The chicken coop was finally finished, much to Joy’s happiness. I think they liked moving from the Calcutta Slum to the Mountain Resort (named after the Chengde Mountain Resort in China).
The wire extends 1 foot below the ground to deter foxes from digging under it making it vastly safer than the Calcutta Slum they previously inhabited.
The last holdout of the guerrilla egg laying movement ceased this week in preparation for winter. I expect we will not see a resurgence in covert egg laying until late spring when the hours of daylight increases again. I really despise buying eggs again, its so foreign and those store bought eggs are just awful in comparison
Posted by Stu on 11/23 at 09:33 AM Permalink to this post.
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As fall/autumn approaches, work on the chicken coop has been somewhat dragged out. Yesterday I finally got it mostly leveled, enough that we said ‘Enough!’
What is left to do?
- Dig 1ft into the ground so we can bury the wire (stops the foxes digging underneath)
- Staple wire around base and bury it
- Screw the access ramp to the underside of the box
- Screw in the roosting poles
- Import food + water
- Show chickens new real estate ad for condo space and up-sell them to move from the old slum to the new mountain view condo! (Eggs required as down payment).
So nothing really big to do.
Posted by Stu on 09/28 at 11:48 AM Permalink to this post.
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On Saturday Joy, Alexander and I visited the Lexington Farmers Market that is run in the car park of the Lexington Horse Centre. Joy was on a hunt for peas, even tho peas are out of season now, she was determined to track some down (she didn’t manage to). One of the stalls was selling lamb, it seemed a tad expensive but you knew it was locally grown. Lots of different veg was on sale so we scooped up some fresh leeks, very long and skinny leeks for Sunday nights menu (Leek and potato soup) and some ‘new’ potatoes (which I think was just a codename for small).
Joy also found someone she recently met at the local library, April, whom was up at 4am making bread and apparently all night making more bread! Ahh the live of a baker. In any event we picked up a really nice focaccia loaf with spring onion and asiago cheese on top. I made a olive oil dipping sauce for it mmmmmmmmm (EVOO, balsamic vinegar, rock sat, cracked black peppercorns)... was good.
We also picked up a bag of mustard greens for the chickens, but it seems between Kale, Mustard Greens and Collard Greens they really really love the kale the most. So its a bust on the mustard greens but they must be eaten.
Right now I’m frying up the leeks for our leek and potato soup so the kitchen is hot but has a nice aroma..
Posted by Stu on 07/12 at 02:05 PM Permalink to this post.
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Aah summer, much has been going on lately, sorta kinda. If its not 90F and stinking hot and dry, its 90F and raining an inch a day. Its been very wet so far this summer.
Alexander came out of his cast and is doing well, he bear crawls more than he walks right now, but I’m sure he’ll revert to upright at some point in his life. His birthday party went quite well, joy is still working on the video footage of that so I’ll get that to upload at some point… yeah we are quite behind on the video footage I think.
June has been a busy month, Alexanders cast removal, his birthday, Joys birthday, our anniversary and a family wedding this coming weekend.
Things were kinda hectic this past week so we didnt do much for our anniversary. This is what I got for Joy;
Its a hand made stone vase, I didnt think it would show up in time for the anniversary as it takes several weeks for it to be made, but it did, and all were happy with the result.
Joy in turn, got me that awesome chicken coop which I’m still doing the final touches on, plus she signed us both up for the motorcycle safety course, its a three day intensive course that at the end of it, if you pass, gives you your motorcycle license.
Last night we transitioned Alexander to a big boy bed, we got a full size (twin I think Joy calls it, I call it a single bed), and stuffed him in there under the covers. We actually bought bunks and the one in the photo is the top bunk since it still has rails to stop him from getting out. (We decided, even if the new baby is a girl, they will still share a room for the first 5 or so years and it will be good for them, well it remains to be seen if he will sleep through the baby crying in his room or not, when it arrives….)
The other day was also his first taste of nutella, that chocolaty spread that just seems to go everywhere
Alexanders new saying is “down chochoo” which means he wants to go to the basement and play with his birthday present
I’ll have more birthday pics when Joy is done with the video footage.
Vegetable garden wise, my peas all died a horrid death :( sigh… The strawberries are doing really well and my tomatoes currently have 30+ toms on the branches, but I dont know how many will survive the heat or the birds and insects. But I am looking forward to being able to pick a home grown tomato and eat it like an apple!
Yes we have been extremely slack… so here is an update in no specific order.
(Lots of pics and more info below)
Some time back, Joy and her friend Katie entered into a half marathon down at Virginia Beach. It was a bitterly cold weekend for a race but there were still over 10000 people turned up for the race. they both finished (bonus!).
Alexander had a great easter egg hunt, run by the local pentecostal church, they hid hundereds of eggs around in a field and let about 100 kids loose. Alexander scored about 10 plastic eggs with little things inside them and kept saying “more more more”. Not that he ate any of the contents he just wanted the plastic eggs to play with.
