New Chickens!

Thursday we had a little sunshine although I don’t think it got to 50*. I managed to pull almost all the flowers, but that was it. Progress is going too slow with all the other things going on. I did change and wash the bedding for six beds. For some reason I thought that was important. No one noticed. :)

Friday morning Olivia and Lucas picked sunflowers for their teachers. These were a dwarf variety (need to find the seed packet) and I’ll plant these again.

I drove my 4-wheeler right up on the lawn to clean.

Clearing out the sunflowers was a lot more work than I anticipated. There were 69 plants to beat the dirt off the roots! Not a lot of sunshine this summer so only 15-20 blooms. The tallest was 8’4”.

The stalk was 1.5” in diameter, but look how shallow the roots are. I can’t believe they don’t blow over.

Lemon Queen.

Penny’s cooking rubbed off on me while I was in California. In fact, the other day she taught me over the phone how to properly fry chicken and how to make gravy. Last night it was fried pork chops and gravy. It feels good to fill up belly’s with comfort food. Homer said that when I “get over wanting to cook every night” he’s going to fly me back down for a visit. :)

Last night Homer and I went to pick up some chickens one of Debbi’s neighbors wanted to get rid of (he isn’t set up for winter farming). These girls were so healthy looking. There were five hens (Australorp, Buff Orphington, Rhode Island Red and two I’m not sure of) plus there was a little bantam that his hiding underneath the hens. While we were getting them there was an owl sitting on top of a tree watching our every move hooting away. We saw another owl on the way home and we’ve had an owl that has killed several chickens (they are all now safely locked in the coop). It seems we have lots of owls every fall. I wonder if they hunt elsewhere in the summer?

When the weatherman says it is going to be 28* over night then you should take him seriously and work harder. (Actually, I was until I remembered I had a meeting with the Girl Scout leader to get Olivia registered to be a Daisy….it’s always something around here!) Everything is frozen this morning. That mess of leaves is going to end up being in there all winter and make for a lot of work in the spring.

I still have to dig up the dahlia tubers. I was going to try moving them all to one bed and leave them for the winter. I’m curious to see if they will survive.

The forecast I saw said it’s supposed to get up to 45* today and 50* tomorrow. I hope so as I have a lot to do. Right now I’m going to make pancakes for the kiddos and give it a chance to thaw.

Homer pumped out the big pond while I was gone, but forgot the little one. Lucas was so excited to see it frozen this morning. Definitely got to get that taken care of today before the ice is too thick to chip.

I guess Saturday and Sunday will be full days of working in the yard. Maybe we can get it all done and then turn our focus on the house.