Feathered Family Planning

Spring will be here before we know it, so I'm using up some my vacation time today planning out my chick order on the MyPetChicken site. This will be the 3rd time we've ordered our chicks from them and we do for several reasons:

1. I haven't found a good source of sexed chicks locally and, since we can't have roosters in the city, I don't want to take the chance of ending up with all rooster and no hen.
2. They cater to hobbyists and will ship as few as 3 chicks at a time.  Other hatcheries want you to order 15 or more which is, well, just way more chickens than I need in my backyard.  We'd be eating omelets morning, noon and night!
3. We've never had a problem with any of the chicks and they have great customer service!

For those of you who are thinking about chickens but are tentative about picking up a peeping, cheeping package of chicks from the post office, let me reassure you:  it's the most fun ever!

This year, we'll have more heavy birds that are great egg layers.  Of course, we'll have 2 of our favorite, the Austrolorp.  They're consistent daily layers of a light brown egg and their docile, perky personality makes them a great bird to have in the backyard.  Kermit and Henrietta, my favorite hens who like to talk to me as they followed me around the yard, were both Austrolorps. 

I fell in love with the Golden Laced Wyandottes we had last year so we'll get another of those.  And then the rest of the gang is all new to us:  1 Lavender Orpington, 1 Buff Brahma, 1 Blue Copper Maran and a Double-Laced Barnevelder for a total of 7 colorful hens.  The Maran and Barnevelder lay darker, chocolate-colored eggs and I'm excited to have those for the first time.

April 3rd is the delivery date.  I see adorable chick pictures in our future.  Are you adding to your flock this year?  I'd love to hear what breeds you have - please leave a comment!

Starting Again

Hello!  I'm happy to be back here after a loooong hiatus from the blog.  It's been a crazy 18+ months of post-back surgery life-rebuilding and life-living.  The short version is that my back pain is gone although a nasty infection nearly killed me in February, everyone else is fine and we started work on another beautiful Victorian house restoration.

Our house, along with the project house and another one we completed a few years ago were both featured on the Historic Fall Homes Tour in October, which almost killed us.  It certainly killed our garden, since we were so busy trying to make the project house walkable and ready for the tour that we didn't have time to tend to the veggies.  So they ended up looking sad and forgotten among a sea of ever-encroaching rye grass and weeds. I suspect the super-wet Spring this year and then bone-dry summer had something to do with it also.

It's with a heavy heart that I mention that we lost our entire flock of chickens not long ago.  We suspect it was a possum given the small space that the fiend would have had to fit through to get to them in their enclosed kennel.  J. and I had never fully re-fortified the coop and pen when we moved it to make way for the solar panels, so it's entirely on our heads.  My beloved green-feathered Kermit, the oldest of the flock and J.'s self-declared nemesis, will never again follow him around the yard demanding mealworms.  She made it to the ripe old age of 4, which I suspect is old age for a chicken in  most cases, though.

R.I.P. Kermit. We will miss you giving us a stern talking-to every time we visited the coop.

And I just realized that there's a lot of references to death in this post, which makes this title so apropos.  It's the circle of life that ends and then begins anew and that's where we are now on the cusp of the new year.  2017 will bring a new flock, a renewed garden, a honey-do list dragged out from under the cobwebs and spit-cleaned, and a revitalized hope for what we can accomplish this year. 

Let's begin, shall we?

The Turn Into April

It always seems that I'm late changing the calendar.   Just 4 days into April and this hasn't been a good month already.  J. went to check on the chickens and found Cruella dead in the coop.  He said it looked like she had gone to sleep on the roost, died in her sleep and then fallen off.

 

It happens I guess.  But not that long ago, she was happily scratching away in the sunny yard and newly turned garden. 

While Cruella may have been, well, a mean chicken at best, I do miss her now that she is gone. 

 

Here she is with her pinless peepers on.  It was the only way to keep her from pulling everyone else's feathers out and she did NOT like it!

