is the quietest, most level-headed goat she’s had and she just doesn’t show any signs of when she’s in heat. So they’ve been doing trial and error “dates” with ol’ Chip. She better get down to business and get back home. We miss her!
Sweet little Beck was delayed in going to his new home for a week but he’ll be leaving this week if all goes as planned. He’s been such a sweet boy but he’s just getting too good at doing the deed. With anything that moves! Sister, mother, he’s not ashamed. So, he just has to go. But we’ll just be making more room for Dolly’s babies. Assuming she cooperates.
The battle with the bindweed is going ok but it really loves the heat and we have yet to see those temperatures when it really takes off. But I’m cautiously optimistic that it won’t get so bad this year that it pulls down a 6 foot tall tomato plant! The weeds overall have been much more manageable. I attribute the success so far to the double digging we did before planting.
On the chicken-front we have not one, not two, but THREE broody hens! The hormones are sure in full force over here! Perhaps Dolly should take notes from Louise, Puddin, and our new girl Shug. Those girls have baby fever! Shug is only a sort of broody. She came to us from the same friend we got Cinnamon, Sugar, and Thelma from. But she’s an old girl and her broody comes and goes depending on her mood. When we first moved her here we thought it would break her broody. But she barely even knew I moved her and she stayed in the same spot that I put her in for three days. Sometimes she’s up and at ‘em but it’s usually because she thinks someone else’s nest looks more appealing. She’s a funny girl. She’s a bit blind in one eye so it makes her look kind of crazy sometimes. And her broody is making her molt. So she’s really looking kind of crazy these days. But she’s settled right in with her new broody clique. All three girls are happy in their chicken tractor on their nests and, should everyone do their job, we will be hatching baby chicks sometime around next weekend. There are a total of 11 eggs under the three girls (there were 12 but one was cracked in the scuffle over which nest Shug thought was best). Hopefully they’re all viable and we get a large number of girls because we sure could use some more egg layers around here.
We’ve decided to put up another fenced off area in the yard to give the girls a little more free range space since we’ve grown the flock larger than their area can contain. However, when you have a Louise you have to go the extra mile to keep the birds in. So, we’ll be adding a strand of electrical wire to the top to keep the ol’ Houdini bird in her space and out of my garden.
The chickens aren’t the only ones feeling hormonal. We also have a newly hatched nest of baby blue birds in the blue bird box, a cardinal sitting on two eggs in the rose bush, and a wren sitting on a nest with eggs in the jasmine vine. It’s definitely springtime on the farm!
The bees have been delayed an extra week (probably because of the weird La Nada weather we’ve been having) so they should arrive sometime around the 21st. We have bee veils, gloves, hive tools, a smoker, a bee feeder, and the hive is built so we’re pretty much ready. We just need to paint the hive and put it in it’s permanent location.
In an effort to help myself have back-up garden records I’m going to try to post what’s growing in the garden or what’s newly planted or harvested in each post. This will just give me another source to look to later to see what was doing well and what wasn’t. So, be looking for that at the end of each post from now on to see what is going on in the garden.
Growing in the garden now: Monte Carlo tomatoes, Black Beauty Zucchini, Lemon Squash, various Radishes, Carrots, Slo-bolt cilantro, Potatoes, Onions, Strawberries, Orange-fleshed Purple Smudge tomatoes, Purple tomatillos, banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, Golden beets, Tendercrisp celery, Orange Giant amaranth, Honey Boat Delicata squash, Good Mother Stallard Pole beans, 12 Row Golden Bantam Corn, Christmas Pole Bean, King of the Garden Lima bean, Spaghetti Squash, Holstein cowpeas, Zipper Cream peas, Calima Green Bean, Envy Soy Beans, Sugar Ann and Alaska Peas, Snow Cap beans, Yarrow, Amish Paste tomato, Blueberries, Rainbow Inca Sweet Corn, mystery squash, and white bush scallop squash.
Still waiting in flats to be planted: Lemon basil, Lemon Bee Balm, Chia, German Chamomile, Fenugreek, Russian Tarragon, Sweet Marjoram, Long Purple Cayenne, more Calima Beans, more Good Mother Stallard Pole beans, more mystery squash, Wade’s Giant Indian Corn, White Sorghum Broom Corn, Galeux d’Eysines pumpkins, Winter Luxury pumpkins, Georgia Rattlesnake watermelon, Chanterais melon, Minnesota Midget Melon, Boston pickling cucumber, Cuban Tobacco, various mystery plants.
Did not sprout at all/poor germination/sprouted but died from various causes/just plain old died!: Leutschaeur paprika pepper, Early Jalapeno pepper, various bell peppers, Texas Red and White peanuts, yellow and pink coneflower, various tomatoes, a two year old Sage plant.
I was so pooped out from all of the wedding anniversary celebrating over the last week that I’m just now getting around to uploading all the pictures and updating the blog. We dined on Friday, went fishing on Saturday, took a trip to Savannah on Sunday, and hit a concert on Thursday of last week. I’d say we milked the anniversary week for all it was worth!
In Savannah, we took the boys to a train museum and, let me just say, it was worth every penny. We thought it would be a nice treat for our little Turkey because he LOVES trains, but we ended up loving it just as much as the kids.
We got to walk through old war cars and passenger cars and fruit cars. The history was amazing.
The kids aren’t too big on loud noises so every time the steam engine blew his horn they covered their ears. Turkey was having trouble reading his map and covering his ears at the same time.
Many of the buildings were pre-civil war structures. But, as many of you know, Sherman’s March to the Sea claimed many of the railroads during the war so many of these were rebuilt after the war. However, some of them were spared so they were really cool to see.
