Consolidated Kansas

[ChooksChick]

I met Trish today and picked up my absolutely lovely Lavender Orphington, and Swedish Flower chicks. I have to say I'm extremely happy with them. They are bright-eyed, active and doing well.

So glad you got what you wanted! I don't have but one Lavender hen anymore, and I think I would like a roo for her sometime...I'm such a sucker for matched sets!

Trish if you ever send anyone this way with birds and have a roo to lose, holler- I'll buy one from you...says the woman getting out of breeding....

My garden looks like a jungle in just a few days. Of course it isn't the stuff I planted ..its the darned weeds that are going nuts.

Mine too. We were able to check on it after the hail, which was the storm before this last one, I think. The beets were a little sorry-looking, but I think they'll be fine. My lettuce and arugula in the beds at home were pretty beaten down. I'm just cutting those and giving it to the chickens. I'll eat the next cutting, which will hopefully not have been beaten into the mud.

The asparagus appears to be nearing the end of its growing season. I've really been enjoying all the fresh-picked asparagus. We've had one small harvest of peas. We've finished harvesting the first planting of radishes, and have made second plantings of radishes, carrots, and beets. From the road, it looks like the beans may have tripled in size since the last rain. Rain is amazing.

I'm sure I have more peas that need to be picked, and I think I let the broccoli raab go too long. Unfortunately, I think it will still be too muddy to do any weeding tomorrow. I don't even want to think about how bad it will be when it's finally dry enough to do it.

I'll try to remember to get a picture of the broccoli raab. I would grow it again. If you've ever grown broccoli, you know how it grows those small side shoots after you cut the big thing in the middle. The broccoli raab is kind of like those, only smaller yet. It's just a tiny floret on a spindly stem, but each plant grows several of those, and they appear to keep growing them. I think most of the heads have flowered out, though, since it was too muddy to get in and cut. I did have several decent harvests from it, though. I left the smaller leaves on when I cooked it and they tasted fine. It's slightly more bitter than broccoli, but easier to grow, for me. I don't do well with regular broccoli.

Hope everyone has a good week!

Yes, I let a lot of old, spilled seed (from packets, over the years, in the bottom of my seed basket) get all over the place apparently, because I have lettuce, broccoli rabe, squash, melons and beans EVERYWHERE in my yard. All along the fence, along the path to my garden, anywhere with bare soil, there's a vegetable that I didn't intentionally plant.

Worse yet, there is nothing growing in my garden because I didn't water last year and all 30 asparagus crowns died, save one, and everything I did plant got munched prior to eruption by the dumb tree rats. I usually love squirrels, but they haven't let me garden for several years now. Jerks.

I do have sunflowers everywhere, too...caveat of throwing it to the chickens.

I'm hoping some of these volunteers actually produce for me. I can't tell what the vines and the beans are...had so many varieties and it's too soon to tell...I'm hoping for a melon, a pumpkin and a squash, maybe some zucchini. Would love it if my Dragon beans and Christmas beans were some of these volunteers! I'm an absolute sucker for Baker Creek seeds and had a bunch of unusual stuff.

We have gotten over an inch of rain since last evening, and it is still raining. Plus, it is considerably cooler today than it has been. Today's high is only 60*F, and it was 47*F when I went out to do chores at 7AM. Add wind on to that, and it feels like winter again! BRRR!!! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. We desperately need this moisture. The temperature difference is quite a shock to the system though. I've been debating the idea of turning the heater on today. Plus, my little one isn't feeling so well. He had a fever last night, so we've got an appointment to take him to the doctor today.

My poor birds are mad at me. I don't let them out to free range when it rains because they tend to wander away... "Ooh, look! A puddle! Ooh, look! Another puddle!"... and pretty soon they've wander away.

I'm sorry your peanut is ailing. Hopefully it will end quickly!!

Everyone is bumming right now, it seems! I was happy for decent health- got Botoxed in my scalp and I'm down to only 3 or 4 migraine days a month, vs. 15-20! Feeling pretty good...only now I have a mongo bullseye tick bite and a HUGE knob in the muscle in my left forearm from....get this...break into song everyone....cue the guitar...






