A whole lotta digging

There was a whole lot of digging done today.

The Boy took charge and led the younger two kiddos into digging in what we've been calling "The Pit."  He would dig and fill three small buckets.  He'd hand them to The Girl who would dump them on one of the big dirt piles.  There's now only one major raised section in the bottom of the pit.

 

 

Once I finished mowing the lawn, I joined in.  I lengthened The Trench down to what I think is the end.  I'm pretty sure I'm done with the woods end of the trench now.  Once I finished that I started digging from The Pit side.

All told, we moved the following amount of dirt:

• The Trench - 4.2 cu yd
• The Pit - 1.04 cu yd

Dead electric fence

I neglected to mention that our electric fence isn't happy.  Apparently, you really can't use T-post clamps on U-posts.  

Thankfully Wifey has ordered U-post clamps a few days ago when we first noticed that some of the clamps were cracking.

Chick on bar

I mowed the lawn earlier today.  Nothing all that notable except for seeing one of the Rhode Islands checking me out from a roosting bar in the new run.  Cute!

Still more trench digging

I was able to do some more digging in the trench today.  I did a 2’x2’x12”, a 5.5’x2’x32”, and 3’x2’x12” sections in the trench.  That amounts to 1.46 cubic yards.

 

More greenhouse digging

I did some digging in the greenhouse pit this afternoon.  For a change of scenery, I worked on the drainage trench.  In addition to the section where the little kids had been digging, I now have added two other sections of trench. 

There's a deeper section added on that's 48" long x 32" deep x 24" wide.  Butted up to that is a smaller section that's 24" long x 24" wide x 12" deep.  All that adds up to 0.94 cubic yards.

The new bit is the dark section in the foreground.

Once we're done, the trench will be going farther toward the top of the picture.

Pepper flowers!

A while back I wondered about the feasibility of growing pepper plants as perennials.  I planted some seeds into a homemade terrarium.  They've grown nice and lovely tall.

And now ==> insert dramatic pause here <== they have flowers!

The last of the Spring produce?

This evening, Wifey proudly showed me this picture she took of the bounty she harvested from the garden.  She'd noticed that some of the leafy greens were starting to bolt and decided that enough was enough: time to pick the rest.

There were a few more heads of both green and purple cabbage and 2-3 more cauliflower heads as far as I'm aware.  She thought that the cabbage might be a bit worm-eaten, though.  I guess we'll check in another day or two and make a final decision.

I have to say -- I'm quite happy about getting back a fair amount of more garden space to work with.  I want to plant some more beans and tomatoes.  I also have some experiments (louffa) that I'd like to try.  We could use the room.

Lot of Elderberry flowers

Wifey and I took a bit of a walk through the orchard as the light was fading.  Because the high for the day was about 75 F, it was a pleasant evening for that.  Although I only took two pictures, four of our elderberry plants have a considerable number of flowers on them.  We should end up with quite a few berries if we can keep them from the birds!

More pit digging today

Another day, another series of pit digging.  I didn't get any dimensions for any of the additional digging, unfortunately.

From yesterday:

As of today:

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.