 

Still, she was a gloriously beautiful chicken.  And not at all afraid of telling you what she thought about you.

 

As leader of the flock, she was always first in line for the treats.  Her favorites were mealworms and watermelon.

 

 

We got out Cruella and our other 3 barred rocks when they were about a week old back in late April of 2011.  Even as a baby, Cruella did her own thing.  She wasn't one to cower in the corner like everyone else. 

 

Cruella, on the left, already showing her independent streak.

She was the last of our Barred Rocks and will probably always be the last.  While they are great layers, they aren't the friendliest breed.  The Black Austrolorps (of which we still have 2 of our original 5) are also consistent, daily layers but are much friendlier.  In fact, they like to follow you around and talk to you.  We have some new chicks coming in a week or so and I decided to try some new breeds.  But you'll have to wait to find out what they are!

 

Signs That Spring is Coming

My, how times gets away from you.  I meant to post these pictures on Monday and here it is Thursday already! But I do have a wonderful excuse - I received a promotion at work and I've been a busy bee organizing all  my new responsibilities.

 

We're in the middle of a streak of 60 and 70-degree days right now, so it certainly is starting to feel like Spring.  That and Daylight Savings Time that started on Sunday.  Over the weekend, J. and I took advantage of the nice weather to get out of the house.  And so did the chickens.

Cruella demanding to know what we are doing in her yard.

They were fascinated with the work we were trying to do in getting our equipment ready for work.  The old Cherokee had thrown a shoe right before it got super cold and it had been sitting and waiting for a nice day when we could work on it.  It's 17 years old so things are gonna break, I guess.

With the chickens getting in our way help, J. issued a diagnosis of a bad power steering pump. 

Now, I'm not mechanic but I do know that those ball bearings are supposed to be nicely packed and evenly distributed so I'd say that's the problem.  The parts are less than a $100 and I was able to use a coupon to get them for 40% off so it didn't hurt as much as it could have. What did hurt, though, is that you have to use a special tool to put the plastic pulley back on the pump or it will crack.  As luck would have it, the tool was checked out at our local Auto Zone so we'll have to try again this weekend.

 

In other news, J.'s mother had her second knee replacement so we went to see her several nights ago.  She's doing well and will be up and running in no time. I'm STILL dealing with these back issues that are keeping me on the sofa.  After a round of 2 more steroid injections in my back last Friday, I've been in more pain now than before I got them but it's starting to come down.  The orthopedic doc wants to do 2 more this Friday in an effort to get all the inflammation out.  Cross your fingers for me.  I've gotta kick this thing so I can get our garden planted and start work on the $1400 house!

And Then There Were Three

 

Our chicken snacker has struck again and two more chickens are missing.  This time, I found a small hole dug under the boards and a pair of chicken feet in the chicken run.  Just the feet!

 

And some telltale evidence on the step to the coop leading to where the fiend enjoyed his dinner. 

 

This means war.

 

A Fiend In Our Midst

I went out on the daily "check on the chickens" run this morning, only to find the signs of a massacre.  My first clue was an overabundance of flies near the door and the fact that no chickens were in the chicken run.  A peek under the coop revealed a very dead, disemboweled chicken.

 

I'll spare you the gory pictures. 

 

A quick count of the chickens revealed that a second chicken is missing and presumed killed in action.  We are now down to 5 left from our original 9. 

 

Having seen a possum the other night in my headlights when we got home, I have a sneaking suspicion that he's the fiend that perpetrated this. 

 

I can't tell you how angry, frustrated, disappointed, mad, ticked, upset...you get the idea...I was when I found this.  I've been wondering why there have been so many feathers and why they had stopped laying, thinking they are finally slowing down since they are close to 4 years old.  Seriously, it looks like a chicken exploded in the coop but, big idiot that I am, I thought they were just molting again.  If someone or something was terrorizing me at night, I guess I wouldn't feel like doing my job either!

