When Jake walked in yesterday evening, I greeted him with an enthusiastic squeal, "The chicks are coming!" The chick delivery schedules are out at several local feed stores, which means it's almost time – this is happening for real. For over a year now, I've said that I would get my chicks in March and now I have a real, prospective date: March 17. Of course, when I called the
Grange to ask some questions, the woman told me that it's first come, first serve and that people line up, waiting to get their chicks. I don't think I can justify calling in "sick" and getting a substitute to go get my chicks, so I'm just going to have to hope that by the time school ends that day, there will still be three healthy chicks for me. I've got my hopes up for one Buff Orpington, one Rhode Island Red, and one Americauna (for the fun green-colored eggs). Seeing as how they're expecting a delivery of 300 chicks of each of those breeds, I think I'll probably be OK.
In the meantime, it's time to make some room. Last weekend, I went through the process of moving one of three garden beds from the space where we're going to put the coop, to the lawn, just above the first garden bed terrace. In my Master Gardener class, I learned that it is not a good idea to till the soil when it is really wet because it can damage the soil structure, but I had to make the sacrifice in order to make some room.
I dug out all of the soil in the raised bed and made countless trips with the wheelbarrow to a large tarp on the lawn. Then, I found the spot on the lawn where I wanted to put the new bed and turned over the sod to ensure that it would smother the grass and not start growing up into my veggies. It probably would have died off without this step, but after hearing about my friends' experience trying to control the grass taking over their raised beds, I wasn't taking any chances.
Finally, I put the frame over the new spot, lined the bottom of the bed with landscape fabric, and filled it up with all the soil that I had transferred to the tarp. Now, all it needs is some early spring peas, which I plan to plant on Tuesday, some lettuce and spinach seeds, and a spring cloche.
Today, for Valentine's Day, Jake and I are going to work on designing our coop. Last year at this time, he was building me a retaining wall and now we're moving on to a bigger project. I know I am a lucky girl. When I told my sister what we were doing for Valentine's day, she said, "Birds of a feather flock together." I couldn't have said it better myself!
When Jake walked in yesterday evening, I greeted him with an enthusiastic squeal, "The chicks are coming!" The chick delivery schedules are out at several local feed stores, which means it's almost time – this is happening for real. For over a year now, I've said that I would get my chicks in March and now I have a real, prospective date: March 17. Of course, when I called the Grange to ask some questions, the woman told me that it's first come, first serve and that people line up, waiting to get their chicks. I don't think I can justify calling in "sick" and getting a substitute to go get my chicks, so I'm just going to have to hope that by the time school ends that day, there will still be three healthy chicks for me. I've got my hopes up for one Buff Orpington, one Rhode Island Red, and one Americauna (for the fun green-colored eggs). Seeing as how they're expecting a delivery of 300 chicks of each of those breeds, I think I'll probably be OK.
In the meantime, it's time to make some room. Last weekend, I went through the process of moving one of three garden beds from the space where we're going to put the coop, to the lawn, just above the first garden bed terrace. In my Master Gardener class, I learned that it is not a good idea to till the soil when it is really wet because it can damage the soil structure, but I had to make the sacrifice in order to make some room.
I dug out all of the soil in the raised bed and made countless trips with the wheelbarrow to a large tarp on the lawn. Then, I found the spot on the lawn where I wanted to put the new bed and turned over the sod to ensure that it would smother the grass and not start growing up into my veggies. It probably would have died off without this step, but after hearing about my friends' experience trying to control the grass taking over their raised beds, I wasn't taking any chances.
Finally, I put the frame over the new spot, lined the bottom of the bed with landscape fabric, and filled it up with all the soil that I had transferred to the tarp. Now, all it needs is some early spring peas, which I plan to plant on Tuesday, some lettuce and spinach seeds, and a spring cloche.
Today, for Valentine's Day, Jake and I are going to work on designing our coop. Last year at this time, he was building me a retaining wall and now we're moving on to a bigger project. I know I am a lucky girl. When I told my sister what we were doing for Valentine's day, she said, "Birds of a feather flock together." I couldn't have said it better myself!
1 comment:
I want a chicken like that!
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