Fruit!

All my fruit adventures seem to be doing excellent this year! Last year we planted two 3-in-1 apples trees (both have yellow delicious, gala, and fuji!) They both bloomed this year and we have mini apples growing on the trees! The one out front isn't doing quiet as well as the one in the back, mostly due, I think, to the fact that the deer ate a lot of the branches last summer before I put netting around it. Also looks like I need to get some tree straightener kits!

The raspberry patch is going absolutely crazy! I will need to prune it back pretty seriously this fall. All these plants are from about a dozen shoots that I took from my sisters garden last summer. They are doing great! Covered them with bird netting today because the fruit is starting to show. The bucket is next to my blueberry bush which I was sure I killed last summer (by not watering it often enough) It came back and is also showing fruit!

And last but not least! The strawberry patch! Got my first full sized strawberry today! Took some pictures and promptly ate it! It was amazing!!!! These are also starts from my sisters garden from two summers ago. This is the first year that they have done really well! I have so many ripening hopefully the birds and such don't find them- I need to drop some net over them as well.

Raspberries, Blueberries and Strawberries OH my!

It's been a While

It seems like part of blogging is to- well- stop blogging for a while. No matter! The hiatus is at an end!

It has been busy around the house preparing for spring and admiring just how far I have com in the three years we have owned this house. With time, patience, and care the gardens are looking good again. I'm not saying I'm finished with them by any means- but they are looking good.

The last few days have been devoted to two main projects for me- creating two 4'x4' raised beds and modifying our compost bin. These two projects went hand in hand. To modify my compost bin- it needed to be empty- to empty it I needed a place where nearly two years of compost could go.

The raised beds look great. Most of the lumber I was able to get on clearance at Home Depot for 51 cents a piece, score! I still need to get some stone pavers to go between the two beds. I left this gap to allow easy access to the hard to reach middle of the beds. You can also see the new split rail fence that my dad installed for us! The old one was falling apart. This one still needs to be stained- but then it is done! I have some seeds started in the house that I hope to transplant into the new raised beds in the next week or so.

And here is the modified compost bin clean, propped up and drying in the sun so it can get a coat of paint! This Pleascent Clean barrel came with the house- already modified to lack both a lid and a bottom. I've been composting in it since I got the chickens in Feb 2011. This is the first time it has been completely emptied. Talk about some rich compost! I've added the holes around the barrel to hopefully speed up the composting process by allowing a little more air into the mixture. 

Cookie

I returned home Thursday from a two week vacation to find Cookie in rough shape. Advanced case of sour crop. She died yesterday. 

The good news is that Cookie needed to go anyway. She hadn't laid an egg in nearly a year. She was loud and obnoxious. Even so, it was a blow to not be able to do anything for her. For me though, it was quick. She died Saturday afternoon. 

Reading information long into the night on sour crop, I am worried for my other hens. Sour crop is usually an indicator of an underlying infection or problem, not always, but usually.  Did Cookie just have something wrong with her, that manifested in her not laying- and the culminated in her death? Or was there something else that suddenly caused the infection. It's hard to say, but I am now worried about my remaining hens' very low egg production. Perhaps they are all ill with a mystery disease that I can't discover.

Another cause of sour crop is poor sanitary conditions. While I feel that my hen house is clean - I am going to make some changes to the food an water area. I'm going to put in planking so I can see the spilled food rather than it being buried in bedding. Moldy food is often associated with sour crop- perhaps there is an underlying problem there. 

Only time will tell if this was isolated or a serious problem. 

The Last two years

I have officially been a chicken keeper for two years today. It is hard to believe that on this day in 2011 I brought home 6 peeping chicks that I could easily hold in my hand. It is easy to say that any event changed one's life, but I feel very strongly that raising chickens has changed mine, and continues to change it. I feel that in the future I will be pressed with a hard decision- what do I do with my hens when they stop laying? Would I be able to eat them? If I can't eat these birds, what makes the ones at supermarkets any different? Any one of them could have been as smart as Betty, as soft as Pat, as brave as Nugget. (However, if they were all annoying like Cookie, maybe it wouldn't be so hard :) ) I feel that many of the changes have helped me become a better person. I feel more in touch with my food than I ever have. I pay attention to what is in what I am eating. What was the cost, not monetarily, of the production of it.

I hope to continue chicken keeping for the rest of my life and continue to see the changes that it makes on me.