Garden on Corliss Homestead Journal

Nancy Reading wrote: You say that you wish that you had a roof on the run - is that to keep the chicken dry outside, or for another reason?

Having a semi-protected area in the run, especially in the winter, makes chicken keeping more convenient for me. I find my chickens hate touching the snow and if the ground is cleared they will spend time outside in the winter. We have open room under the coop itself that is sheltered but we have to stoop to tend to their feed and water. I have been frustrated when I forget to put the food under the coop and a rain storm comes through and turns the chicken crumble into cement clogging up the works.

I store their feed and feed accessories in two galvanized cans that are propped up off the ground with bricks. I keep burlap on the lids for both snow and chicken droppings. If eight inches of snow accumulate overnight, I just have to pull off the burlap and the can lid is clear. This doesn't work if it melts a little and refreezes overnight sticking the burlap to the galvanized lid. Then you scare the chickens with the loud clangs of trashcan lids being popped off the cans! A roof covering would eliminate that minor inconvenience.



It also would be neat to have a roof that can harvest rainwater off of. My chicken run is near my garden plot and having convenient clean water would be super.

It just requires work, and figuring out how much roof height I can get away with without taking away sun from nearby beds.

The start of the gardening year has begun.

In the early spring, I hedge my bets and try to get some spring seeds out into the ground just in case the last frost of the year is early. Peas are my canary in the coal mine so to speak as they are cheap, plentiful, and something I would eat if they are successful! I've spread a bunch around my various gardens and already have seen some success.

I've already raked back my straw mulch from my raised beds to give the soil an opportunity to start warming up. Various 'weeds' have already sprung up, with the mulch, that I will hand pluck here shortly.  

I have arranged for around 10 yards of compost/topsoil to be delivered this Saturday from a trusted farm in the area that is sorely needed in all sorts of spots. Some of the volume will be utilized to top off production beds but a good majority of it is to improve soil throughout my property. There are quite a few dips and low-spots that I have been smoothing out year by year with deliveries of material. I've managed to help sculpt the lawn to both shed water and hold it in certain gardening zones. A majority of this work is focused on the back of the property but the front also needs some tender loving care.

I'm intending on posting more photos of my progress as it happens. Stay tuned for the Saturday delivery.

Happy Easter to those who observe!

It was a wonderful weekend where on saturday my family all converged on my home an we enjoyed an early dinner of ham and fixings. We hosted an easter egg hunt for our nieces that they thoroughly enjoyed. After all the festivities, sunday turned into a day that could be enjoyed however we wished. I decided to start moving dirt.



The plan was to top off my raised garden beds, and move a lot of volume towards the forsythia line.



My wife helped me determine a line to follow with the topsoil to give it a gentle shape. We decided to also extend the garden space to around an existing wood chipped space because we had the material to do it. I spent the afternoon with a shovel and wheelbarrow moving material.





The sooner I get this dirt moved, the sooner I can start planting. I'm pleased with the consistency of the material. It is on the sandier side but there is quite a bit of organic material as well. I'm sure it will grow some fantastic vegetables in due time.

You can only live life once, get your broody hen some babies.



Say hello to Mama and her six new chicks! We have a standard Australorp raising six assorted bantams to adulthood.

This hen has been broody for a little over two weeks, even after kicking her off the eggs a half dozen times trying to get her to snap out of it. We brought her the chicks and stuffed them under her when she was in the nest box. Instantly, she was giving happy little clucks! We checked in on her a few more times and so far everything has been sweet!

In hindsight, I would of created a separate brooding box for just mama and the chicks so they could have everything in one convenient area. I have sense repurposed two of the nesting boxes by knocking out a divider and placing food/water for the chicks in the new larger box. When I put the things in there, mama moved herself and her brood into the box. The rest of the hens are doing well by not bothering the happy little family but they are attracted to the chick food. Mama has now used her body to wall off access to the food unless your a chick so problem solved!

With all the fun of raising chickens, here comes the reality of it.

A young cockeral reveals himself.

I am pretty confident that I have three cockerels out of this batch of eight. My desired amount of cockerels are zero.

Now comes the tough part.

Usually, I would want to process my animals and harvest the most of what I can get. I was raised that way. However, these are bantam roosters and they seem to be smaller than pigeons. I'm unsure of how much I will actually get off of them but the worst I can do is just try.

It is all part of the deal of raising chickens, but I don't need to be happy with. I have some preparations to do but sooner than later it has to be done.

Beh.

