More greenhouse progress

The three kids helped me dig in the pit for a few hours.

It's not super obvious how much progress we made, but we dug out six different areas between parts of the pit and parts of the water exhaust trench.  It all amounts to 35.5 cubic feet (1.31 cubic yards).

Raspberries!

Wifey and I took a bit of a walk this evening after we put the kids to bed to see how the raspberries were doing.  I'm pleased to say that we got a pretty decent haul.

Working on the greenhouse

I wasn't blogging last year, but this past September I started digging a hole to do a partially subterranean greenhouse.  The idea around doing a greenhouse with part of the structure underground is that the earth is a great natural insulator.  It maintains a pretty steady temperature as you get deeper underground.

I started digging in early September (by hand because I'm cheap) until I hurt my hip (the doctor called it a Sportsman's Hernia).  I was told to let it rest 6-9 months to heal up before considering doing anything like that again.  It's been 9 months.

I've decided to be a bit smarter.  I'm not going to dig quite as deep as I'd initially planned.  It won't be as energy efficient, but I'll get done faster and may be able to avoid renting a backhoe (~$300 for a day).

The hole is currently 12' x 17' x about 3.5' deep.  I intend to have the greenhouse be 10' x 15' with a 1' area around it where I will be running drainage pipe around the perimeter exhausting it out to the ravine behind the hole.  The reason I'm doing 10' x15' is that over 150 sq ft and I need to pull permits with my county to do the construction.  😁

Here are two pictures of my hole before I started digging today.

After doing my digging today.

The area I dug amounts to a rectangular area that's 7.5’ x 2.6’w x 1’ deep adjacent to a triangle that's 3’ x 3’ x 1’.  That amounts to 24 cubic feet (or 0.89 cubic yards) of dirt moved today.

A new batch of chicks

Wifey got a new set of chicks to help Broody stop resembling her namesake.

She had wanted to purchase them from the feed store, unfortunately, due to issues with the postal service she ended up going to Tractor Supply.  She got two Isa Browns and Two Golden Comets.

Some info about each breed.

Golden Comet

• Smaller-sized (hens around 4 lbs)
• Medium to large brown eggs, 5-6 per week 
• Comparable to Rhode Island Red in output.
• Start laying early (around 4 months)
• They rarely become broody.
• Personable, mellow, doesn't mind being picked up.
• Will accommodate a wide range of temperature ranges.
• Could have comb problems when it's very cold.
•  Shorter life span (less than 4-5 years)

ISA Brown

• Medium-sized bird (hens around 5 lbs)
• Cross between Rhode Island Red and Rhode Island White
• Lay about 300 large brown eggs a year (averages 5+ eggs a week)
• Need more protein and calcium in their diet.
• Egg production drops notably after 2 yrs of age.
• Adaptable to most climates
• May develop reproductive and kidney issues over time
• Excellent temperament

Since Wifey had named the previous batch of chicks "The New Editions," I kind of like the idea of calling these "The Golden Girls" after their coloration.  I wonder if Wifey will go along with that.

Elderberry flowers and raspberries

Wifey and I took a walk through the orchard this evening to check progress.  We are continually amazed by all the clusters of small elderberry flowers.

We were thrilled to be able to harvest a small handful of raspberries.

Cabbages are developing nicely

I'm happy to report that our cabbages are nicely developing into heads.  This is very timely since our temperatures are finally starting to climb.

We have raspberries and elderberry flowers!

Wifey and I took a walk out to the orchard a little bit ago to see how things are there.  We were thrilled to see that we have some raspberries!  They were quite tasty.

We also are quite pleased to see that we are getting a variety of clusters of elderberry flowers about to bloom.  Here is our first cluster that has actually opened up.  We stand very good odds of getting a good number of elderberries this year assuming the birds don't get all of them.

Lastly, I was quite pleased to see this ladybug on one of the elderberries.  Considering they're a beneficial insect for a yard, it always makes me happy to see them on the property.

Cauliflower heads and cucumber sprouts

I had a little bit of time this afternoon to go through the garden to see what we may have coming up.  I'm really pleased to see that we have two small cauliflowers coming up.  Each is maybe 1.5" across.

It's also exciting to see that we have our first cucumber sprouts coming up.

Henrietta is back with the flock

Two days after attempting to treat Henrietta for being egg-bound and after two sequential days of adding a considerable amount of calcium into her diet, she is looking quite good and back to being herself.  We have put her back with the rest of the flock. 