The old smoke stack was pretty cool. It wasn’t all original but it was still pretty old. Many of the “newer” buildings date back to the 1920s. I was pretty into it all. I love old buildings. And history. And I really love Antebellum history and buildings. So, I pretty much hung on the words of the tour guide.
They also had a model train exhibit at the railroad museum. The boys loved it. Turkey is so into trains and he carries his tracks piece by piece to all room of our house and sets them up in an attempt to make me break my leg early in the morning. There are always pieces of tracks and train cars precariously placed under foot.
We took a real, albeit brief, train ride with a real steam engine. The thought had crossed my mind when we first saw the conductor-looking men that they might be dirty just to be in character for the museum. But, let me tell you, riding a train pulled by a steam engine is definitely dirty. We all had some soot on us when we were done. I can’t imagine riding a train like that for a long distance.
The boys covered their ears again as the call to board came through.
And then we covered our noses when that first puff of steam blasted us in the face as we pulled off.
But as we pulled away from the roundhouse Turkey didn’t care about the noise or the dirty, smelly steam. This kid finally got to do what he’s been dreaming of his whole life (all three years of it). This kid was riding a for real train and he was pumped!
After the train ride we walked through downtown Savannah. We checked out Telfair Square and the Girl Scouts’ garden. We ate at Wild Wings Cafe and listened to some good music coming from the artists market on the street. There’s so much history in Savannah that it’s easy to miss some pretty important markers if you’re not careful. While waiting to cross at a stop light I casually glanced at the building to my left and noticed a tiny plaque on the side that said President George Washington stayed there during his first and only trip to Georgia!
We checked out the abundant history all around town, including several statues and memorials. This one was super interesting. The little drummer boy in this memorial later grew up to become the king of Haiti! Our oldest boy wanted each side of the memorial read to him. He was digging the history almost as much as we were.
On our way to the car we caught a giant game of chess. Of course, the die hard Tampa Bay fan I’m married to caught the dude’s shirt first. Go Bucs!
The boys have only been to the beach one other time. We’ve made huge strides at OT since then and our oldest was tearing up the waves this time. Last time he was a little hesitant. But he was loving it this time. He even went completely under water at one point and came back up ready for more! If we had been a bit more prepared for the beach I might’ve let him get really crazy. But we were only there for a day trip and cleaning the beach off gets tricky when you have no hotel room to return to.
It was late in the afternoon and it had been overcast most of the day so he was freezing after a few minutes. But kids don’t seem to care. They just keep on playing.
Turkey spent most of his time avoiding the water. He just likes to dig holes. So, he spent the beach trip digging and playing with dad while the big kid and I splashed around. If you’ve never been to Savannah, I highly recommend you check it out. It really has a lot of things to suit a variety of tastes. There’s history, arts, shopping, beach, architecture, ships, trains, planes, and all kinds of events.
On Thursday we hit The Flaming Lips and The Black Keys concert (sans kiddos of course). It was such a nice way to bookend the anniversary week. It was a super great concert! Although, I did expect Wayne Coyne to blast off into space at any given moment. It was definitely psychedelic, to say the least.
Sidenote: The man has great hair. I’m a little jealous of how awesome it is.
And The Black Keys were so fun to watch. Next up on our concert series if the stars align (fingers crossed) is Bob Dylan and then ZZ Top again.
It’s been a wonderful 8 years married to you Mr. Thistle. I wouldn’t trade you or that mustache for the world! Happy 8 years to you and me! I like you AND I love you!
We scoped out a spot at our local reservoir and did a little fishing today. It’s the weekend of our eight year wedding anniversary and we’ve been having a great time taking a break from the backyard projects and chores. Last night we had a nice dinner out with the kiddos and today we tried catching a couple of fish.
This old girl is definitely out of practice. I had a million bites but didn’t catch one stinking fish! It might’ve been because I had a little helper on my side the whole time. I have a sneaky suspicion that Mr. Thistle’s zero catches can also be attributed to all the cuteness tagging along.
Oh well. At least they’re cute. And they were very much into the fishing. It’s just hard for a mama and daddy to focus on catching a fish when they’re trying to make sure their own kiddos aren’t fish bait! This little one has a way of tripping if the wind changes directions so I had to keep a sharp watch on him to make sure he didn’t fall right in the whole time.
And, really, let’s be honest. The kids weren’t the only reason poor Mr. Thistle didn’t catch any fish. His dear wife broke a couple lines and hung a couple lures in some trees, too. I think he spent more time fixing our poles, lines, weights, and general tackle than he did casting any lines himself.
But even with the lack of fish reeled in and the gigantic, extremely stinky, dead turtle floating near my spot, and the various requests we had to field from the little ones, it was such a nice, relaxing way to spend the afternoon. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. With these turds is where I’m the happiest. They’re a pretty good bunch.
Meanwhile, this guy was super good at casting his line into the water. I was pretty impressed. I think I broke more lines and lost more lures than he did. He’s a pro.
This guy was all about the reeling. He hasn’t quite mastered the art of “release the button when you throw it” yet. So, mama was the caster for two poles this afternoon. He’s got the reeling down though. And he didn’t care one single time that there never was a fish on the other end. Or a hook. Or a worm. Or anything other than a bobber. I’m not sure he knew what our end goal was. But his was to reel that bobber back in as fast as possible. Usually before I could get my own line cast out.
Lucky for me he’s easily distracted by snack foods.
Tomorrow we’re getting up early to milk Tinkerbell, stock everyone’s food and water in the barnyard, and head out for more anniversary adventures!
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