New chicken run

I moved from my urban homestead in Oakland out to a farm in Winters last month. I had trouble getting their run set up in the new space, so the chickens stayed in temporary housing that was secure enough but mostly concrete and without proper nesting boxes. Wednesday night, shortly before sundown, I finally got the fence up and moved them in.

On Thursday morning, 5 chickens were inside the run and happily scratching in the weeds and dirt. The Red Sex Link had flown the coop. Two sides of the run were made out of 4 foot cattle panels, so I wasn't surprised. I found her foraging with the farm's free-range rooster keeping a close eye on her. At one point she disappeared from my view, but a few minutes later he led her back to the area next to the other girls.

I used to dislike the rooster, but he just gained a lot of points with me.

I set to work extending the height of the cattle panels with floppy chicken wire. This keeps them inside in two ways: 1) the extra height means they are much less likely to fly up to it, and 2) chickens rarely fly up and right over a fence - they perch at the top first, and if it's a floppy wire that won't support their weight, they won't get  out.

I spotted the errant hen foraging in a corner of another pen, and was able to catch her. The rooster started screeching and posturing at me, but thankfully backed down after a few seconds. (It probably helped that once I had a good hold on the hen, she was quiet and calm.) I popped her back into the secured run. All 6 hens are staying inside for now.

The rooster continues to patrol the outside of their run.

Pearla Lace Shawl

I had put this shawl into my favorites on Ravelry a while back. On my last trip to Green Planet Yarns before I moved up north, I spotted some sparkly turquoise yarn that matched my sister's planned wedding colors and spontaneously decided to knit the shawl for her. That gave me 2 months to pull off a project that was way above my skill level, as the only thing I had previously knit was a simple stockinette stitch scarf.

I finished the scarf and blocked it at 12:30 am, the day that we left for the wedding. Success!

This one looks green because it was done indoors on a blue mat. The turquoise/aqua pictures are accurate.

I liked the pattern and I think I'll make another one for myself (in a different color).

Yarn is packed

Found 3 skeins of a yarn I hadn't input into Ravelry, and so had forgotten about. It was like a present to myself!

This isn't quite all of it - most of the roving is stuffed into the spinning wheel's carry bag.

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.

Lessons learned

Homesteading involves constant learning. Today I learned:

1. Invest in quality screws.

2. Don't paint over screws you may want to remove in a few years.

3. Have a stripped screw removal tool on hand.

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.