Hopefully this is a one-off issue for her.

The chickies are gone

Wifey and I have made the decision to get rid of the chickies.  Broody becoming broody again really complicated things.  We were concerned about the logistics of introducing these chicks along with the new babies that we need to get in order to de-broody Broody so we decided the least complicated approach was simply to get rid of the chicks.

We ended up giving them to the young guy that we bought the original chickens from in the first place.

Mo' chickens, mo' problems

Another of our chickens has developed a problem.

Henrietta, one of our Rhode Island Reds, started looking lethargic yesterday.  Wifey snagged me and pointed out that she was bow-legged, lethargic, wouldn't go near anyone, eyes closed, and had her down. 

After doing some research, we came to the conclusion that she is eggbound.  She is quite bulgy as the picture indicates.

 

The prevailing recommendations involve putting the chicken in a warm water bath so we did that.

After a bit of time in the warm water, they recommend massaging the abdomen to help push out the egg.  No pictures, but Wifey did that.  No success.

The last recommendation is to glove up, put some olive oil on your finger, and..........probe the chicken's vent to try to help move things along.  I man-ed up and did that.

 

 

Unfortunately, we had no luck.  Poor Henrietta was understandably worn out after all that so we put her in the chick brooder in the garage to get some isolation and to recouperate.

 

Our research indicates that this is frequently caused by a calcium deficiency.  We've crushed up some egg shells and put it on top of her food.  Wifey also gave her some Tums which are mostly made of calcium carbonate.

Tomato flowers!

I planted four more of the Amish Paste tomatoes in the garden yesterday in an area where we're going to start phasing out of the Spring crops.

While leaving the garden, I was happy to see that three of our Old Virginia tomatoes have flowers on them.

Time to make another garden?

Wifey and I have recently lamented that we're having a hard time finding room for all the summer crops we want to grow while keeping the spring crops we still have.

Ideally, we would have more lettuce, spinach, and cabbage than you see in the picture above to go along with snow peas (which never germinated this year).

We want more room for more beans, some experimental stuff (like luffas), more potatoes, more asparagus, more garlic and onions, and strawberries.  The area down the hill doesn't get a whole lot of sunlight and since all those (minus flowers) don't need much sunlight, we figure we're good to go with using that area for this purpose.

To that end, we've been talking about cutting in another garden down the hill from the current one.  This would encompass where the potatoes currently are and allow us to have a separate garden for the cool-weather crops and permanent plantings and dedicate the one up the hill (our current garden) for summer crops and a little bit of cooler weather stuff.

The area that is more or less in the yellow are would be 32' long by 24' wide.  It would avoid being any closer to the septic field than 5'.  The tentative plan is to rent a deturfing machine to cut away the sod there then put down black plastic to cook off any remaining roots for a few months and install the garden in the late summer to use for the fall planting.  The turf may end up being transplanted into the orchard over top of weeds.

Yes, she's broody alright

This afternoon I paused from working in the garden to go check out the chicken coop.  Four of the chickens were out and about.  Broody was in the coop for some reasons.

As I began to open up the hatch, I couldn't help but wonder what I'd find.

Sure enough, she puffed herself up to close to twice her normal width just to seem threatening.

She was also very hunkered down in the box.  I had to grab her right hip to lift her up.  She was leaning way forward.  Sure enough, she was really bearing down on top of an egg.

 

And this is why we refer to her as "Broody." 

Wifey and I discussed how we want to handle this little phenomenon.  We're a little concerned that if we promptly get Broody a few chicks to "hatch" that she'll start threatening the other younglings and those remaining four will die out.

The current plan is to contact the feed store and find out how far through the summer they're going to be getting chicks.  Ideally, we wait for these chicks to get about a month old (or a little older) so we can introduce them when they get to be about full-chicken size then introduce a few new chicks to Broody who will take them as being "hers."  That would break her of being broody. 

Unfortunately, we would end up with 12 chickens, but it's a relatively simple matter of selling off a few of the remaining chickens to other people to get back down to 9 or 10.

RIP Millie Vanilli

In my meandering through the kitchen a little bit ago I happened to notice that the injured chick (aka Millie Vanilli) was laying in an odd position in her subset of the brooder.  After tapping on the brooder with increasing force and receiving no response from her, I had to check.

Yup.  She's gone.

We are now down to four chicks from a high water mark of seven.  Thankfully, these four are all growing well and all appear to be healthy.

