Our wild visitors

For a few days this week we have been having some wild visitors.  We wondered if our tom turkey would call any wild turkeys.  Well, apparently the answer is yes.
Monday evening my daughters found these visitors:

The two turkeys on the left are the wild ones.  There was a tom and a hen.  The tom and our tom were trying to fight through the fence.  My daughters went out to scare them away and got a few pictures. Here they are running away.

They've been back a few times and we have all seen them now.  Spring gobbler season is April 27-May 31.  It will be interesting to see what happens if we get a lot of hunters in the woods gobbling since our tom gobbles at every little noise.  Hopefully the hens won't try to go to the calling in the woods.  They now have 13 eggs in a nest that I am hoping they won't want to leave.

Our first turkey egg!

While we were outside in the snow yesterday moving the greenhouse, pruning the cherry tree and moving turkey run fence, one of the turkeys was hanging out in the doghouse I put in their pen as a nest box.  She was making weird noises and sounded like she was sliding all around on her feet.  The straw I had put in the box last week was now outside of the box so I put more straw and some small branches in the box.  She stayed in there a while while we worked pounding fence posts.  Eventually we realized that all three hens were in the pen, and this is what I found when I looked inside the box:

We were wondering when the hens would start laying eggs, since the turkey sex has been pretty frequent.We'll have to wait to see if the hens are capable of hatching out some poults and raising them up.  But, egg laying is the first step.

How to move raspberry bushes

Step 1: Buy a battery.  (Because you know you have to set up the electric netting for the chickens .)
Step 2: Set up the electric netting. (Because you must move the chickens and their coop so it/they don't get hurt when the tree is trimmed.)
Step 3: Move the chickens.

Step 4: Take down the fence around the old chicken run.  (Because you don't want to ruin the fencing when the tree limbs come down.)
Step 5: Drastically cut back the big Maple tree that casts a large amount of shade on the vegetable garden. (Because the big branches coming down will fall right where you want to move the raspberries.)

So the simple act of moving raspberries (which have taken over about 75% of the old veggie garden) turned into a multi-step process taking quite a few days. Hopefully, the tree trimming will be enough as we really didn't want to take down the old maple.  And the chickens love having a larger pen with lots of grass to eat.  Maybe my next post will be about the electric netting.
So step 6 will be removing the grass and adding compost to the new raspberry beds.  Then I only have about 100 raspberry bushes to move.  And those are just the ones I am keeping.  I am giving away quite a few bushes to various gardening friends (thank you so much!)

20 days until Spring

While the calendar may say there are 20 days until Spring arrives, there are many signs of Spring already around here.  Of course there was that sill hen who thought it would be a good idea to hatch some chicks in the brutal cold of February.  Sadly they did not make it.

But today is the first time I saw the turkeys mating (sorry no pics on that).  I am hoping for lots of Narragansett poults to sell and raise for meat. Now I need to research turkey nest boxes.

Saw these pretty little snowdrops in one of the beds in the front yard:

And the tree peony is budding like crazy, can't wait to see this in full bloom:

The rhubarb I brought from the old house has survived and is starting to come up:

Lots of other bulbs are starting to peak out of the ground.  It's going to be great watching what comes up where.  From the diagrams the previous owners left it looks like there are lots of bulbs around.
So many things to do outside now!

The Groundhog was Right!

Even though its 26 degrees outside and we had a nasty mix of ice and slushy snow yesterday

inside and in the hay house it is spring.
I was greeted by this sight this morning when I went out to feed:

One of our Mottled Java hens has been missing for a while.  We would see her about once a week or so and then nothing.  Now we know where she has been.  These 2 chicks were the only ones that hatched from her nest.  I finally found her nest with seven rotten eggs.  Not bad for the coldest part of the winter.  We'll have to see how well she does mothering these two chicks.  Since she was one of the chicks that was raised by our broody hen last spring she may be able to do it.

Onions!

The onion seeds are up!  And in only 3 days.  I have never grown onions from seeds before but I loved all the different varieties you could get in seed, and the price was so much better than buying sets.  And everything I read said the onions grown from seeds did better than sets.  Since I have never been thrilled with my onion production I decided to give seeds a try.
I have never grown this many onions before either.  But since we went gluten-free onions have been one food that I have totally changed my mind about.  I used to use onions in cooking because they added a bit of flavor, but I didn't like raw onions much.  Now I love the taste of raw onion and literally crave raw onion sometimes.  A plain salad with leaf lettuce and raw red onion slices with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil is wonderful now.
Then the seed catalogs came with all their tantalizing descriptions of different onions and I was hooked. Who couldn't resist this Mini Red Purplette onion from  Johnny's Seeds?
 

I can't wait to have those in a salad.
Now the only seeds that haven't sprouted yet are my early tomatoes and the lavender.  Then next month seed sowing begins in earnest with the other tomato varieties and peppers. Can't wait!

Seed starting in the snow!

What better thing to do on the day of the "big" snow storm? I planted hollyhock seeds (2 varieties-Indian Springs and Antwerp), 4 varieties of onion seeds (Ailsa Craig, Patterson, Mini Red Purplette, and Ruby Ring), Siberian tomatoes, and some Lavender seeds. Nothing cures the winter blahs like digging in some soil.
The picture above is the nicest seed starting set up I have had in a while.  Even though I will still rely on the artificial lights, I think the seedlings will appreciate the natural sunlight as well.  All of my seeds are now resting on their heating mat, staying a nice and toasty 70 degrees.
The Siberian tomatoes are an early Russian variety that I have grown before.  We were able to have ripe tomatoes about one month earlier that my other tomatoes.  I planted the seeds inside in February and in March I planted the plants outside under my minihoop house.  They really took off in there and it was nice to be eating our own tomatoes in July.  Usually our first tomatoes are ready the first week in August.  It will be interesting to see if the timing of things is different in our little valley. 
And who knows if we will actually get much snow.  They are saying 3-6 inches, but we'll see.

Update 2/10/13:
Pregerminating the hollyhock seeds really paid off.  They are up in just 2 days!