Cat scratch fever!

Seriously. What the heck?? I didn't think it was even really a thing that happened anymore. Apparently my liver enzymes being through the roof and my fatigue now have a reason, and it's as though someone shoved an olive into the muscle halfway up my forearm on the underside of my left arm. Doc says it will take months to go away. Now I get to wipe out all of the good flora in my body with a couple of strong antibiotics. Goody!

Still, grateful for the bullseye and the botfly knob...I'd hate to be one of the unfortunate folks who get chronic Lyme.

 

[ChooksChick]

I just looked at the radar...now the Eurhythmics song is going through my head. I know we need the rain, even if I'm mostly done with it...

If there's anyone in the Hutch area with a spare Pekin drake, there's a gal on fb who lost hers and her ducks are lonely. I gave her the link to come on here, so she may post herself.

 

[chicken danz]

Mine too. We were able to check on it after the hail, which was the storm before this last one, I think. The beets were a little sorry-looking, but I think they'll be fine. My lettuce and arugula in the beds at home were pretty beaten down. I'm just cutting those and giving it to the chickens. I'll eat the next cutting, which will hopefully not have been beaten into the mud.

The asparagus appears to be nearing the end of its growing season. I've really been enjoying all the fresh-picked asparagus. We've had one small harvest of peas. We've finished harvesting the first planting of radishes, and have made second plantings of radishes, carrots, and beets. From the road, it looks like the beans may have tripled in size since the last rain. Rain is amazing.

I'm sure I have more peas that need to be picked, and I think I let the broccoli raab go too long. Unfortunately, I think it will still be too muddy to do any weeding tomorrow. I don't even want to think about how bad it will be when it's finally dry enough to do it.

I'll try to remember to get a picture of the broccoli raab. I would grow it again. If you've ever grown broccoli, you know how it grows those small side shoots after you cut the big thing in the middle. The broccoli raab is kind of like those, only smaller yet. It's just a tiny floret on a spindly stem, but each plant grows several of those, and they appear to keep growing them. I think most of the heads have flowered out, though, since it was too muddy to get in and cut. I did have several decent harvests from it, though. I left the smaller leaves on when I cooked it and they tasted fine. It's slightly more bitter than broccoli, but easier to grow, for me. I don't do well with regular broccoli.

Hope everyone has a good week!

It's raining like crazy here today. I guess my weed jungle will continue to grow. I sure hope the stuff I have planted doesn't' get rained out after years of drought.
originally Posted by Trish44n

I met Trish today and picked up my absolutely lovely Lavender Orphington, and Swedish Flower chicks. I have to say I'm extremely happy with them. They are bright-eyed, active and doing well.

It was nice meeting you today even though it was somewhat of a long drive for you, I'm glad you could make it & get the chicks. I'm not up for long drives right now being on this pain medication I'm on so I appreciated it that you drove here. It's kind of wiping me out & all I want to do is sleep all day.

I met another fellow Kansan today who frequents the swap sites & she got some other older chicks from me, so it was a good day to get a few chicks going to new homes at least.

Oh & thanks Danz for sending the chicks down this way to me. We have to do the chicken train when we can.
Yeah I need to organize a couple more to make some sales. I have someone coming for birds today but it looks like he'll be getting them in the rain. I hate to do business in the rain and I don't like inviting people in either.
Originally Posted by lizzyGSR
I think we are getting what you got. It's much cooler and it is still coming down.
I have so much to do out there today and I'm not going to get it done without getting drenched. I hate it when it rains like this because we can go for months in a drought condition and then we get rain all at once. Thanks to the clay it all runs off and we are stuck with still lousy conditions but the stats look better than they are.
I've got a bin of ducks and geese in the house I was wanting to get outside and can't. They are all hungry and thirsty but keep making these awful messes. Heaven help me.