Is Broody........broody?

Wifey and I have each noticed the Broody, our lone remaining Silver-Laced Wyandotte chicken, seems to be exhibiting some characteristics of broodiness.  As with her behavior last year, she's spending more time in the nesting boxes, is puffing herself up when we open up the nesting boxes to retrieve eggs, and also makes some rather unhappy-sounding noises when we go in to get the eggs.

We're still pretty early on with having chickens, but this sure seems like broody behavior.

Wifey's done some researching online and also calling one of the feed stores where they're knowledgeable about owning and caring for chickens.  All of that info indicates that our current batch of chicks are now too old to place under Broody at night.


Which means we need to get more baby chicks to break her of the broodiness.


The feed store won't get more chicks in until next Friday.  Thankfully, that'll give us plenty of time to absolutely verify that Broody actually is broody.  By that time we should know for certain.

Garden work today

This afternoon:

• The Girl wanted to pick some radishes to go with dinner.  After she did that, I weeded a good part of the radish bed and planted more seeds.
• I planted a row of green pole beans from last year's saved seed.
• I removed a San Marzano that had been nibbled on quite a bit by something and planted one of the spares I have kept.
• The Girl planted 3 of the leftover tomato plants and weeded her garden area.
• We collected two long sprigs of mint from the front bed to use in a batch of iced tea. 
• Wifey harvested chives from the front bed to go in a salad.

 

Chickie was indignant

Wifey decided it's time to remove the "walking cast" from the injured chickie who she has taken to calling "Millie Vanilli" in keeping with the theme of late-80's/early-90's bands.

A spraddle-leg chick?

Wifey is desperate to save this chick with the curled toes.

After doing more reading and watching videos online, she's wondering if the chick may also be spraddle-legged.  With that condition, the legs don't align properly with one (or both) splaying outward.  Given this chick may not survive and isn't walking much/at all, I guess it could help her develop and get her walking more.  She is still trying to eat and drink so it's not a completely lost cause with her.

According to poultrydvm.com here are causes for this condition:

• Temperature and/or humidity fluctuations during incubation
• Hatch temperatures were too high or low
• Improper floor surfaces: chicks raised on slippery floors can have improperly developed muscles
• This is not the case with us.  We have a ~1" thick layer of  shavings at the bottom of the brooder on top of a double layer of paper towels.
• Inadequate diet from breeders: diets for laying don't provide enough nutrients leading to malformations and Vitamin B deficiencies

In the course of her reading, she's also found that there tend to be correlations between chicks with spraddle-leg and those with the curled toes.  I think that we have a chick with a Vitamin B deficiency.

So.........to address it we need to increase Vitamin B as well as splint the legs for spraddle leg.

Splinting: check.

 

As you can see above, this chick is wondering what other absurdities we're going to apply next.

A chick with Curled Toes

Wifey discovered that another of our chicks has a health issue.  After a few days of having her, she's developed an issue where her toes are curled up in a ball.

After doing a bit of research, it seems to indicate a deficiency in Vitamin B (aka Riboflavin) and is called "curly toe paralysis."  According to poultrydvm.com, "Curly toe paralysis occurs in chicks fed outdated or improperly stored starter feed, or who are bred from parents with a riboflavin-deficient diet."  After checking our feed, it's still in date (and will be for a while).  I don't know how it was stored prior to our buying it, but the rest of the chicks seem fine and we've never had issues previously with other chicks.  We're thinking that it's the last issue: parents with a B-deficient diet.

So we need to try to find something with a Vitamin B supplemented food?  Or vitamins?

Another recommendation to help correct the issue is to provide a splint or walking boot to the chick to help splay out the toes correctly.

Let's pause the post for a moment to let that sink in.









Recommendation: Make a walking boot for your days-old baby chick whose foot is 1/2" long from front to back.

What.     The.      Heck.

After we got done the first of many bouts of shaking our heads at the absurdity of that statement, Wifey did it.  Wifey with her continually amazing sense of ingenuity made one out of two pieces of medical tape.

Below you can see the chick realizing this is really going to cramp her style at the clubs.

Lost another chick

Well, as the Queen said, "another one bites the dust."  We lost another chick overnight.

Wifey pegged it yesterday.  She saw one of them wasn't moving much and was trying to figure out what was up.  She identified it as being "spraddle leg."  Although she tried the "drinking glass" treatment (who would have expected we'd be giving physical therapy to a 3-day old baby chick), apparently she was too far gone.