Joy has also been teaching Alexander how to mow the lawn and start working on some chores.
His other chores are feeding Gwyn each morning and night, so he toddles off to the big bucket where her food is kept, gets a margarine container full of it and fills her bowl, only he thinks she needs multiple scoops to be happy.
The chickens have been doing great, 4 brown eggs a day, we have been giving some away each week and still have loads to spare, its so much fun. We are thinking of going from 4 hends (roughly 20 eggs a week) to 8 hens (so 40! wooo) with a new coop.
The weather is finally starting to turn and warm up, spring is indeed here. The veggie patch this year has been left to do its own thing, the plan is to pile all the chicken coop straw onto the compost heap and mix it all into the veg patch so next year we have a super fertile patch to sow. That leaves me with planting in containers for this year, so its only a small planting. We have about 24 pea plants, about 12 tomato plants, 5 bell peppers and about 5 or 6 strawberry plants.
Posted by Stu on 03/01 at 05:01 PM Permalink to this post.
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Eggs! YAY! OK, So I was feeding and checking on the chickens tonight when I looked in the nest box…
I saw an egg.. YAY… oh.. I see some yolk…
They had eaten it. One or all of them, and it was not a pullet egg it was a normal size nice brown egg.
I dont know if it was laid last night or during the day. Hopefully this means production will start and we will get some eggs appearing on a more consistent basis. Its also good I ran out of feed tonight as they were on grower feed (higher protein) and now I can switch to layer feed (less protein and extra oyster shell) for egg production.
YAY!! Finally the one of the chickens has decided to start paying rent.
Posted by Stu on 02/26 at 10:17 PM Permalink to this post.
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Well, it was a family effort, but, the chickens, they are out!
Well, it was about 40 degrees out today, just warmer than water freezing temperature. It felt like it was going to snow all day. But, we persevered and got set to let the chickens out. Alexander even helped out with some crying and screaming and moaning about the cold. Come on, Alexander, we need help—not complaining!
The first step was to get the cinder blocks out for the coop to sit on.
Then Stu and I carried out the base to put on the cinder blocks.
The next step was the frame of the coop—this is the heavy part that is very awkward to lift. It’s about 6.5 feet tall and lifting it above the base to get it in the right place was VERY hard!
Eventually, though, after much laughing and dropping on Joy’s end, we got it up.
I took Alexander in then to warm up. It was a little cold out for him. We had lunch while Stu put the doors in place.
We tied the run to the cinder blocks to try to keep any wild animals from getting in—and the neighborhood dogs that run around all over the place…
Stu put the ladder into the run and then it was done!
Stu hung the food and water until we can get hooks for them.
And after we let the chickens be inside the coop for a bit, we got them out so they could see around. They’re cold and scared, but hopefully they’ll snap out of it soon!
I’ve got some video I’ll try to get together soon! We’re very happy that the chickens have their own home now!
Posted by Joy on 11/16 at 05:17 PM Permalink to this post.
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So autumn is here, or fall. The leaves have gone from a bright green to a burgundy red, all around us the mountains are in various shades of yellow to red with the odd blotches of green from the evergreen pines.
I’ve got my seeds for the coming spring already here. I’ve got two buckets of compost that needs to be dumped on the garden and mixed in…
I’ve got a garden that needs tilling and turning to sit over the winter.
Our four chickens are ready for their coop and to move outside.. Speaking of which, its 95% done, there are only two panels on the back of the coop that need to be cut and affixed, then I just need to seal some gaps and prime it all with an oil based primer.
So the peeps arrived. I got a phone call at 7am to come get them. Wow they are noisy little buggers! They found there food alright and some are drinking, I will let them adjust for a while and see how things are going…
The downside? We ordered 8 (wanted 4) and all 8 survived! So now we have to pick 4.. Some are a week or so older than the others too, they are getting their wing tip feathers.. I think they are the barred plymouth rocks.
Posted by Stu on 09/10 at 08:12 AM Permalink to this post.
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All the chickens I ordered are good brown egg layers that will produced 4-5 eggs a week, they drop off production a lot when its super hot or really cold, but these are breeds that can handle much colder winters than we get, so that is a good thing.
They will leave the hatchery as day old chicks and take I think, two days to arrive here via USPS…
So what did we order?
2 Australorps (An Australian breed!)
2 Barred Plymouth Rocks
2 SexLink Red Stars
2 SexLink Black Stars
Yes, 8 in total. That is the minimum for postage as there will be fatalities, the plan is to keep the strongest 3 or 4 and free-to-good-home whats left. (Might give them to Morgan if she wants them)
The sex-links are a hybrid breed good for egg laying, but most importantly when they are born the sexes are different colours (because nobody wants roosters), they are crossed Rhode Island Reds with Plymouth Rocks.
The Stars are very good egg layers and very hardy birds.
We will have pics when they arrive, but I’m not expecting them for a while.
Posted by Stu on 08/28 at 08:17 PM Permalink to this post.
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