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

Snapdragons and hollyhocks

I like to plant snapdragons in memory of a previous dog, Cinnamon Snapdragon. These are looking beautiful.

Hollyhocks are among my favorite flowers. They're showy, come in many colors, and, like me, thrive in lots of sunshine. This is the "nigra" variety - such a dark reddish purple that they're almost black.

Chicken tractor

Most of my garden area has been mulched with cardboard and straw. It works well enough, though this area is prone to wind storms that send the mulch traveling.

However I've neglected other areas which are now overgrown with grasses, which will turn into dangerous foxtails as they mature.

I was thinking that I should build a small chicken tractor for these areas. The chickens inside will happily munch on the grass, getting extra food and nutrition while solving my weed problem. But time and energy are in short supply lately, so actually making a tractor was overwhelming. Until I had a sudden realization that a wire dog crate (with the plastic pan removed) would be perfect for this.

Five minutes later, the whole thing was ready to go. The hardest part will be catching the chickens to put them inside each day. Today I spread out some treats and was able to catch the Red Star and Speckled Sussex. They'll catch on and start avoiding me soon enough. I'd rather avoid making them sleep inside the crate as they won't be comfortable. But putting in a roosting bar would be easy enough, so that may end up being the solution.

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...

Playground spring horse

Found this at Urban Ore. It was $20. It's going into my garden.

Broody hen, moving coop

My Blue-Laced Wyandotte was pulling out all of her chest feathers. I thought this was because the girls have lice, which I've been treating with diatomaceous earth. Finally I caught her spending 24 hours in a nesting box and realized that she was just broody!

I pulled out the ceramic eggs which I had put into the boxes years ago when my first hens were figuring out where to lay. I diligently collected eggs for a few days. It would be fun to let her raise some chicks, but this is poor timing.

On Saturday morning I got up early, put the chickens into crates, and spent the day breaking down their coop and prepping my garden for moving to my new rental property. Most of the coop was easy to take apart but there were a handful of screws that were really stuck. I ended up having to ask a manly neighbor for help. He drilled through some screws and sawed through the rest. We loaded everything up into a U-Haul and drove up north. We got the coop reconstructed (fast and easy with holes pre-drilled and fresh, quality screws) and the girls inside just before sundown. They are spending this week locked up, until I join them next Saturday. I'll deconstruct their big run this week and have help lined up to put it back together on Sunday.

I still have leftover plants to move that didn't make it into the U-Haul either time- or space-wise.

New plants, baby fruit tree update

I haven't planted as many seeds and starts for edible plants as I normally would have by this time of year, because I am moving in a few weeks and that would be bad timing for transplanting. But my garden looked so barren and sad, that I ended up picking up a number of flowers to brighten the area, and my mood.

Ranunculus

Dahliette

Snapdragon

Hollyhock

Primrose (next to a large parsley)

Bromeliad (indoors)

 Also, here's an update on the baby fruit trees:

Dwarf Mandarin gave me a delicious harvest of about 30 fruits. Here it is post pruning.

Fig cutting is growing new leaves after the winter.

Jackfruit also dropped leaves but is now regrowing them.

Baby Loquats seem to be going strong.