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...

More sad chicken news

The Welsummer died from the heat today. I found her at 9 pm and rushed to Lowe's to buy a mister or something similar. I found a mini sprinkler that sprays a fan of water about 6" out. I also bought a headlamp and set up the sprinkler in their run as soon as I got home. I will have the farm sitter run the sprinkler all day until the temperatures are below 95 degrees.

Meanwhile, the Blue Laced Wyandotte is still broody... but decided to switch boxes and sit on a different clutch of eggs. Damn. I pulled the four abandoned ones and candled them. One was developing into an embryo and had blood veins in the yolk. Perhaps once I'm back home, I'll make her a separate pen with just one nesting box and lock her up until the chicks hatch. It would be good to get the healthy, heat-tolerant genetics of the free-range rooster into some chicks.

Chicken updates

Here are photos of the girls pushing to get at fresh water after a refill. I took these at the beginning of June. Sadly the past few days have been over 100 degrees and the Rhode Island Red (top right in the first picture) died from heat exhaustion two days ago. They have lots shade and water but it was still too much for her. I'm thinking of setting up a mister for them, but it will have to wait until next week because I'm about to leave town again.

On the bright side, the Blue Laced Wyandotte (top left) has gone broody again. Since the free-range rooster now lives with the hens all the time (by his choice), there's a good chance that their eggs are fertile. She's sitting on four eggs right now and next week I'll check to see if there are chicks developing.

Recent crochet and knitting projects

I was on vacation for two weeks and used much of my downtime to whip up quick projects. First, my third ever knit item, the popular "Hat Shaped Hat" on Ravelry:

(I have like 40 patterns for super-bulky knit hats in my Favorites. Want to make so many. I love hats.)

Then in crochet, Ribbed Slipper Pocket Socks:

My second Spiral-Cabled Hat, modified:

And Weave-Through Scarflette:

I also finally took a proper picture of the extra-long Hufflepuff scarf I'd made a few months back:

And an updated photo of the Buttoned Up Newsboy Hat, to which I added stars on the sides:

HATS HATS HATS

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.