 

[Trish44]

Geez Chooks, you can't catch a break! I hope it all gets better soon. I normally don't keep extra roosters, although I have a bunch right now that need to go after hatching some eggs for myself for my laying flock & have leftover roosters nobody wants. It's a shame for them to be eaten, but what can you do, you only need so many roosters. There are some nice SS & BCM roosters in there & I also have extra Lemon Cuckoo Orps & will have loads of really super nice Barnevelder roosters after I finally make my decision on my backup roo. The Barnies are from Trisha in CA if any of you have heard of her, she has really nice birds.

It rained here again last night & this morning, it's starting to be a bog here. I mean we needed the rain, but really all at once! We've been under a flood watch here & yesterday when I went to the fairgrounds they were moving campers out from the campgrounds down by the river. It does flood the fairgrounds completely it seems like about once a year or every other year at least. There has been nothing in the news yet about the road being closed or flooding as of yet anyway but if it keeps raining like this it will. Usually the Walnut river is a lazy, slow moving river but when it floods it becomes an angry torrent that grows to several times it's width & rushes through anything in it's path. We have bridges at the south end & the west end so it has been bad enough when it comes out of it's banks to flood on 3 sides of town, the north side goes over the road there. It kind of cuts off the town for a bit till the water goes back down. Hopefully it won't happen this year because it's a lot of work to get the fairgrounds cleaned up after that.

Well I cut my pain medication in half last night to see if I can function better & so far I'm doing better than yesterday. I can't function on no sleep but I don't want to be sleeping all day either. There has to be a balance in there somewhere.

 

[tatinatimom]

I've never had one lay that early. Seems like most of mine took about 6 months.

We love pictures, so feel free to share any you have!
Here are a couple of pics. We are introducing the 7 lil ones to the 6 bigger ones. Hopefully they will play nice soon!

 

[cherwill]

Yes, I let a lot of old, spilled seed (from packets, over the years, in the bottom of my seed basket) get all over the place apparently, because I have lettuce, broccoli rabe, squash, melons and beans EVERYWHERE in my yard. All along the fence, along the path to my garden, anywhere with bare soil, there's a vegetable that I didn't intentionally plant.

Really, I'm not laughing AT you, I'm laughing WITH you. You are laughing, right? I hope you get a decent crop from them!


Cat scratch fever!

I'm sorry you got that on top of everything else. My cousin's wife got it once and it did take a long time to completely get rid of it.

Well I cut my pain medication in half last night to see if I can function better & so far I'm doing better than yesterday. I can't function on no sleep but I don't want to be sleeping all day either. There has to be a balance in there somewhere.

I hope that does the trick for you. I've had to do that before, because a full muscle relaxer made me useless for at least 24 hours. A half didn't always take away all the pain, but it took away enough and left me awake enough to get a thing or two done.

Yep, it's been raining all day. So much for the peas.

 

[Oatbucket]

It's been raining here for hours (since about 3 am). It's only 61 degrees with wind gusts up to 31 mph. Way too chilly! There was no way the baby geese could go out today. They may have doubled (or more) in size already but they are still nothing but fuzz. So we spent some time in the shed reworking things. We enlarged the indoor goose pen to accommodate their growing size and gave the round pen to the chicks to they have a lot more room now too since there are now 27 chicks bunking together. Everyone is happy to have more room to exercise and in the case of the chicks room to flap their little wings as well.

 

[tatinatimom]

I have read you can train your chickens. Has anyone taught their chickens how to row a boat yet? If this rain doesn't let up soon it might become a much needed skill! It is still pouring here in Tongie!

 

[hannihooni]

We are getting so much rain too. Our chickens weren't clever enough to go into the coop for dry shelter-they just ran around in standing water-maybe they were having fun.... Had to physically place them in the coop. Luckily their run is covered, but my goodness-they just wouldn't go in.

 

[Trish44]

I have read you can train your chickens. Has anyone taught their chickens how to row a boat yet? If this rain didn't let up soon it might become a much needed skill! It is still pouring here in Tongie!