Today has been a very busy day. We widened the pop door a bit for the chicks as I'd made it too narrow. A Red Ranger/Dorking mix is determined to be broody and she's chosen an outside nest box. I tried moving her inside but she wouldn't have it so I stuffed 3 big girl eggs laid today under her and figured out how to keep her safe at night without moving her. I'm using a kiddie pool we had for the dogs as a new grass frame. I have the space for 3 small ones along the side of the shade garden so I'm going to plant them successively with grass throughout the year. Will have to make a cage to keep the chickens out until I'm ready to give them access. I bought a Rose of Sharon today and planted it and moved some groundcover to the bed with the hibiscus in it. That's probably wasted effort but we'll see. I trimmed the hibiscus, will have to try some plant food tomorrow and see if that helps, it's not looking great. We did maintenance on a couple of shade structures for the chickens, we're expecting 90* weather next week. I plan to put grass seed in the pool tomorrow and fertilize/mulch a few other things as well. Hop Tart is getting a new indoor pen, we're building it next weekend. It'll end up being 4'x8'x4' wrapped in hwc with wood around the bottom of the perimeter. I found food for her and a good deal on a bale of Timothy hay on Chewy so we can add her stuff to our dog food order as needed. She loves greens. I've given her carrot tops, Spring mix, wheat grass, and romaine lettuce, will try a few nasturtiums from the garden tomorrow and see if she likes those. She seems to be box trained, I put some dirty hay from her transport cage in the litter box and she's been using it and not going elsewhere. Frank is intensely interested in Hop Tart and I'm not sure of his intent, Layla wants to play and Abby wants to bark and chase. It has only been a few days so I'm hoping they'll settle down with time.
