Chicken Bath

It's been an unusually mild winter here, the say. El Nino has seen to that. And yet, the months of snow and cold have stretched out as slowly as they can. I'm just impatient, that's all. 

In the Fall we prepared a place in the shed (make that, set up a huge cage that takes all the space in our shed) for the Hens. I didn't want them to have to endure the ferocity of winter in their Little Yellow Hen House and I knew that the amount of snowfall would make it difficult / impossible to access them. So, into the shed they went. We made it as comfortable as we could. Straw bales, roosts, heated waterer, nesting spaces. We got mats for the floor so their little toes wouldn't freeze on the cold concrete and put a heater in there to raise the temperature just a little, - oh, and a thermometer to check the temperature in there several times a day. (We're just a teeny bit doting).

Well, it worked! The chickens have survived! They've thrived! On the less cold days, we open the shed door to let in sunlight and fresh air. Two of them, Dolly and Henrietta moulted in the Fall, and stopped laying. They took a well-deserved break and in January as daylight increased they started laying again. Good little Hens! We love our fresh eggs every day! And one thing we know they love is their bath! A wheelbarrow containing sand, ash and diatomaceous earth serves as their favourite entertainment and essential grooming station. The dust flies as three contented Hens enjoy splashing about. It's funny, when one Hen goes in, they all pile in together. I just sit there, on the garden chair, and smile at them. 

Things are becoming Seedy round here...

A few weeks ago we ordered a huge batch of seeds from Veseys Seeds. I couldn't possibly tell you how much we spent... Well, a minuscule box arrived today and I did raise an eyebrow or two wondering if only a couple of packets arrived. To our great delight the package contained 36 packets of seeds. All that potential is frightening and terribly exciting. Our whole summer garden arrived in that small box.  Only slightly daunted by the prospect of the work that lies ahead to make those little seeds do their thing, we poured over the little envelopes.

36 packets of Seeds

We have grand ideas this year. Each year they seem to get grander and each year we complain when we have to get out there in the hot humidity of summer to weed or dig. But when one is almost at the back-end of a 5-month winter all one can imagine is endless green and glorious colour from flowers! We plan to keep Bees this year (more about that later) and in order to keep them well supplied with pollen and nectar we are designing and planting a Bee Garden. This will be a large new patch we will till and plant from scratch. We have all sorts of flower seeds that we understand Bees will love. We have things like Butterfly Flowers, Rudbeckia, Asters, Cosmos, Dill and Borage. I want to make a Sunflower teepee, - Pinterest is an endless source of creative ideas and a magnificent time-waster!

Hopefully the Bees will visit the veg patch as well as we have several new varieties to try this year. I persuaded Peggy to buy something new in place of her beloved, tried-and-true Roma tomatoes. So we're hoping that Plum Regal and Mountain Merit will do the trick. Another new thing is Rainbow Swiss Chard. We plan to use our many straw bales (used to help over-winter our chickens) in a bale garden experiment (also thanks to Pinterest). We hope to plant strawberries and melons in the straw bales. We've decided to give up on planting cucumbers, - we've never really been successful. Also, tomatillos are not worth the wait.

The next few weeks will see us very busy in the Growing Room. We'll be preparing the towers of shelves, rigging up dozens of lights, filling hundreds of seed pots and planting trays and watering and examining daily for the first tiny green shoots that promise to be magnificent specimens. But tonight we're revering the small seed packets, shaking them to make sure there's something inside, looking at the picture on the front and imagining those flowers or veggies on our garden this year. We can dream. It's -4C out there tonight but the snow is beginning its humongous melt and we are glad!