I caved

Good morning all! How are things? Things here are great, and exciting, and so so busy. Let’s talk:

Gardening is ramping up. Even though we had this house this time last year, we didn’t get everything set up and prepared in the garden. Last year’s garden was sort of hyper, with lots of “oh yeah! We want to grow these! Let’s put them here!” and “Oh know. The deer ate all of those. Or crushed them. Jerks.” Add to that that the Carlos is really really in to researching everything from when and how to start your plants to how to compost to no-dig gardening to soil health and you have a garden that takes a good deal more time than it will this time next year. My whole life, and this house and garden in particular, seems to be a long story of doing things that seem important, getting them about 80% done, then having another emergency pop up and doing stuff on that project. What that looks like in the garden is a gorgeous and fascinating deer fence/arbor made all from branches from the property, mostly done but not currently keeping anyone out. We need to take some time to actually attach the deer netting part to it and make sure it will work, but for now it just looks cool. It actually IS really cool. It’s actually growing, you guys. We used fresh cut branches and they’re stuck in the ground and some of them are rooting and leafing and budding. It looks great. Here’s an attempt at a picture of it. See all those swoopy, bendy branches? That’s the arbor/fence. The deer netting is going on the outside, and then it’s like a tunnel, and then you’re inside the garden. Does that even make sense? Hopefully I can explain better as it continues its journey. And of course, we’ll be trellising beans and tomatoes up the inside. And maybe squash. And who knows what. Grapes? Maybe.

You can also see in this picture the state of the beds. I think I’ve mentioned that when we say we have a garden, we really mean it. This garden is probably bigger than some people’s yards. No joke. And hopefully all does well. But, since we didn’t get all the setup done last year, we’re still working on it now. So when it’s time plant something out, we have to make sure that the bed it’s going to is ready, complete with layers of compost and dirt on top, and then the plants put in carefully, and then covered with bird netting as a kind of tent over the top. Why the bird netting? Because chickens are assholes. I love them, but it’s true. They want to eat the tiny baby plants. Or scratch the living hell out of them and then eat them. Or who knows what exactly. Assholes. Once the plants are bigger, they can live in better harmony with the dinosaurs, but right now they need protection. And hopefully the deer are less likely to step on and crush them or eat them, that is until the deer fence is complete!

So. The garden is taking a huge amount of time, but it’s so worth it. The house is a disaster, but we did have company over this weekend, so it looks less disastrous. It’s amazing how quickly you clean up when people are coming over. I can’t wait to have a really big party. Imagine how clean the house will be then!

I just hit 100 days in a row of daily yoga practice. 100 days in a row! Awesome. Yoga is awesome, Adriene from Yoga with Adriene is awesome, and I am awesome. Truly.

Carlos’s brother Desmond moved back in with us this past weekend. He’s a great help and should make Carlos’s life easier, specifically in the “here please hold this” and “can you go grab that” departments. Also, I am glad that Carlos won’t be here by himself all the time anymore. And Desmond enjoys watching the ducks and chickens, and he can curb the habits of the wandering ducks. Hopefully.

OK. Biggest news of the weekend. I caved. I made it this far but Saturday night I gave up the fight. I bought baby chicks.

Can you even blame me!?!

I went to Tractor Supply Saturday night. I had a list. I had very specific things I needed. Shavings for the poultry houses. Flea meds for the cats. More bird netting for the garden. Baby chicks. NO! That was not the plan!!

Let’s be honest here. The surprise is not that I bought baby chicks. The surprise is that I waited so long to buy baby chicks. I mean, it’s late April! Baby chicks started showing up in like February. We were strong, you guys. But then…

I walk in and I go look at chicks. And then I called the partner in crime. I asked for strength. He asked what kind of chicks they had. (We really really know each other, you guys. Like, really.) I said silkies (I knew this would get him.) Also, something called Sapphire Gems. They’re purple chickens. I mean, not like super purple, but a kind of fuzzy blue-grey color. Who am I kidding? In my world, they’re purple. And if you’ve been paying attention, you know that SO MANY things on this farm are purple. Tomatillos. Potatoes. Carrots. Some of the basil looks purple. Red Russian cabbage looks purple. Kale. And now chickens!

And of course sweet silkies. Our first batch of chicks included three silkies, two of which we still have-Dora the Mom and Trillium the cranky attacking rooster. They look like Muppets when they grow up. We’ve been wanting more. Now we have them. Including Patsy:

By the way, since everything I do has a much longer story than it needs, Patsy’s name has one too. When I got all the nuggets home, Patsy had poop stuck to her butt. Not a huge deal, happens all the time, but I did have to clean it off or she could explode. I mean, that’s a really dramatic way to put it, but basically that’s what it is. That whole situation is called pasty butt and you check baby chicks for it. Since this little fuzz ball had pasty butt, I just switched the letters around and made Pasty into Patsy. Cute, right? She should feel fortunate. Remember we still have a chicken that had no feathers on his backside and several years later his name is still NakedButt.

Nobody else has a real name yet. I mean, I’ve been calling them Flea Meds, Bird Netting, Shavings, Cat Litter, Egg Cartons and Oyster Shells (the things I was actually there to get. Get it? I’m hilarious) but those aren’t real names. We’re considering naming them after the characters from our favorite show, Marvel’s Agents of Shield. Kind of like naming them after the super popular movies of the moment but cooler, right? We’re not sure tho. Also, even to me, they all look pretty much the same at this point and that makes them hard to name. They’ll have names eventually, but there’s no rush. Also, I learned that Sapphire Gems are a fairly new breed of chicken, and they may be sex-linked! That means males and females look different at birth , and in theory you should know what they are right away. If that’s true (being a new breed, I’m not sure whether that’s a for-sure thing) I got all girls, and if they breed true, how great would that be? You guys know about my generally bad luck on rooster/hen ratio, so we’ll see.

One major snag in the new chicken thing tho. Last time we got baby chicks (also basically on a whim….) we gave them to Dora and she adopted them and raised them like a great mommy. We assumed that she would do the same again, or maybe one of the babies she raised, Moana, would do it. Apparently Dora is at the time in her life where she wants to focus on her career now, and she definitively does NOT want to raise nine babies. Moana is terrified of them. And every other hen in the henhouse is either nervous, cranky, of just plain not going to do it. We tried. For hours. I’m going to be brutally honest with you here. If I had known that a hen was not going to adopt these babies, I probably would not have brought them home. We haven’t raised chicks ourselves since our originals, and it’s so much nicer having a hen do it. I don’t even own a heat lamp for them anymore (right now. I am going to buy one today.) Oh well. It’ll be fine. Also, I had meant to get 8. I wanted three silkies and five gems. I don’t know why but that was my decision. But the girl who was boxing them up for me was talking about how she had six of them being raised by a silkie (little did I know how jealous that would make me!) and I think she just had 6 in her mind. She scooped up a sixth one and put it in the box with the others, and of course I couldn’t send it back! I mean, it was already mine really. So we got a total of nine. In theory, in about 5 or 6 months, I could have 9 more eggs a day! Or so. That’ll be great. For now I just have these uber fuzzy little butts to drool all over.

Guess what! Chicken butts! Yes, I’m five years old sometimes.

Oh! I almost forgot! I have a phone interview for a job out here closer to home! The interview is tomorrow afternoon at 3:30. I cannot begin to tell you how much I want to come live at my own house full time. Cross your fingers and all that jazz for me!

Have a great week you guys. Talk to you soon!