Gardening with chickens-part II

I've been spending a lot of time in the garden catching up on all the things that didn't get done while we were focusing all our time and energy getting the old house sold.  And the chickens are helping me.

Here are my girls helping to clear the weeds from the garden. They, hopefully, are also eating up the chiggers as well.  The garden, particularly the red raspberry patch, was the worst place for getting bitten by chiggers.


I planted garlic and shallots today. The hard part will be keeping the chickens from digging them up.

Before I let the chickens into the garden space I fenced off the blueberry and gooseberry bushes.  I planted the garlic and shallots in front of the gooseberries and was able to move the fence around the garlic as well.  Although, after I put the straw bedding on the garlic the chickens came over and were trying to figure out how to get at the straw to start scratching around.

In other poultry news, our one remaining Mottled Java is moulting and looks so pathetic.

But all our old laying hens have a date with the butcher soon, along with our three remaining turkeys.

We had an owl problem and lost a bunch of turkeys and sold our breeders before they were eaten as well.  I hope to just have the nine new pullets and the three goats for the winter. And a busy winter it should be.  We are getting estimates on building a barn and fencing in the pastures.  Lots more to write about!

Good Bye Old House

It has been a while since the last post and in that time we finished all the details and staged the old house.  It was on the market for eight days when we reviewed the four offers we had received.  Settlement was supposed to be on October 8th but was pushed back, not with any input from us, until the 17th.  But the whole saga is over.  Buying a house is a whole lot more fun! Selling a house is not something I want to do again any time soon. It was definitely one of the most stressful things I have ever done. Too many sleepless nights worrying about the house, choosing the right realtor (I don't think we did), getting the house looking good for showings, having my gallbladder out in the middle of all this, and trying to pick the right offer.

But when we moved everything out on what we thought would be our last time in the old house, it was very bittersweet.  So many emotions going through my head, and then the tears started to flow.
Ahh, the memories.  Camping out and freezing our first winter as the water line from the well kept breaking under the driveway.  Cleaning out bags and bags of bat shit mixed with loose insulation from the attic. Huge plastic walls to keep kids out of construction areas.  Our oldest falling face first off his trike into the newly poured concrete for the chimney foundation. So many holidays.  Bringing our three youngest home from the birth center. First days of school, home schooling, back to school, my office for my schooling-a bachelor's and master's degrees.  So much music! It was a great house acoustically.

But we are on to a new project.  The grounds at our new house are my therapy.  Whenever I question why we moved I just walk around outside and the answer is all around me.
So back to the blog to continue chronicling  everything we are doing here.