The End of August Update

It's taken me a long time to get these pictures.  We went to CA the middle of this month for my grandma's 80th birthday.  It was a wonderful trip that was super jam packed and recovering from it has taken longer then anticipated.

It was thrilling to come home and see how beautifully everything was doing here at home.  When we left the summer crookneck squash was almost ready to pick, as were the cucumbers.  When we arrived home both were producing and we have had a steady stream of fresh produce trickling in from outside.  The tomato plants are so big they are falling all over the place, even with cages on them.  Red potatoes I'm digging a bit later then I could have and are now quadruple the size of an average red potato (which works for me) and taste wonderful!  This is our first year growing red potatoes.  Corn is huge and, save for a few stalks that fell over during storms, seems to be doing beautifully.  With luck (lets hope the raccoons don't know where we live) we'll be eating corn by the end of the month.  And the squash is doing AMAZING!  It is so beautiful to see this sea of squash vines climbing throughout the garden.  They were planted under the corn and have spread out over potatoes and a few other beds.  To be honest I really don't have a clue how much squash is in there.  It's a huge area and the plants are waist deep for me.  I know on the ends I can see pumpkins and acorn, spaghetti and butternut squash, maybe even a few other varieties.

Two of my Blue Andalusian hens

 Chickens are all doing well.  It was only after I started writing this that I realized that I never posted about the stinky little visitor we had a few months ago that killed half our chicks. :(  A skunk dug under our chicken tractor and killed my rhode island reds, all my meat birds and the fancy mistake birds.  All that we were left with was a buff orpinton rooster, a buttercup hen and a turkin hen.  It was quite really frustrating.  We fixed the chicken tractor (put a good sturdy bottom on it) and have had no predator problems since.  We only found out it was a skunk after our dog, Midnight, recently found it near where the tractor had been and got sprayed.  (Poor Midnight grabbed the darn thing by the tail and got sprayed in the face.  Glad the skunk got a beating though, and Midnight is doing fine now.)
We've just moved the chicks into one of the runs off the main chicken coop and they seem to be loving it.  A lot more freedom.  That tractor was getting awfully small for all of them.  It's been a very intense chicken year and I'm thinking that next year we will probably be getting laying breeds and less fancy breeds, but we'll see how I feel once these girls start laying.

It's been a busy year for us.  We all feel quite please with everything that has been accomplished so far and look forward to the harvest months ahead of us. :)

Garden pictures

Forest weeding

Hugelkultur potato bed

Yay!  Strawberry plants!

Black raspberry hedge.

North side of the garden looking south.

It took a long time, and is still a work in progress, but we got our hugelkultur beds made, mulched and the garden fenced in.  We also have strawberries, asparagus, corn, squash, potatoes and tomatoes successfully growing and looking beautiful.  We planted several other things (like peppers and brassica) but the slugs leveled those, sadly.  We also have woodchucks and gophers that are getting in (fencing isn't completely done yet) and they have been working on the beans and cucumbers we planted.  These pictures were from several months ago, hopefully I will get to go out and get some updated pictures for comparison.  All in all we are very proud of what we have accomplished even if it's not exactly what we thought it would be.  We should have plenty of potatoes and squash at least this winter. :)

The great chicken mixup

 We had some interesting adventured with chicks this year.  I ordered them in two batches so that I could get my meat birds started.  I wanted so many rare breeds for layers and ordered so late this year that the soonest I could get all the birds together would have been the middle of June.  A bit late for the meat birds.  So last week I was suppose to receive my 20 buff orpington males and 5 RIR (rhode island red) hens.  (Because they are so popular the RIR hens were available earlier then all the rest of my hens.)

The day they were suppose to arrive came and I was up early waiting for the call from the post office.  But instead of hearing from them we got a call from a man in St Paul saying he had received his and our chicks.  It was 6:30 in the morning so no on could call the hatchery (Meyer) so despite being annoyed and confused I just shrugged it off and waited.  But an hour later my post office calls and says they have chicks for me.  I was confused, but hey, chick with my name on it aren't going to sit in some cold post office.  Forest picked them up while I got things ready.  A regular little chicken midwife complete with hot water and towels. :)  When they got home and we looked in the box it was definitely not my order.  There were only 15 chicks and it was an assortment (rare by the look).  I'll admit we were all in a bit of shock.  There was no packaging slip so I hadn't a clue who this box belonged to.  But again I just shrugged because there was nothing I could do until I talked to the hatchery.  Everyone got fed and watered and was put in a nice warm box in the back room.

Later in the day I got to call the hatchery and explained what had happened.  I felt so bad for the lady that I talked to because it wasn't her fault at all, but I knew it had to be hard dealing with such a crappy mix up.  She was great though and got everything straightened out quickly.  She said my ordered would be shipped the next week and I could keep the chicks I received.  I felt bad for the person who didn't get their chicks but thrilled too to be getting such a wide assortment of new birds.  So far I have identified six breeds and there are still two I'm not totally sure of yet.  The six are naked neck turkins (top photo), golden polish (who actually died a few days ago), golden spangled hamburg (second photo), golden campine, sicilian buttercup (third photo) and two buff brahmas (that I am Thrilled about! last photo).  The two breeds I don't know for sure look like barnevelder and either blue hamburg or blue andalusian.   We've lost 4 out of the 15 in the first 4 days.  I can hardly complain seeing as these were free but I'll admit it makes me just a twinge worried about how hardy the rest of my chicks will be.

Still I am thrilled with my new chicks, looking forward to the others and am enjoying my life with chickens.