 

My back is still screwed up to the point that I can't bend over without pain, so J. put some boards up to block anything from coming under the coop and into the chicken yard.  Let's cross our fingers that this works until we can rig up something more permanent.

R.I.P

No pictures for today's post - I'll spare you the gory evidence that goes along with the very sad news I'm about to relate.  I went out tonight to check on the chickens and found my beloved Henrietta's pen full of feathers but no Henrietta.  I called to her optimistically thinking she might be hiding under the RV or tractor, but she didn't return my call with her usual soft clucks.  No answer was a good sign that I had no reason for optimism.

 

I eventually found her behind her coop and lifeless.  It appears that either a possum or,  more likely, a raccoon, pulled her through the fence and tore out her neck.   For those of you that have never kept chickens: they're silly creatures and, when faced with a threat, they will head for the corners of their enclosure.  In Henrietta's case, if she had just gone into her coop, she would have been safe.  But she made the fatal decision to "hide" behind her coop and between it and the fence, where the raccoon reached in and grabbed her.

 

I feel responsible for her death and feel terrible.  Before we moved the chicken coops for the solar project, we had plastic hardware cloth all the way around her pen and it had kept her safe for several years.  After the move, we had a lot of work to do, so we didn't replace it although it was on the to-do list.  If I had only just done it.....

 

Poor Henrietta had endured a lot during her short 3 and a half years.  I think she laid maybe 10 eggs over the course of her life, yet we nursed her and even had her living in the basement for a short time after she was bullied by the other chickens.  'Etta, as we lovingly called her, had clucked her way into our hearts by having such a big personality.  I am going to miss her following me around the yard, wanting to jump up on my knee, and the way she always clucked back to us when we talked to her.  I know she was just a chicken, but I swear she knew her name.

 

Rest in Peace, 'Etta.

Dealing with Death On the Farm

Now that I look at this picture, it almost looks like her neck is broken?

I always knew it was going to happen some day, even if I knew it wasn't going to be by my own hand.  But my gorgeous hens are only 3 years old, so I didn't expect it this soon.

 

When I went out to check on the chickens this morning, I noticed that only 3 of the Barred Rocks were out in the pen to greet me.  That's not something that would be alarming, as it's pretty common for one of them to be in the nesting box.

 

So I opened the door to grab the eggs and fill their feeder and that's when I saw her.  She was laying on the floor of the coop with her feet under her as if she had just laid down there to go to sleep.  Her eyes were closed and she looked so peaceful.  My initial reaction was that I needed to be quiet and not wake her, but I knew that wasn't the reality.  She was gone and it had happened sometime overnight.

 

There was no sign of trauma and she hadn't been acting ill.  In fact, she was fine yesterday.  But those of you who keep chickens know that they almost never show signs of being sick or having problems.  I know there are some people that do autopsies on their chickens to try to figure out what caused their death, but I've decided I'm not going to do that.  For one, I don't have the stomach for it.  And I'm not sure it would make a difference anyway.  Just in case, I checked over the rest of the flock to make sure they were OK and didn't find anything wrong.  I guess it was just her time?

 

Yes, she's just a chicken, but I raised her from a 3-day-old chick.  She's been a pet ever since and has provided us with delicious eggs, so she deserves a special burial.  She's now in her final resting spot next to our beloved dogs that have left us.

 

 

Another Busy Weekend

Our to-do list got a little shorter this weekend.    It started off with a trip to the metal recyclers on Saturday  morning to get rid of all the metal that we found while we were cleaning out the garage and basement.  

Then, after picking up 18 bags of mulch that were on sale from Home Depot,  J. and I headed back out to the farm to do some more work on the trees.  With a really good rain earlier in the week, there was no need to haul water out to them, but we did need to add some more dirt to where they'd settled into the holes, rake out the leftover dirt, and then add mulch to keep the water around the trees.  It's supposed to rain next week also and, if it keeps up the rain steadily like that, we won't have to go up there until mowing time.

