June Round-Up

It's hard to believe it's almost July. I realized a couple weeks ago that with all the rain and clouds, I hardly noticed the long days as there have been so few beautiful sunsets. We are finally getting the sun and humidity Ohio summers are known for. I miss the cool weather, but not the rain that seemed necessarily packaged with it. I did manage to get into the herb garden. There is actually an herb garden in this picture, can you find it? I wish I was kidding. On Sunday though it only took me two hours and buckets and buckets of weeds to transform it into... I'll be adding several calendula plants that a green thumb friend started. The basil had already bolted and yellowed. I may have ripped up some of the thyme in my zeal. The two sage and chive plants now have room to grow. Plus I have malabar spinach and goodwin gray lavender. I never got around to planting basil. I also ripped up lots and lots of almost past bloom chamomile. The Chamomile is once again ridden with aphids. Soaking them up with saltwater kills them, but it's very hard to separate them for tea. I know they say we eat a certain percentage of, ah, "foreign material" but it's one thing to vaguely know it rather than absolutely know it. I'll use the chamomile for facial scrub powder and in a bath. If only my lavender was as hardy as oregano. Maybe I should become and oregano farmer. This is taking up probably a third of my herb garden. I'll mow down and rip out after it blooms as the bees do visit it. In other gardening news, the back area that gets overrun with weeds is so much better this year thanks to the hostas a friend gave me to weed out of her yard. I may lament having them lady as I have to rip them out myself as they are prolific. But right now I appreciate the hardiness of them and how they are choking out a lot of the weeds. Kale is interspersed. It's the first year I've done kale and it's nice to have too. Another harvest so far has been our largest cherry yield to date. Andrew picked them all in one night and I froze them so we can have pie later.

June 2nd, all in one day

There are some days, too few for my liking, where a lot of stuff just gets done. This was one of those days, the the pictures I have to share it. The lavender wasn't quite ready to cut and had been planted (more on the lavender blog, eventually) so this Sunday had a focus on the chickens. We got new gravel for the driveway and it had been a few years since we had re graveled the chicken pen. Gravel helps with drainage, keeps the mud down, provides small pieces of grit the hens can swallow for their crop (to help digest food) and to help them dust their feathers (to kill parasites.) This year, the gravel was a larger grade than usual. Perfect for the driveway and a real investment that will last a lot of years. We were a little worried about this larger grade for the pen and that's why you see the board down to give them a place to rest their feet but turns out they are just fine on this gravel. If you look closely, you will see the bare patches on the hen's back. She recently came from a farm with a few too many roosters and her feathers were being always pulled out by the aggressive boys. Here at the homestead, there are no roosters so the hens can relax and grow out their feathers like the ladies below. These two hens are about 4 years old. I lost two last fall from old age but overwintered these two. They still aren't fast friends with the new five, and have been ranging on their own as the other hens have stayed in the pen. The new 5 have stayed in the pen to get used to the new home and really imprint on what and where their home is. But also, without a full coat of feathers they just don't have confidence to roam far. On this day though, I left it an open choice and for the first time they felt comfortable to take on the larger world. I'm pleased they can take advantage of all the fun and food ranging around the backyard has to offer. Their weeks in the pen have enabled me to condition them to the expensive chicken treat to bribe them back into the bed as needed. Despite not having feathers, the hens are laying. A real unexpected treat, these black australorps are laying colored eggs like easter eggers! I have one laying a light green and light blue egg. These are the things that excite me. The eggs are almost always clean now as long as a collect once a day, a sure sign that the hens are committed to laying. As Tutu was outside with me, Moxie enjoyed lounging on the bed, oblivious to my labors outside. After re graveling the chicken pen and cleaning out the coop, I planted peppermint in pots, and planted some other things in the garden. After a late lunch and a shower, Tutu and I went for a ride and then enjoyed a lovely evening resting.

May Round Up

I'm thinking that a monthly round up is all I'm going to be able to do on the blog. May seems like a lifetime ago now that we've been into Summer Reading about a week. The rain has slowed up a little bit which has helped and it remains cool which I like. Sage, basil, thyme, malabar spinach and a goodwin gray lavender have all been planted in the herb garden. I managed to harvest some chamomile but will only be using it in herbal exfoliating herb facial powders. Despite multiple soaks in salt water, I just can't get enough aphids out for tea. Vegetables are also in, more or less and all the butterfly/bee attractant plants are large and green if not blooming yet. Below is a hodge podge of pictures from life in May. I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out why these two robins were nattering at me the whole time I would be taking care of the chickens, then I looked up. There was only one Robin that fledged, the next rested on a pole smack dab in the middle of the pen. I suspect the other babies fried, as there was very little protection from sun. We had another robin nest in the orchard but it did not succeed. I have seen for the first time baby mockingbirds running around the backyard but sadly did not get any good pictures. One other next on the property is more problematic. A dove's nest in the gutter. We don't have any trees to heavily clog up the gutters, but this next will have to go. The dove figured out the sweet spot, as the water flows at a slight slant in the opposite direction. One drizzly afternoon I saw this fellow hanging out in the chicken pen, right inside the door. He blended in perfectly with the mud, tromped down gravel, and chicken poop. He also was very, very still. I kept a wary eye on him and he on the chickens. Even though I had to get pretty close to him going back and forth into the pen with water, food, etc for the chickens. He didn't move. He's a pretty big toad and has been around. Smart of him to figure out the chickens were a bigger threat than me. I'll have more on the chickens in the next post, but here let's wrap up with a few views from the western facing porch. Being on a hill that faces west, there's a lot of exposure to the elements. Wind, and all the precipitation hits the house at full force. Shutter color fads, door trim needs repainted. But on nights like the one below, it's really breathtaking. I'm no morning lark, getting up to watch the sunrise so sunset will have to work. But like a sunrise, a sunset changes from moment to moment.