Summarizing the past year and a half

I haven't updated since September 2020, but I wanted to get back to using this blog for my own record-keeping. I moved into the new homestead on February 13, 2021, and I don't want to forget all the valuable lessons I've learned over the past year! (Half of them having to do with learning about the timing of the weather and the weed growth.)

But first, a moment of silence for the Great Chicken Massacre of 2020. I was so excited about setting up a huge new pen for them at the new property, with 2x2" fencing, 6' tall, an electric wire running along the outside to deter climbing predators, and buried hardware cloth at the bottom to prevent diggers. But a few months before the move, I woke up one morning to find 6 or 7 chickens missing or maimed. (I don't remember the number 100% at this point.) Based on the details of the attack, I'm guessing it was one or more raccoons. So shitty that I lived at the previous place for nearly 4 years without any predator attacks except for hawks taking just 2 hens, and now this just before I moved them to Chicken Ft Knox.

 

But on to happier news!

The 2.2 acre property was just bare land when I purchased it.

View from the start of the cul-de-sac, toward the north-west

View from the south-west corner, toward the north-east

There is now a happy yellow house with detached garage, a large fenced backyard, and a large pen for the chickens/orchard/garden. Inside the house, I have a whole craft room, guest bedroom, and many many houseplants.

Chipper yellow house!

View of the garage, which has a permanent puppy potty area

Some of my houseplants

Some more houseplants

More houseplants again

My very favorite chicken, the Black Australorp that was among the first 3 peepers I ever got, passed away last year at age 6. My current oldest is the Light Brahma, who will be turning 4 this year.

As of this writing, I have 1 rooster (Buff Orpington), 2 elderly hens who don't lay eggs anymore (Buff Orpington and Easter Egger, taken in from someone who was moving and couldn't keep them), 12 hens of laying age (Light Brahma, Ancona, Splash Hamburg, 2 Norwegian Jaerhons, 2 Easter Eggers, 2 Olive Eggers, Black Australorp, Gold Star, Barred Rock), and 9 2-week old chicks (Silver Laced Wyandotte, Gold Laced Wyandotte, Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, Cuckoo Maran, Welsummer, Barnevelder, Rhode Island Red, Blue Silkie, mystery chick who seems to be a Green Queen with Silkie mixed in). I am raising the chicks in a large tub with a welded wire cover in the backyard so that I can cuddle with them frequently. My goal is to finally have some chickens who like hanging out with me and maybe even being held - all my current ones will come over for food but then say "no touchie."

Most of the adult chickens enjoying food scraps

Current peeper pen by the back door

Cuddling with the Cuckoo Maran chick

Inside the run where the chickens live, I have a corridor for a backyard/hedgerow orchard of 15 fruit trees (5 nectarine/peach, 5 fig, 1 Fuji apple, 1 loquat, 1 Lapins cherry, 1 Fuyu persimmon, 1 sugar prune). I have 2 colorful raised beds (my mom did a lot of the painting for these boards). They aren't planted yet as the infrastructure and tree projects are higher priority, but I wanted to go ahead and set them out to help with planning spacing. Along the eastern fence, I plan to put another chicken-proof corridor for vining plants (tomatoes, peas, cucumbers). Later I'll add raspberry bushes - they'll be surrounded by a fence that will be accessible on all sides by the chickens, which will keep them in check.

Row of fruit trees with fencing to keep chickens out and partially attached weed fabric.

Raised beds with sheep manure and chicken bedding breaking down for compost

The backyard is 6,000 square feet, with 2 retaining walls, a concrete pad, and a french drain to move rainwater away the house. I need to rig up shade/rain cover for the dogs. I hope to install a permanent dog tub for cooling off (I currently have a plastic pool), and an outdoor shower for myself. I had originally planned to install irrigation sprinklers and a drought-tolerant lawn, but for the moment I'm just dealing with the existing plant life and it's not so bad, setting aside the occasional foxtail clump and the yellow star-thistle.

Phoenix in the backyard.

On the east side of the house, I've started planting a succulent garden with gifted agaves and aloes. It is currently totally overgrown with weeds - I let them get tall enough that the baby agaves disappeared, so string trimming would be disastrous. I am partway through trimming out a path and plant clearance with a small sickle.

Hoo boy is that overgrown.

 

The south side of the property has black walnut trees. They provide some nice privacy, but they're growing directly underneath electrical wires and somewhat block the view when driving out of the cul-de-sac. I plan to take them out and plant something different for privacy, farther from the road. Then I am going to replace the shoddy, barely-there fence along that side of the property. Add fencing and a gate along the cul-de-sac, and the property will be fully fenced so the dogs can roam!

Black walnut trees

 

I keep going back and forth on whether to get sheep for grazing down the weeds or a nice riding mower. There are pros and cons for each. Either way, it's a decision that doesn't really need to be made for a few years at least, and in the meantime one of my neighbors allows me to borrow his old, slow riding mower. I just prefer to have things all planned out ahead of time.

