What did you do in the garden today?

[Elyrian1]

what breed of dogs do your neighbors have? mine would kill chickens instantly.

Blue heelers. They're cattle dogs, but with no cattle to herd they must be bored. Poor things. I think they were raised alongside the chickens.

 

[littledog]

We've had nothing but rain, rain, rain and more rain. To the point we're on a flood watch. Friday night the river overflowed its banks, covered the road downhill from us and covered the trail next to our field.

Morning it is very wet here .. Gully washers that do not stop one right after the other

Are you on flood watch too, Penny? They're giving warnings about most of the rivers in our area until Tuesday.

The police and city workers blocked off our road, and usually when we get to this point, we expect our field where the coop is located to flood, too.

So we put on our tall rubber boots, filled the horse trailer (parked at a higher elevation next to the house) with wood chips, and moved all the chickens into it. Poor things are not happy crammed together, but they have plenty of food and water, they can roost on the stall dividers, and I threw a couple of sunflower heads in there to keep them amused. Also left the dog crate in there opened, in case the mom and babies needed a place to escape to.

So, of course! the field didn't flood, it didn't rain as much today and the river is a few feet lower.
Before we take them back down, we'll top off the run with another layer of chips and remove the temporary divider we put up for quarantine/introduction, since they've obviously gotten to know each other, LOL.

Not much doing in the garden, except I did manage to clean out the old tomato plants and put them in the compost, also I finally processed all the giant zucchinis into fritter batter and found space for the 8 quarts in the freezer.

 

[Ascholten]

Spent most the day yesterday in the garage, am horribly sore this morning. Think ill chill till the pills kick in before I even try to do anything. Yesterday also helped the neighbor out, his yard was full of leaves, I have an electric mulching / riding mower, so took care of his leaves and hefted the bags right over the fence and into my compost totes and Ill also use it to top cover my garlic which I REALLY NEED to get planted !! That mower was stupid powerful, it ground the leaves to darned near powder. Awesome - O !! That makes it a quicker process to break them down. Got some totes of pretty much straight grass, and now a few of pretty much straight up leaves. Going to 50 / 50 them into other totes, smoosh down a bit, and cover with some old burlap sacks and let them compost over winter. Figure about Feb / March they should be perfect for the spring veggies after a good turning.

Aaron

 

[Sally PB]

Raking leaves used to be my least favorite yard job of all. Then I learned how great a thick leaf layer was at suppressing weeds in the garden. Now I don't mind raking much at all. I think of it as a 1-2 day effort at stopping the weeds in the garden. Compare that to the seemingly endless days of pulling weeds next summer, when there are so many other garden tasks to do.

The area where I dump them used to be the sandiest, and I rarely saw earthworms. Now that soil is MUCH better, and I often find worms.

 

[Ascholten]

My problem is keeping the chickens out of them,. I at first was hoping putting a layer of leaves up they'd not dig the crap out of the roots of the potted plants, nope they still hop in there, Seems its time to start beaning them with thrown objects again to get that message across to STOP DIGGING up my potted plants. Now if only I could aim worth a darned.... stupid birds....

Aaron

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Snow is blowing sideways in the strong winds here!
Tried to start a fire in the fireplace and the whole house filled with smoke. I had to extinguish the fire and clear smoke out of the house. Now the house is freezing.
Damn sparrows must have blocked the pipe, stupid rats with wings.

My husband had to climb on our slippery, very steep steel roof to pull part of the chimney pipe down so we could clean it out.
It took a couple hours!
3 buckets full of hay, weeds, chicken feathers, a freaking water bottle lid?!! The rats with wings jammed the whole pipe, and I mean - packed it tight!
The pipe itself was clean with no build up like usual. I don't like to burn wet unseasoned wood.

 

[Elyrian1]

My husband had to climb on our slippery, very steep steel roof to pull part of the chimney pipe down so we could clean it out.
It took a couple hours!
3 buckets full of hay, weeds, chicken feathers, a freaking water bottle lid?!! The rats with wings jammed the whole pipe, and I mean - packed it tight!
The pipe itself was clean with no build up like usual. I don't like to burn wet unseasoned wood.

Holy smokes! They were trying to smoke you out! That's a crazy amount of stuff to, well, stuff down a stovepipe. Glad it didn't catch on fire. Ya'll thought about installing a clip in roof anchor for future cleanings? DH used temporary ones when he was a handyman, along with a full harness so if something happened he wouldn't hit the ground. He loved those things, and I'm pretty sure they make permanent ones that are sealed.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Holy smokes! They were trying to smoke you out! That's a crazy amount of stuff to, well, stuff down a stovepipe. Glad it didn't catch on fire. Ya'll thought about installing a clip in roof anchor for future cleanings? DH used temporary ones when he was a handyman, along with a full harness so if something happened he wouldn't hit the ground. He loved those things, and I'm pretty sure they make permanent ones that are sealed.

That's a good idea.
We are hoping to get a different chimney cap that birds can't get through too.

 

[WthrLady]

My husband had to climb on our slippery, very steep steel roof to pull part of the chimney pipe down so we could clean it out.
It took a couple hours!
3 buckets full of hay, weeds, chicken feathers, a freaking water bottle lid?!! The rats with wings jammed the whole pipe, and I mean - packed it tight!
The pipe itself was clean with no build up like usual. I don't like to burn wet unseasoned wood.

Need a bird shield.

 

[NewBoots]

Pouring rain right now, I got the critter chores and Penny's walk done before it started. Got to make some candied pecans to go on top of the apple crumble we're taking to some friends dinner later. Lasagna! EEEeeeeeeeeee!

Penny jerked me off my feet a few days ago and I slammed into the front yard fence. I had stumbled and Penny saw a cat at the same time and hit the end of the lead and down I went. I didn't let the leash go, and I'm okay, was just a little sore for the last few days but I guess I'll have to cave in and get a spike type choke chain. I feel funny about that but she's strong as a bull and given she's 3 years old is well aware of her power. She was really good today, she stopped barking at people when I asked and one of the neighbors tossed her a biscuit which she happily ate (breakfast is after morning walk).