Let's see...what else did we do?  Today we rented a tiller and got the garden bed ready to go.  Since we're planting in the nice dirt from our old raised garden beds, it really didn't need alot of tilling and we just went over it with a little Mantis.  Took about 20 minutes, I'd say. I was able to get those crazy potatoes in the ground finally.  The local birds were happy:  the chickens were busy doing additional tilling for me in the garden while the robins fought over the newly-unearthed worms and the sparrow family took a dust bath in the driveway.  It seems everyone was busy today.

I've had zero time to get any plants started, so we'll be planting from seed this year.  Or, in the case of the tomato plants, buying them.  Home Depot had Cherokee Purples and Early Girls for $2.00 a plant this weekend.  It's still a little cool (43 degrees tonight!) so I'll be hardening them off and then wait to put them in the ground maybe a week from now after it warms up a little bit more.

What were you up to this weekend?

A Welcome Warm-up

Yesterday, it was 64 degrees.

 

That's certainly MUCH more hospitable climate than what we had almost two weeks ago as the Polar Vortex whirled overhead.

 

So I put on a sweatshirt, grabbed the copy of "Lone Survivor" that I had bought J. for Christmas and headed outside to supervise recess for the girls. 

 

Like me, they were happy to get out after being cooped up (literally!) for 5 days and spent several hours destroying the compost pile and digging around in the freshly dug garden.

 

Apparently someone was having so much fun that they couldn't be bothered to go back to the coop to lay, so they left their egg sitting in the middle of the muddy garden plot.  My shoes must have weighed an extra 5 pounds each after I went out to retrieve it.

 

It was a nice reprieve from our normal January cold.  A beautiful day that, like a rare bird in your camera lens, you have to capture before it is gone in the blink of your eye. 

 

And now we're back in the 40's.  Still, that's better than -5!

 

After putting the chickens in the coop for bed time, I finished the last few pages and then headed inside.  If you haven't seen the "Lone Survivor" movie, I recommend that you do.  It opened nationwide to over twice what they thought it was going to, and I'd like to think that's because we Americans still support and respect our military. We tried unsuccessfully to get in twice and finally got to watch it during the first showing on Sunday morning.

 

I found it a hard movie to watch, and I was glad that I read the book before I saw it, as I could hear Marcus Lutrell's own words in my mind as I watched.  Of course, the movie does take some liberties with what really happened, but that's to be expected.

 

Well, trees are budding and the snow is almost gone.  Seed catalogs are arriving daily.  Can you smell Spring in the air?  What do we have?  7 more weeks?

 

 

When Life Gives You Apples..

J. and I just hit paydirt. Nope, not the lottery kind (although, wouldn't that be nice?) While picking up some groceries at the local Hyvee, I found some seriously awesome coupons for $2.00 off any apple purchase and $2.00 off any meat purchase. Not only were we able to pick up 10 pounds of ground beef for just $49 cents per pound, but we also came home with box full of 30 pounds of apples FOR FREE. Awesome!

So now what to do with them?   I can't decide either, so how about we start with baked apples and apple chips?

 

Baked Apples

 

These are so yummy and easy to make and, boy, do they make your house smell great while they're baking.  All you need is a baking dish, some apples and some butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.  You can even get creative and top them with some raisins or pecans also. 

 

Ingredients:

 

4 large good baking apples, such as Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, or Jonagold

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 Tbsp butter

3/4 cup boiling water

Directions:

 

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Wash the apples and remove their cores, leaving about 1/2 inch of the bottom of the apples. It helps if you have an apple corer, but if not, you can use a paring knife to cut out first the stem area, and then the core. Use a spoon to dig out the seeds. Make the holes about 3/4-inch to an inch wide.
3. Place the apples in a baking dish.
4. Melt the butter in a pan (or in the microwave).  I like to do this in a microwavable measuring cup because it's easier to pour the mixture into the apples.
5. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon and stir until mixed.  Pour the  mixture into the apples until they are just about to brim over.
6. Add boiling water to the baking pan.
7. Bake 30-40 minutes, until tender, but not mushy. Remove from the oven and baste the apples several times with the pan juices.
8. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream on the side.