Recently mowed front area

 

I brought home an English Shepherd puppy in November of 2020, from a wonderful breeder I'd been in contact with for two years. We're taking ongoing classes for agility and nose work. On my own, I'm slowly working on rally-free, traditional obedience exercises, herding foundation, and tricks. We've had a couple of herding adventures with sheep already, and I hope to do more (one of the potential pros of getting my own sheep).

8 weeks old, during the drive home

All grown up, 1.5 years old

Phoenix loves my dad!

With home ownership, especially in the country and having animals, and even more especially when you're still laying down infrastructure, one has a to-do list a mile long. It is particularly overwhelming during the winter with little sun and Seasonal Affective Disorder. I certainly couldn't do it without the help of my parents and friends and neighbors.

However it's definitely where I want to be and the lifestyle I want to be living, and I know that it will get better and better over time.

Plant Lady

Wood working projects

Pulled out the circular saw, drill, and hammer yesterday and knock a few projects off the to do list:

Cover for the chick pen, so they can't stand on their water bucket and then jump out.

Rabbit hiding boxes - the far side is left open.

Picture frame to hold the egg flier my sister drew for me. (It's inside in a plastic sheet protector.) I tried my best to cut all the angles at 45 degrees, yet none of them line up, but at least it looks basically the same at all the corners so maybe people will think it's an intentional style thing?

Rabbit "stake." Chase saw an illustration of this in a book on preserving hides. More on how it works in a future post.

Final project to show off was actually created a few weeks ago. Rabbit butchering station, with two spots on opposite sides so that people can work on two rabbits at once.

Coop and chick pictures at 3 weeks old

The new coop was designed in two separate units that stand next to each other (with an unfortunate gap due to uneven ground). Both units have large access doors for easy cleaning. One unit has a ramp leading downstairs, the chicken door to the outside, and only one nesting box so that there's room for food/water downstairs. The other unit is solely roosting bars and nesting boxes. If I ever want to expand the coop, I can just make another unit like the second and slot it in. MORE CHICKENS

Coop from the short side. Top story is all solid plywood, with two short windows to let air through but not blow directly on the birds when they're roosting. Bottom story is plywood on long sides and hardware cloth on short sides.

Top level, unit with ramp. (Door over ramp is closed for now so they don't fall and hurt themselves.)

Top level, unit with just roosting bars. The bucket has water. Food is in the back. The blue fabric strips are a "wool hen" that they can cuddle under for warmth/comfort.

Bottom level with 4 nesting boxes and ramp.

It also opens on the other side for easy access to eggs.

And here are the chicks themselves. Their wing feathers are mostly in and they have short tail feathers. Most of them have developed feathers on their shoulders and along the sides of their chests. It's so much fun watching them develop - totally worth the babying they needed during the first two weeks. Compare these photos to the ones from two weeks ago.

Black Japanese Bantam (5)

Red Pyle Game Bantam (started with 3, now 2)

Black Silkie Bantam (2)

Blue Silkie Bantam (3)

White Silkie Bantam (1)

Buff Orpington (1)

Black Star (1)

Cuckoo Maran (so pretty!!) (1)

Silver Laced Wyandotte (1)

Easter Egger (seems to be the oldest as she has the most feathers) (1)

Speckled Sussex (gorgeous feathers) (1)

Unknown freebies (5)

Golden Sebright Bantam (started with 9, now 5)

Garden set up at new farm

It took nearly two months for me to finish setting up my garden after the move, but it's mostly done now. I decided to put down cardboard and straw over as much of the unused ground in the garden as I can, with raised beds and pots to hold my plants. This gives me more control over the soil and watering conditions compared to planting directly in the ground, and will make it easier to move the garden again in the future. (Still looking for my own property.)

I ended up buying a circular saw to cut the boards for the raised beds. I'd been wanting a saw for years but had previously been able to borrow from the awesome Oakland Tool Lending Library. Now it made more sense to buy one. I cut the the boards into 4' lengths with mitered corners:

My sister helped me paint them pink, as I wanted a pop of color and had a lot of this paint left over from the chicken coop.

Then I assembled, with hardware cloth on the bottoms of the beds to keep gophers out. (There is a LOT of gopher activity.)

The ground was uneven so I got my pick axe and broke up hills and clods to smooth things out.

Hauling over cardboard:

Finished beds:

Worm bins and gooseberry are getting as much shade as possible:

Still have to hook up the succulents to the drip irrigation - I had to order a valve for the 1/2 inch tubing so that they don't get watered as frequently as everything else. And obviously there is still a lot more ground to cover with cardboard + straw. After that, it's just regular weeding, tending, and enjoying! Until the next move...