In my polyculture strip, I have had recently had an increase in damage to plants and vegetables.

I know of a lone deer that stops by when it is completely dark but she has been a regular. This increase can't just be her. I started to poke around and walk into the planting to try and find any signs. I managed to uproot some forsythia branches that had contacted the ground when I found a big clue. There was a large hole leading into a burrow underground. Groundhogs perhaps?

This morning, I looked out the window and I think I finally found the culprit.

A baby bunny.

A batch of bunnies has emerged. They decimated my squash plants as well as my amaranth. It is what it is!

We will see if I can get a picture of all of them. They are pretty well hidden in a grove of corn.

I'm so freaking excited.

I planted a small chicago hardy fig late last fall with a "If it lives, it lives" additude behind it. Spring came along with early summer and the fig was dead. I clipped back the dead growth and chalked it up to a winterkill because figs do not normally last in my zone.

A fig plant.

I was doing some weeding of the front garden beds with my wife and we stumbled upon the fig with new growth!

A win is a win.

While it is not the MOST permaculture friendly to rely on automotive transportation, it is a necessity where I live currently.

For 14 years, I drove a Grand Marquis. It got me through community college, my time in university, as well as getting me back and forth from work. It was my response vehicle when I volunteered with the fire department and emergency squad. It hauled people, it hauled animals, and it hauled things that could barely fit into it! It gave me grief but it kept running for years with little significant repairs needed. Finally, after many years of service, it was time to retire this vehicle.

2004 Mercury Grand Marquis

I'm fortunate enough to have found a deal for a Rogue which would be more fuel efficient as well as (hopefully) be more reliable.

2015 Nissan Rogue

Anytime you get a new vehicle, especially from private sale, I recommend going through it regardless of what you are told. The person I purchased it from is family so I expected some things and thankfully I checked!

1st Discovery

Original Battery

This vehicle is a 2015 model and still had the original battery in it. Not bad!

2nd Discovery

Some folks do not realize that they may have a cabin air filter so they do not change it. This can make it harder for the air conditioning/fans to function as they have to try and push through a clogged filter. The filters are generally inexpensive and simple to change!

Cabin Air Filter (Left - New/Right - Used)

3rd Discovery

Cabin air filters are not the only air filters to be concerned about. Your air intake filter is important for engine efficiency and function. I opted to purchase a permanent filter that can be cleaned as the cost savings over time made sense to me.

Air Filter (Left - Used/Right - New)

I might look into doing the brakes before winter sets but it is nice to not have to worry as much about runability as I did when I had the Grand Marquis now.

I arrived home from work today and went through my routine. I took out my two dogs, I changed out of work clothes, and I then headed out to the chicken coop to collect eggs. I only got about halfway across my yard before I realized that something was up. Something attacked my chickens.

Dirt smudges from alleged intruder

I'm figuring that it either was a fox, a coyote, or a stray dog. I'm learning more towards the last two at this moment. It probed the two doors into the run, the coop doors itself, the laying boxes, and finally tried to dig its way in.

Digging activity from intruder

Whatever it was, it managed to split a piece of wood that held a board that kept the laying box door closed.

Damaged support arm for barricade bar

Thankfully, all of my hens are accounted for. There was no entry made and the structure served its purpose. I found some blood smudged on posts and wire so whatever it was got hurt in the process.

Guess who met face to face with the critter that attacked my coop in my prior post?

This guy.

Turns out, there is a local pup who is giving her owner quite the heartache by slipping outside when she should not be. It is in fact a dog and she is training to be a bird hunting dog. She knows of three local coops and has killed about fourteen chickens before.

I had planned on letting my chickens out into a new paddock and I was getting ready. A truck came by my house and asked me if I saw a loose dog and I told him I didn't. I was going to be outside for a while so I took his phone number and left it at that. Later, I was sitting outside with my hens when out of nowhere a german shorthair pointer just appeared outside of my paddock netting. The dog circled around us twice before she decided to slip through a six inch gap in the netting and joined me and my hens. She lunged for the hens but I was already between her and the chickens. She tried to slip through the middle of my legs but I managed to get ahold of her rear legs and I had her wheelbarrowed. In hindsight, I made a REALLY bad decision but I lucked out. I wasn't going to let go of this dog (who I am a stranger to) because she was solely focused on my chickens and I decided to pick her up against my chest. I kept her in air jail, which she so graciously did not fight me, while I called her owner.

With that excitement out of the way, I'm going to count my blessings and reinforce my enclosed run a little bit more.