 

Trust me, these are yummy!   But we've still got 29 pounds of apples left and I want to make another favorite snack:  apple chips. 

 

 

 

Apple Chips

 

J. and I fell in love with apple chips after trying a bag of them at the local theater.  I rushed home after the movie to find out how to make this healthier alternative to potato chips and was pleasantly surprised to find that it's pretty darn easy.  That is, if you have the right tool:  a mandolin slicer.

 

Ingredients:

 

2 medium sized apples

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp sugar

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 225°F.
2. Stir together the cinnamon and sugar to combine. Or just use pre-mixed cinnamon-sugar.
3. Decide whether or not to core your apples.  Just in case you don't know:  apple seeds are poisonous, but you'd have to eat a ton of them before they ever effected you.  Not coring them will give you a star shape in the middle of your chips, so they'll be prettier than if you core them.  J. doesn't like the core, so we cored all of ours.
4. Slice the apples thinly with a mandolin slicer or a  very sharp knife.  Trust me, you want to use a mandolin slicer because it only takes about 20 seconds to slice the whole apple with one.  You'll be there are all day if you try to use a knife.  I know...I tried it and then ran out to get a mandolin.





5. Line two sheet pans with parchment paper, and place the apple slices side by side on the parchment, in a single layer. Make sure not to overlap the apple slices or place them on top of each other, otherwise they won't crisp up.


6. Sprinkle the apple slices with the cinnamon sugar. 
7. Bake the apple slices for 1 hour, then remove them from the oven and flip them over. The apples will be floppy, but they will crisp up later.



Return the apple slices to the oven for another hour
Turn the oven off, letting the apple chips cool completely in the oven. This is when they will crisp up. Store in an airtight container.

 

Did I mention that these are fat free? And, if you don't want all that sugar, opt for a sweeter apple like HoneyCrisp or Gala and just dust with a little cinnamon.  I suspect you're going to end up addicted like we are, because these are just plain yummy.  And, again, baking apples or apple chips will make your house smell delish.

 

By the way, these are great to make when you're done baking something else and the oven is already heated up.  Just turn the heat down to 225, slice some apples up and go!

 

If you try either of these, let me know how they turn out.  We have Jonagolds, which are a combination between a Jonathan and Golden Delicious.  They're sweet, but not as sweet as Honeycrisps are but they held up well to the baking.  If you use other varieties, I'd love to hear how they turn out if you don't mind leaving a comment.

 

Hope you enjoy these two recipes!

 

 

Dangerous Cold: Don't Forget Your Animals!

 

It's 7 degrees outside right now. Brrrr! Put a negative sign in front of that and that's where our temp is supposed to be when morning breaks. With the wind howling outside (I can hear my wind chimes singing on the deck), the wind chills are going to be around -30 to -40 when we head off to work.

Folks, that's dangerously cold and in a territory that hasn't been seen around these here parts since I was born over 40 years ago. Temps like that can freeze exposed skin in a matter of minutes, so be careful to get all bundled up if you have to go outside.   (By the way....check out what the Almanac says over there on the right sidebar.  "Warmest on the 6th", my *^&$%##%%$!)

Okay, I know you guys know this but it's probably worth saying again.  Remember.....if the cold is dangerous for you, it's dangerous for your animals also. Please bring your pets inside if at all possible. If you can't, make sure they have a warm place to get to and keep an eye on them for any signs on hypothermia (shivering is a good sign). Obviously, you probably aren't going to bring your chickens in to hang out in the family room with you (although my friend Paula used to!). But I thought I would trot out some tips from one of my original posts from back in 2012 on how you can keep your feathered friends warm and toasty when cold weather hits.

