Friday, April 8, 2011

April 8, 2011

Man am I exhausted!  Yesterday was an entire day of trying to replace a broken kitchen faucet (and to add to Murphy's Law, today the bathroom faucet broke).  My arms and back were sore from that one, hours under the sink.  After these projects are done, I should have enough hours under my belt to be a journeyman plumber... just kidding, I'm useless.

Today was beautiful weather, the first day without rain in 47 days, so I'm told, so I took the fleeting opportunity to mow the lawn.  Just to be nice I mowed the front first, and as a result, I'm hoping it won't rain tomorrow so I can mow the back for the kids.  Ah, to have chickens to do this for me.  You see, on top of being sore and tired, I'm highly allergic to grass, especially the fresh cut kind, ROFL.  But the compost likes me.

First I grabbed the very full kitchen compost bucket, and the much lighter chicken brooder compost bucket, and mixed them with some grass the kids "cut" with their scissors the other day.  I added them to last fall's leaves in the empty compost bin, which will be this year's hot compost area.
I must have been very tired because I didn't even snap any shots of the HUGE pile of grass clippings and various brown materials dumped on top of this.  I must have a 2 feet tall 5x5 pile now. Unfortunately I was too tired to de-winterize the backyard hose bib and hook up the hose, so I didn't add any water to it like normal.  Here's hoping it will still heat up from the moisture in the kitchen compost and the grass.  If it does, I expect it will be cut down to 6 inches in less than a week.

Update: I snapped a shot today and didn't want to clutter a post with it, so here's the loaded compost bin with 2 feet of grass clippings about 5x5.


Well, it's only fair that I've been talking so much about my garden activities lately, I should really show you just how big the girls have grown in less than 3 weeks.



And just to show off how beautiful they are, here are some of my favorite shots from the last week.

Here is Summer trying to fly away from me when her sisters caused a commotion.
Aren't those wings beautiful!? And so big too.  Some day I'm going to have to cut one of them. Not looking forward to that.

Here's a pretty common sight these days.  I think I mentioned that the Barred Rock learned she could jump from the roost to the top of the mason jar water container.  I finally caught her on film.

She likes to peck at the screen.  Makes me wonder if I'll get a month out of this brooder after all.

Well, short post for tonight. I have plenty of other material to share so hopefully I'll get many more posts out over the weekend. 

Enjoy!

3 comments:

  1. I'll miss all the grass clippings in my compost pile. We have so little grass here that it won't be very significant in my pile. I need to find another source.

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  2. Wow, those birds of yours really are getting big...so fast. I spent a bit of time on Friday messing around with a bathroom plumbing project and came to the conclusion that I don't like plumbing much either.:) I think a person needs to be a contortionist for some of these projects.

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  3. That compost pile is a thing of beauty - as are the wings on Summer! She is going to grow into a beautiful bird. Your little flock are growing well and it is obvious you are really enjoying them.

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