Home on the Hill

I was a feeling little trepidation when I first started letting the boys out.  There's a large fir tree fifty feet away that the eagles and hawks like to perch in.  But so far so good, I don't know if a bird of prey, which an eagle isn't, would go after these guys.  They are pretty big and mostly stay together in a clump close to the safety of the chicken tractor.  I will keep a couple of these guys around as yard guards and the rest will go into the freezer sometime later this spring.  I know - but honestly this is spring! Xena the wonder dog will hang around them if I am in the vicinity, but she keeps a wary eye on them.  She just doesn't get that the roosters dont really like having their butts sniffed.  Just not rooster etiquette.  The new weaners, however are fair game.  She's been in the barn with them having all kinds of tail wagging fun. These weaners are the best we've found, organically grown on a neat farm about ...

I'm getting a bit antsy for planting season.  Fortunately with the heated green house that's anytime we feel like it.  Now for instance.  But first some preparations.  While I was on a sojourn to the Coast Jo-Ann thought she had a chimney fire going in the green house and decided not to use the wood heater.  So job one when I got back was to clean the chimney.  A half hour chore that stretched out to hours when the brush got stuck in the lower stove pipe. As it turned out the chimney wasn't badly creosoted, but better safe than sorry.  While I was at the Coast I visited a grow op store to check out all the gizmos and specifically to pick up some reflective Mylar.  The fellow at the store was asking me what and how I was growing.  I got that familiar look of incredulity when I said: Tomatoes, Lettuce, chives - that kind of thing.  Finding out where I lived he mentioned that they ship via GreyHound bus - and that they were very ...