 

Chickens basically have nice feathered coats, so they're relatively cold hardy.  We prepared for the cold by shutting them in the coop, putting the brooder lamp up over the roost and adding a ceramic heater.  As a result, the current temp is running 20+ degrees higher than the outside temp.  Also, the hens put off quite a bit of their own heat as well so they'll keep each other warm while they're roosting. 


But, other than putting up heaters or brooder lamps, here are some other things you can do to keep your hens toasty:

1. Keep their water from freezing.  Either use a heated dog bowl or the farm\critter supply stores sell heater bases that go under the galvanized chicken waterers.  If you have neither of these, make sure you check their water regularly and break up any ice that may have formed.
2. Use a wooden roost for them to sleep on.  Galvanized metal is way too cold for their feet. Also, make sure there is room for at least 6 inches between each hen.  When it's cold, they will fluff out their feathers as added insulation and they'll need room to do so.
3. Fight frostbite.  Combs and feet aren't protected by all those feathers and are susceptible to the cold - especially if you have large breed chickens with large wattles or combs.  One way to prevent frostbite is to cover them with Vaseline, petroleum jelly or even olive oil.  Do this after they've gone to bed for the night and it will be much easier.  Trust me. 
4. Give them a treat.  While not a replacement for daily food, feeding scratch, sunflower seeds, and cracked corn as a treat will actually help to raise a hen's body temperature. Just a couple of handfuls every evening is what I normally feed.  And I've been known to give them some yummy warm oatmeal as well.
5. Use the deep litter method.  Rather than cleaning the coop every month, just deep clean the coop in the spring and layer on a fresh layer of bedding every month.  As it packs down, it will provide insulation to the coop and the hens enjoy scratching it up if you throw some corn or sunflower seeds in there.  I initially thought this would  smell to high heaven but, believe it or not, it doesn't!
6. Shovel a path.   If it snows, clear a path in the run or the yard for them so they don't have to bust through snow and get wet. If you're a chicken herder like me, you know that chickens hate getting wet. 
7. Collect eggs regularly.  This doesn't really help the chickens, but it will prevent your eggs from freezing.

I hope you found these tips to be useful.  If you've got any other tips about keeping our beloved chooks warm (other than plopping them in front of the fireplace), I'd love to hear them.  Leave me a comment!

A Nasty Winter So Far

Heavens!  Well, we haven't gotten all that ice and nastiness here, but we did get a dusting of snow a couple of days ago.   This is day 3 of me having the stomach flu (yeaaa...) and, with the temps dipping down to the low teens for over a week, I had to run out and check today to make sure Henrietta was doing OK out there all by herself.  The cold air hit me like a chair in the face.  Wow, is it cold!

J. set her up with a new "furnace" in her coop and we had wrapped most of the chain link with tarps, so she seems to be nice and toasty so far despite the weather.  Now if we could just get her to actually go in the coop by herself rather than roosting on top of it!  Poor J. has been reduced to duck-walking under the roof of the pen, grabbing her, and stuffing her, amid much protest and squawking, into the coop.  She must agree that it's nice in there, because she doesn't come out until morning.

As if having a patient to take care of wasn't enough, J. also has had to deal with the fact that our on-demand hot water heater blew its control board and it's not under warranty.  So we've been without hot water upstairs since yesterday.  I couldn't stand it any more and washed my hair in the kitchen sink downstairs.  That's something I haven't done in a loooonnnngggg time.  The new board should be here tomorrow and, hopefully, I will be back at work and come home to a nice hot shower.  *sigh*

Also, hopefully, I'll feel much better tomorrow and can get back on track with posting because I've got a ton to share about what we've been up to.  In the meantime, I did come across a funny photo on ICanHazCheezburger that I thought I would share.  I couldn't help but giggle when I saw this.

 What do you think?  Photoshop or not?