She held the chick for a while yesterday evening in one of our old soft baby rags from the kids to keep her warm and somewhat comfortable before bed.  When it came time for us to go to bed, she made sure the chick was right under the warming light in the brooder to keep her warm, said a few prayers, and went to bed.  The chick died at some point overnight.  Our prayers for either full recovery or a quick relief were answered.

As with the other chick that died, we won't know what we have left until they're a bit more grown and look like their adult selves.  That said, Wifey thinks it may have been one of the Ameraucanas. 

A new brooder

So Wifey really wants to get the chicks out of the house immediately.  She's concerned about potential of fire from the heat lamp and remembers the respiratory issues we had with our first batch of chicks a few years ago.  She wants to move them outside to the garage.

To that end, she bought a used dog crate for $30.  She's working to enclose the sides in 1/2" mesh grid to keep predators out.  She's working on an interesting heated igloo-type thing to keep them warm by using a heat pad.

Also, she'd read that with the standard way people have their brooders on the ground, chicks interpret the owners reaching in to hold them similarly to how they see predators grabbing for them (especially birds of prey).  With that in mind, she asked me to build her a "janky stand."  She said she didn't care if I used scrap asked that I get it done quickly since and didn't care what it looked like since it should only be used for a few weeks.

In checking out what scrap we have, I found some really nasty-looking pressure-treated lumber.  I don't know where it came from; doesn't look like anything we've had around here.  Regardless, I slapped something together that's also pretty sturdy.

It's like Thunderdome in the brooder.

Yesterday morning one of our friends came over with a box of chicks from Tractor Supply.  She'd wanted to buy two more to help out another friend of ours who'd bought chicks along with Wifey but had, unfortunately, lost 1 or 2 of those new chicks.

Unfortunately, there's a law that requires at least 4 chicks to be purchased at a time.

So we got the two cast-offs.  One was a Leghorn and the other is Isa Brown.  Wifey called them our New Edition so, being a fan of 90's R&B, I named them Bobbi and Ralph. 

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This morning Wifey discovered that one chick (we're not clear what breed) had died overnight.  We really can't tell which variety since we still have a few chicks that are very similar coloring to the one that died.  We won't really know what we have until they're a few months old and start looking like their adult selves.

It's gallows humor, I know, but it's my way of softening a tough situation.

This is the 2nd (or 3rd?) chick to go along with two full-grown birds we've had die since we've tried chickening.  It's sad, but such is life.  Everybody has to go sometime. 

Added more Asparagus to the garden

Two weeks ago I roto-tilled my parents' garden for them.  My mom was done trying to get asparagus to grow, wanted to get rid of her crowns, and wanted the entire garden done.

I salvaged the crowns and put them in contractor bags and brought them back here.  Over the last two weeks I kept the bags open and allowed them to get the moisture from the various rain storms we've had.  Having the bags open also dissipated heat so we wouldn't end up cooking the roots.

Yesterday I dug out small segments and supplemented what we already had with the crowns.  I added maybe 8 or so to the existing two asparagus boxes. 

No pictures; dealing with the crowns in the bags was really muddy work.

Frost-free morning

I don't know what the true low was, but it was 35 degrees when I woke up at 7am this morning.  It's still chilly (44 on its way up to the mid-50's) and breezy, but I think it's time to uncover everything out in the garden.

Just need to remember to cover everything again tonight.  Another cold night is forecast.

Chance of frost!

Tonight and tomorrow we have a chance of frost.  Lows are predicted to be down to the mid-30's.  Because weather is an inexact science, Wifey and I are covering up the cold-sensitive stuff in the garden.

Hopefully we get through the temperature drop unscathed!

Let's talk about chicks, man.

After 2 days of watching the remaining chickens and seeing no signs of distress from them, we decided it would be safe to supplement the flock.

I had to go into work around midday for a while so Wifey took the three kids and bought us some more chicks.  She got the following:

• 2 Golden Comet
• 2 Ameraucana 
• 1 Starlight Green Egger

 

Here's some info about each breed along with some commentary about why we chose each.

General thoughts:

• We don't want to have to deal with chickens with a good likelihood of becoming broody.  We had that last year with "Broody" (thus the name) and until we got her some chicks to raise we couldn't break her of the behavior after a few months of that condition.
• In general, it looks like there is a correlation between the chickens with high egg production and broodiness.  That makes sense that lower production comes from those that are broody and hoping (or trying to) raise chicks.
• We want some level of variety in the egg sizes and colors.
• We want those that are even tempered.
• Those listed as being cold-hardy are desired since our winters sometimes get very cold.

