I know it’s weird that my fantasy life focuses on farm improvements. But this weekend, I executed three of them. The hen house was seeming a bit cramped, especially with four pullets soon to be added. Also, the hens seemed to avoid the three small nesting boxes inside, preferring a larger box. So I added an two foot extension with larger boxes. I also had the idea of cutting a large sheet of plastic to lay over the bottom before putting in the sawdust, so I can (in theory) pull the plastic out with all the chicken manure when I want to change their bedding, as opposed to scraping out the house each time. We’ll see how that works. I purchased all the materials for this expansion, including the roosting poles and roofing tiles at Urban Ore. It looks a bit ragtag, but the chickens don’t seem to mind:
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Those are fake eggs in the nesting boxes, by the way. Chickens prefer to lay their eggs where there are already eggs.
Next I had slipped several times on the wet steps, so I cleaned them off and added some gritty “no-slip” decals to avoid future falls.
Finally, I made some adjustments to the garden, which continues to teach me what to do. I had planted four artichokes in a prime garden space, and they throve. But they are large, and getting larger. Also, the chickens don’t like them. So it seemed it would be perfect to move them down into the chicken area. They hopefully will help anchor the hillside, provide the chickens with earwigs, and free up the garden space for other vegetables.The artichokes are still a bit traumatized from the transplant, but I think they’ll do well, and I let the chickens out and they thoroughly cleared the spot for whatever’s next. The kale has turned into a little forest, and the tomatoes and cucumbers still continue to produce, despite the rain and cold. My two-year old Peruvian pepper from Annie’s Annuals has grown into a little holiday bush.
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