Way Over the Top

Hi, all-

My apologies for having been offline for the last 2 weeks, but I've got some crazy stories to catch everyone up on.  Alas, I won't have time until this weekend when things finally quiet down a bit.  In the meantime, I just HAVE to post something that J. found on the Neiman-Marcus website.  We went a little over the top in building our chicken coop, but this so-called Beau Coop is WAYYYYY over the top. Don'tcha think?

Photo by Neiman Marcus

 
I wonder how many people will be whipping out the credit card for this baby at $100,000?

Now, granted, it includes a consultation, grounds survey and two additional onsite visits from an "expert".  And it does have a chandelier (every well-heeled chook should have one of those, right?)  But I'm pretty sure my hens are quite happy and my raised garden beds have done quite well for well under that budget. Her coop doesn't even have a trellis over the door or a fancy mural on the wall like ours!

Tell you what....if you're reading this and you've got the money to burn on this thing, give me a ring.  I'm willing to help build you a similar chicken palace and FOUR raised beds for the paltry sum of $75.000.  It's a bargain!

Saturday Stills

Hi, I'm back! 
After a week of hiding because of the blistering heat, I've found that I'm still alive and desperately needing to put a post on here. 

It's very rare that you don't end up cooking in your own juices within 5 minutes of setting foot outside here at the end of the July.  But we are being blessed this weekend with 79 degree weather and a beautiful sunny day.  We spent a fun time this evening talking with the neighbors and I ventured out to pull some weeds and check on the garden. 

I guess the world does go on without my constant attention, because here's what I found:

This just in!  Chickens still like the bug buffet in our yard....

Looking good, ladies.  Looking good!

The Roma tomato plants have definitely been busy.  I see some sauce making in our future!

And here's one of the peppers to go with it.  

Please ignore the weeds - they were exiled soon after I took these pics.

The much-awaited Honeycrisp apple trees are literally bending under the weight of the apples now.  J. and I may have to rig up something to help them bear the weight.  I can't wait to sink my teeth into one of these!

And the blackberries are starting to ripen...

We've been getting one or two here and there, but not enough for a big bowl of ice cream or pie.  They're coming though! That is,  if we can keep the birds out of them.  I've been convinced that the darn neighborhood birds have been eating them before we can pick the ripe ones and I now have proof.  While were sitting on the patio with the neighbors, we heard an uproar from the blackberry bush where a blackbird was trying to make off with one of our berries.  It may be air rifle time.  :-)

Finally, I discovered that we're not the only ones engaged in some renovation activity. It looks like a spider has been busy building a funnel trap underneath one of my Roma tomato plants.

 
I waited to see if the creepy little homeowner would show his face, but to no avail.  He must be shy.  Or maybe he's out at Home Depot getting some more building supplies.  Seems like it always takes us about 184 trips to that place for whatever project we're working on.

Hope everyone is doing well!  I'm off to make the bloggie rounds now to see what you guys are up to.

Urban Farm Tour: Take 1

Ugh!  This week has just been a nightmare for me at work, so it's nice to finally sit down for a breather.  It definitely feels like the world has passed me by.  I've been having fun catching up on what everyone else has been up to, and I'm so glad to FINALLY be able to find time to post the pics from last weekend's Urban Farm Tour for you.

We had a ton of fun, despite it being REALLY hot in the afternoon.  J. and I, his sis-in-law and two of her kids all piled into my Jeep and off we went.  I have so much cool stuff to show you, so let's go!

We started not far from our neighborhood at....

St. John Community Gardens (3916 St. John Ave., Kansas City, MO 64123)

What a fun place this was!  They have more than garden beds for rent for $30 per season, a HUGE water catchment system consisting of 8 barrels, a firepit and 3 rain gardens.  But the best part was all the art made from repurposed materials.

How about a reproduction of Grant Wood's American Gothic? 

Look behind the scarecrows in the picture and you'll see 3 repurposed ladders as a trellis with some art hanging between them.  The yard was full of these whimsical little items.  How about a totem pole made from painted plastic flower pots?  I love this idea!