Ameraucana

• Winter hardy
• Dual purpose (meaning good for both meat and eggs)
• Docile temperament
• Smart and predatory-savvy
• Generally not prone to broody-ness
• Light blue colored medium-sized eggs, 3-4 per week
• Start laying a bit late (approaching 5 months)
• Can handle confinement, but far prefer free-ranging
• Can have longer lives (up to 8 years)
• Note: The birds were labeled "Americana" from the feed store.  Based on my reading, it's possible this is a mislabeled Easter Egger.

Golden Comet

• Smaller-sized (hens around 4 lbs)
• Medium to large brown eggs, 5-6 per week 
• Comparable to Rhode Island Red in output.
• Start laying early (around 4 months)
• They rarely become broody.
• Personable, mellow, doesn't mind being picked up.
• Will accommodate a wide range of temperature ranges.
• Could have comb problems when it's very cold.
•  Shorter life span (less than 4-5 years)

Starlight Green Egger

• Smaller-sized (hens around 4 lbs)
• Medium to large sized eggs are only green-colored
• Excellent forager when free-ranging
• Approx 280 eggs/year
• Gold-colored chicken
• Friendly temperament
• Generally not prone to broodiness
• Intelligent

Since we already have Rhode Island Reds (2, we're happy with them), Silver Laced Wyandotte (down to 1, RIP Cathy, we like them), and Sapphire Gem (1, very large birds, independent, very large eggs with a lot of double yolks) we wanted to increase the variety of types.

RIP "Chatty Cathy"

I'm sorry to report that we lost another chicken today.  Thankfully, this is the first one in about a year, but it still stinks and she was Wifey's favorite. 

"Chatty Cathy" had been behaving strangely for a few days.  She seemed to be favoring one leg.  After doing research we had been providing her with a vitamin supplement.  She seemed to rebound a bit yesterday, but this morning Wifey found her dead in the run.

We'll have to watch the others to see if there's something systemic going on.  If so, they all need to be put down.

More Bibb growth

The Bibb I transplanted a few days continues to grow.  Awesome!

A dinner harvest

Yesterday afternoon we got to spend a fair amount of time working in the garden.  Removed some of the spring crop beds where the older seeds never germinated and planted some canteloupe and cucumber seeds.

While out there Wifey and The Girl picked some kale, radishes, and asparagus to supplement dinner.  The kale was baked in the oven with some oil and sea salt to become kale chips.  Asparagus was steamed and the radishes went into a salad along with some of our oregano and chives and a homemade salad dressing.   Went well with some grilled chicken.

A little friend pays us an unexpected visit

Yesterday afternoon we returned from taking a family hike at a park in the southern end of the country to find a very small turtle hanging out by the drain in the driveway.

After ooh-ing and ahhhh-ing over the little guy (or girl), I took him over to the edge of the woodsline where we have a fair amount of overgrowth (for protection) and let him there.

This morning, I took a work call outside only to see our little fella (or a sibling?) by the drain again. 

After doing a little research, I think we have a Red-Bellied Cooter. I'm a little skeptical because the DNR website says they typically live in coastal plain rivers and floodplain marshes.  We aren't all that close to either of those.

We need to figure out how to keep the chickens away from him.  It's already tough enough to do so with the toads we periodically find here.  This will be truly difficult. 

I'll have to pray extra hard that I don't accidentally find him with the mower, car, or step on him.  😢

Trying to regrow lettuce

I don't know about anyone else, but we've found grocery costs to have climbed considerably since the Coronavirus shutdown has occurred.  There have also been a number of shortages as well.

To try to address both issues, we've signed up for a box delivery from the Misfits Market.  For the uninitiated it's a company that sources "local" produce from various growers who have produce that's deemed undesirable by grocery store buyers.  These are items that are fully viable for eating, but are considered to be too ugly.  Carrots with more than one root, for example.

In a recent box, we received four rooted Bibb lettuce plants in plastic bags.  We added a little water to them to keep them going for a few days before we ate the leaves in a great salad Wifey made with dinner.  When Wifey harvested the leaves, I couldn't help but wonder if I could get the root base to start sprouting additional leaves.

After a few days in potting soil we appear to have the very beginnings of a leaf or two.