Wednesday, March 30, 2016

The end of March already?!

 I can't believe this month is gone already! Spring is here! Everything is lush, green, beautiful! Piggy says hello. They were wormed almost 2 weeks ago and should be ready to go in the freezer in 4 more weeks. I will miss them. They are such sweet fellas. It is hard to believe that their little snouts barely came up to the waterer when we got them. Not they are almost as tall as the hog panel.
 The ducks and laying chicks have been in the hoop tractor for over a week. They have been without the brooder light in there for a couple of nights and are doing great and growing like weeds. Especially the ducks! I think we may have 2 females? I don't know much about ducks. We may end up with 3 more that a friend of a friend "rescued" and have living in their bath tub. Apparently I am the go-to "farm" person. Eh... They can join the rest our our heathens.
 The blueberry bushes positively exploded with blooms! This was about a week ago. The bees have been working hard to pollinate all the little blooms so we can have tons of berries this year.
This was yesterday. Most of the blooms have fallen and left the little berry stubs. Grow little berries grow!
 The meat birds have been in the hoop tractor for a couple days. They are 3 weeks old today. I was worried because they hadn't feathered out completely but I read that they need to be on grass by 3 weeks or they will be lazy and not graze. Yeah, they are too lazy to graze anyway. They did make it through a 49 degree night with no brooder light. It wasn't supposed to get that cold! I lost 4 when they were about a week old for no apparent reason. They flipped on their back and died. I haven't lost any since though, so maybe the worst is over. These guys do nothing but eat and poop. It is amazing the amount of food they can pack away!
The tomatoes were repotted and put in the greenhouse a couple weeks ago. They are growing well! Already bigger than this and I just took this yesterday. Courtesy of our extra special "fish water". Liam got goldfish for his birthday last August. Because goldfish produce such massive amounts of ammonia the water has to be cleaned very often. I replace half of the water in the tank every week. Which is perfect! All of that liquid gold is used to water my plants. That is all they got until they were transplanted and now they get the fishy treatment once a week. It is noticeable when I use it because by the next day the plants are much bigger and healthier looking. Also started in the greenhouse are all types of squash (minus pumpkins which I still need to start), 2 types of cucumbers, gourds, peppers, watermelon, and cantaloupe. Typically I just plant them all in the ground, but the chickens are a pain in the butt and I'd rather get a head start.

Speaking of the chickens, I noticed when I cleaned the deep mulch out of the coop a few weeks ago that the floor of the small (oldest) part of the coop had started to rot through. "No problem" I thought. I can just take that off and build nesting boxes right on to the side of the big coop. Yesterday Keegan and I pulled the coops apart and started to work. Only to realize that the big section was starting to rot in places too. That's what happens when you build with untreated wood. I pushed them back together for the time being but a whole new coop needs to be built, and soon. I admit. I had a bit of a cry over it. That is a lot of work! Probably partially pregnancy hormones. Partially because I feel terrible and know I will feel worse soon and already had my plate full of stuff that needed to be done very soon. I am only 5 weeks along and am hoping for a healthy pregnancy. We lost a baby at 10 weeks back in November so I am still hesitant to get too excited. But I always. ALWAYS. Get very sick. And it has begun already. Que Serra Serra. The world will keep spinning no matter what. Happy Spring!

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