The pond was beautiful and, according to my dear neighbor over at TheDeadlyNightShade, they have recently dug this out some more so that it's over 4 feet deep at one point.  See the fish?

My nephew's favorite part (and mine also!) were these adorable reindeer made out of all kinds of discarded junk.  The red Christmas light for Rudolph's nose cracked me up.  And the rake for his antlers!

And, finally, here's one of the beds that they rent to members of the community.  Each one had a piece of an old bed at the end.  Get it?  Bed?  Hahahahaha....  Again, a very creative way to reuse.

Just down the road was out next stop...

Jubilee Garden (130 N. Topping Ave., Kansas City, MO 64123)

We spent quite a bit of time here talking with one of the gardeners.  Started in 2010 on a once-vacant lot, the aim of this garden is to show how families with low income, people of all ages, and individuals with developmental disabilities can grow food for themselves.

We were greeted by this lovely archway, which you walk through to get to the garden.  This metalwork is really lovely, and the gardener told us that they plan on growing vines over it and also hanging gourds from it.  I can't wait to check back in with them in 2 years to see how much progress they've made.

Each of the 22 beds is laid out around this central bed, which is in the shape of a cross.  I really like this bed within a bed idea and immediately thought "wouldn't that be great for strawberries!"

The other beds have all kinds of shapes and my nephew remarked that he thought they looked like Tetris pieces.  He's right!

Our community is very diverse, with folks from all over the world, and near this garden is a large concentration of people from South American countries.  During the tour, they were all out tending to their garden beds. In the back of the property in the pic below, you can see their garden shed on the right hand side.  It looks like a little playhouse, doesn't it?  On the right is their education space where they've repurposed stumps and pieces of fallen logs from the lot to be used as tables and seats.  They hold free classes there on topics on gardening, nutrition, etc.

There were some really good looking veggies at this garden.  I mean, just look at this cabbage!

The Jubilee Garden is supported by the Mattie Rhodes Center, which I originally thought only did work related to women's shelters, battered women, etc.  Oh  no!  They do so much more, including programs for young people, family counseling, drug counseling, and even free community fitness classes.

At this point in our tour, the heat is starting to get us so we stopped by Sonic for some refreshing beverages before we headed on to our next stop.  Gotta have my tea or I might die, you know.  Anybody else have that problem?

Cherith Brook Catholic Worker (3308 E. 12th St., Kansas City, MO 64127)

I've watched this organization take a dilapidated old Victorian and turn the house and the yard into something absolutely beautiful.   You're greeted by a front yard full of fruit trees and edible vegetation. In the winter, these are covered by hoops, which allows them to grow almost all year.

They also own the building on the left side of the picture, which has been turned into a "green" building and, while it was open for tour, we didn't go in.  Look closely and you'll see the solar panels on the roof, which they claim are providing 65% of the power for both buildings. 

I'd love to put some of these on our garage because our garage is on a separate meter.  We could probably "make" some money from the power company by feeding some energy back into the grid this way.  Hey, if it offset just some of our energy costs, that would be awesome. 

We couldn't get a good picture of the backyard here, because of the various fences and structures, but it's full of veggies and fruit trees as well.  What they grow goes to feed the local homeless folks, including eggs from the chickens and honey from their bee hives.

Speaking of chickens, we were interested in the chicken pettin', but couldn't find anyone to let us in.  They were busy building frames for their bee hives.  Not a big loss, as we can pet chickens at our house any time except....

You can't pet this guy at my house!

Holy mackerel!  Look at the size of that rooster.  I bet he weighs north of 15 pounds.  We're not allowed to have roosters in the city because of their crowing, so I wonder how they get away with having him?  He never crowed while we were there.  I know that crowing decreases as the bird gets older.  Was he just old or did they cut his larynx to stop him from crowing?  That seems too cruel for me.

Well, that's a lot of pics for one post, so I think I'll stop here and do Part 2 tomorrow.  I hope you've enjoyed coming along on the tour with us so far and we'll see you soon!