Monday, February 2, 2009

Around The House And Garden

Here is one of the "baby" chickens. Brownie hatched what was a little brood of six chicks back on October 1st. Now there's only five. Byron made one of the roosters into a "rooster stew" as he called it. I asked him to please just call it chicken stew!

The above hen cracks me up. She is such an ugly little chicken don't you think? Byron thinks she's cute. I think she looks like a bad science experiment! She's happy anyway.
I let them have run of the fenced in back yard, and just as Egghead said, they run back to their "tractor" as soon as the sun starts to set and Byron closes the door to keep out predators for the night.
So far we haven't lost a chicken to predators. Although we have seen a hawk and an opossum lurking around! I really adore seeing the hawks perched high up in the tree giving everything the eagle eye, so I'm not so sure I'd be that terribly upset to share a hen with them occasionally as long as they didn't make it a habit. If that happened, I'd just keep them in the enclosed coop.

Here is the second rooster from the "baby" chickens. I believe he is crossed with silver laced Wayandotte because of the long gray hair (his dad is a brown leghorn). He sorta reminds me a bit of myself with all that gray hair at such a young age!
My pak choy is going to seed. I plan to save seed from all of my heirloom veggies year to year.
This is Rosita romaine lettuce. Tonight there will be a salad to go along with the orange glazed roast duck.
Such a pretty little pea plant sprinkled with the heavy dew.
This is one of the two huge drumhead cabbages I have left. We still have six cabbages left in the garden. As long as it doesn't get to hot, I'll leave them and harvest them when I wish to use them.
This is a broccoli whose main head has been cut off. Broccoli will continue to make smaller bunches after the initial bunch has been removed.
Turnips, chives and daikon radish. I once roasted a mix of turnips and potatoes with a roast thinking to fool my kids into eating turnips. Well they weren't fooled. They picked all of the turnips out and left the potatoes. I found out they love roasted turnips.
Here are the little tomato seeds planted five days ago. Time to move them outside to get more sun!
Saturday Byron and I planted a forest. Well 23 trees anyway and 3 muscadine and 3 blackberries. I think the clover looks beautiful. Do you? It really bothers my Father-in-law and he gripes to Byron about his messy yard care! Me personally, I think it's much prettier than a manicured golf course looking lawn.


Trees Planted:


4 Bald Cyprus (Louisiana Native)
5 Overcup Oak (Louisiana Native)
5 River Birches (Louisiana Native)
4 Pineapple Pear
3 La Peche Peach
1 Santa Rosa Plum
1 Bruce Plum


Black Berry Varieties Planted:

Arapaho
Apache
Brazos


Muscadine Varieties Planted:

Cowart
Carlos
and one unknown

3 comments:

Tiffany said...

See now I think the hen is pretty. That "baby" you posted the first pic of though...now that is one ugly birdie. lol!

Kristi said...

Hi Tiffany! I did mean the first pic. My wording was a little funny, so I fixed it.

Egghead said...

That first hen is so hilarious. I love that they all develop their own personalities. About hawks. We have scads of hawks around and they have never got a chicken. What I have noticed is that when they fly a little to close for comfort the chickens run like no tomorrow in to the hen house. It is pretty amazing to watch...kind of a natural instinct. I do think that a hawk would have no problem getting chicks though. I love the stuff in your garden. It looks so lush right now. Great story about the turnips. Kids can always surprise you. Oh and the clover? I love clover and our yard is pretty much clovered over.