Tractor time

So I got these chickens. To lay eggs and eat weeds and fertilize the garden. Only they're living on my kitchen table, eating organic chick starter and kicking sawdust all around the room. No eggs in sight for at least 2 months.

...and in my basement, is all the crap left by my lovely but former roommate. He says he's coming to get it someday, but that day keeps fading into the future.

This weekend, an inspired solution evolved--make a tractor out of the junk in the basement! You know every farm needs a tractor (in the chicken world, a little portable daytime pen is called a tractor).

Just a little whirligig with the power tools, a couple of near misses with the saw, and presto, a futon frame becomes a daytime pen for the ladies. Valerie and Tulip made sure there would be room for the chickies even if they got VERY large. And did some stapling as well.

The next day dawned sunny, and the ladies spent their first day soaking up the rays and decimating the dandelions.

A parade of neighbors came on by to admire and inquire and I sat in the sun watching the gals. Way to earn your keep and foster community, girls!
Next project on the list--the coop!

Slow day at work=sow day on the farm

Last weekend, I went down to visit my friend Emily and her much more official farm in Sublimity. A stop at a country feed store yielded many, many inexpensive veggie starts that needed to get into the ground before the predicted heat wave this weekend. Plus, of course a wealth of chicken lore, and the chance to see tiny Leo before he's 2 and not so tiny any more!

When my lovely coworkers called Wednesday to say there was nothing going on I jumped into my stripy pink gumboots and got to work. The West 40 (feet), became the kitchen garden...Now to figure out that gawldratted irrigation system...Luckily it's rained for days and the heat wave is predicted to be more of a ripple.

A new way to weed...

In some cannibalistic cultures, folks believe that eating your vanquished enemies transfers their power to you. So take THAT, dandelions! (That being a delicious salad of beets, feta, fresh lemon juice and some rather chewy weeds). I feel my taproot growing as we speak!

I also gave some to the ladies, who demolished it. Ah, my little gardeners!

Livestock

So now that I'm sort of caught up to this year, I suppose it's time to bring up the chickens. For the past couple of years I've been trying to work my friends with a big yard around to the idea of chickens. We live close, I could look after them, eggs, fertilizer, companionship, what could be better? Many polite nods and plans for fruit trees in my secretly chosen coop spot put paid to that.

Then I read by The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan. A fabulous and funny exploration of what we put into ourselves these days (lots of corn, apparently), and what other creatures and people go through to feed us. Apparently cage free chickens are not necessarily happier chickens. Free to be pecked and poked and still living in a big barn with 10, 000 other chickens. Sure I could give up eggs, but why when having my own chickens AND homemade mayonaise sounds like much more fun?

So I did some research, borrowed some chick paraphernalia, rode all around town looking at chicks, feed stores, you name it. Settled on Wyandottes, and a barred Plymouth Rock. I was in luck, Livingscape Nursery had all the breeds and colors I was looking for! Four fluffballs came home with me before I realized what I was getting into. Ever since they've grown, and grown, and grown. Like feathered kudzu. Still they have no coop and are cheeping on my kitchen table. And today I got vegetable starts; yet another new project. Now to conjure 28 hours in the day (and hope the chickens only grow in 24!)

Starting from Scratch

Last summer, the artichoke went wild, and I grew a few cucumbers for the first time--never knew they could be so juicy and delicious.

However the weeds and the junipers and the sad roses in the shade just looked worse and worse. Sitting in my plastic chairs in the weeds with a cider was a bit of hillbilly heaven, but not really relaxing since our neighborhood "watchman" Vic kept inquiring about my "plans" for the yard every time he saw me in the yard.

Plus, I developed yard envy when my friend Martha had some great folks overhaul her yard organically and put in a rain garden and all sorts of other wonders. Not in my budget, but I called to chat and we came up with our own little plan to get the farm in order. Every day I went to work, and every evening it was like little elves had toiled in the sun gnawing on weeds and sneezing out lovely compost. Joe thought it was great as well, as the entire yard was covered in composted barnyard poop. Yum! Lastly they dug a trench and put in irrigation with some sort of complicated timer gizmo on the West side of the house. Have yet to get that all set up, may be putting my girly hat on next month and calling for help.

After the elves decamped, plant sales yielded lots of goodies, and I put them in and hoped for the best. The biggest upside this past winter has been finding a reason to be happy when it rains--the plants are happy!

In the beginning--

My house was abandoned for years before I took her under my wing. And looked abandoned for years after....My neighbors were very nice, but no doubt wondered just what I had planned for the jungle. Grand plans of my own came and went, aimless trenches dug, repeated rototilling was done to no great effect, plants died, weeds flourished. It was not pretty. My only ray of hope was the small veggie garden I was able to keep alive each summer.

Finally last summer I admitted I was powerless before the yard and called in reinforcements. Michael LaCasa of Apogee Landscapes gutted the yard for me so I could start from scratch. About time...