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For the love of money.

Category: The Garden Project | Posted: Wed Jan 19, 2011 5:57 am

If you're anything like me and my other half you hear a verse from tupac ringing through your head "For the love of mooonnaaaaaaayyyy" I can only imagine how many gardeners out there listen to rap, its true, most of it is crap, especially now a days where its all just noise... horrible noise...

HI! I know I was hoping it wouldnt be a week til my next post, 7 months later im back LoL. Lifes funny that way. Im not sure if i wrote about my "newest" venture into aggriculture, but i now have chickens! I started out with 12: 3 giant cochin pullets 1 black and 3 blues, and 6 straight run (unsexed) chicks. on the way home I stopped at the feed store for straw woodshavings and a heat lamp and ended up leaving with all that plus 2 more chicks LoL, 2 sexed white leghorn chicks. when they were about 2 weeks old they were out in there pen under the tree where my greenhouse now is and were attacked by a squirrel of all things, 2 were brutally killed. About a week later I came across a sexed cuckoo maran chick, So I added that to my flock. After my husband found out i had chickens (SURPRISE!!) He insisted I down size, so I negotiated and decided to let go of 2 of the cochins. I adopted them out to a woman looking to restock her flock.

Around august I noticed 2 of my chickens constant fighting but couldnt tell if they were roosters just yet or if they were just establishing a rank of order. About 430 am one october morning my fears were confirmed (i was starting to think that it might not be so bad to have a rooster, like a solar alarm clock... Silly me) Later that morning I called the breeder and returned my 2 roosters, which im happy to say were so healthy hes decided to use them for breeding.


After a couple weeks of hard hot work I finally got my coop up, unfortunatly where I had planned to put my coop, my husband didnt like, So last minute we (he) decided to put it in my garden area and move my greenhouse out. The coop ended up being bigger than I had wanted, and a bit out of place looking but im confident that with some greenery and the right planning I can pull it off, and I think with as hot it is durning the summer and how cold and windy it is in the winter, overall its going to need to be the way it is to have happy chickies. Final tally (okay not final, just for now, I want a more mixed flock down the road) 6 happy hens, 1 New hampshire red (henrietta), 1 Giant black cochin
(fancy pants), 1 cuckoo maran (nugget), 2 white leghorns (alfredo and stirfry) and 1 barred rock (taco) But im looking to find new homes for Fancy pants, Taco and either alfredo or stirfry (my only white eggers, but fairly flighty) and get an olive egger and an easter egger, and one more purely for looks, maybe a pheonix of some sort, those are incredibly beautiful n harder to find. I get 4 eggs a day... and its still winter.. can you imagine the amount of eggs Ill have when the days are longer?!

If anyone live in los angeles county and are interested in my 3 chickies, shoot me a message! Though thet are strictly for laying, not eating, and will only be placed with a caring individual :)

SO, I reported in my last post I had a generous amount of peppers. Infact I had a decent garden going on... until the chickens ate it. Did you know chickens have no taste buds? Which means they cant taste heat, like lets say habaneros and my THAI PEPPERS? Huh, me either. Now I know. Which means that i have to restrict there access to my garden, and due to the large amount of poop that would accumulate on our concrete deck, they are no longer allowed to roam the backyard to their hearts content. So now I have to cut my garden in half and fence it off well to ensure I actually have something to harvest this summer. Oh, the work at hand and the procrastination afoot. This is gonna be fun. And seeing how I could really stand to loose a few pounds, It'll all be manual again :/ BUT! Since it'll be a smaller garden I can afford to buy some shadecloth for overhead! and I'll be using about a fourth of the dogrun area for my corn patch. It'll be a slightly raised about 4 inches, in about 4'x3' beds. And I loved having a garden along the side of the house in the front yard. Something about watering the plants and chatting with the neighbors as they walk by.

Granted, this isnt the greatest neighborhood, But I imagine that they have alot of questions about my ongoing projects, particularly my chiicken coop and very visible ever growing garden(s). I like answering questions and hearing comments like "so thats how that grows, huh" Its amazing to see someone look at a head of artichoke after the bloom, always stunned, never knowing what they've been missing. My dragonfruit bit the dust, tho i do admit I still have it, hoping the expensive little plant will make a comback this spring I guess. I left it out when it snowed, more because it snowed over the course of the nite whilst I slept, i had no idea it was forcasted to snow... thats my defense anyhow. My new special plant is my kaffir lime, Given to me as a birthday present from my dad, its my understanding that the fruits are too bitter to eat, and instead is used as a cleaning aid, in toothpastes and shampoos. Who knows, maybe making my own toothpaste and shampoo is the next step to becoming more self sustainable. We've been looking more into going fully solar powered, and I'd really love to add a small wind converters to the roof while were up there, Since it does snow it'd be nice to not have to go out n clear off the panels, And we have a crap load of wind here almost year round, its time we tapped into it.

Since I started gardening, this being my 4th year, and adding my chickens, I notice people arent so against being more sustainable, i hear more "oh how cool"'s now when im out in the garden then "ugh, what a waste" and in the end, thats all I ask. If I can get someone to realise that homegrown and raised is far more supierior than that of the radiated 1500 miles to get to your mouth waste they have at the stores, then yay me. My only hope for this up-coming season is the funds. I have a whole lot of things I want to get done this year. A whole lot of changes that are gonna need to happen, and soon, especially since I have a new puppy to break in. Oh, the anticipation :)


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Comments

 

eileen wrote on Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:17 am:


Gosh you've been a busy lady since you were last here!!
You must post photographs of your chickens for us. We do love to see what others are doing in their gardens and what animals they are raising.

So glad you found your way back to us and I hope to have regular updates about your little ladies and how they're laying for you.

Welcome back!!





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