Fish Mani

Grow bed #2 is all set up and looking good with romaine lettuce, manoa lettuce, a mustard mesclun blend (we scattered seeds), basil, cayenne peppers, zucchini and tomatoes.  

 The fish started out skittish and shy but not anymore. Now they nibble on our fingers.

The mustard blend is delicious. We've been having them as a baby greens salad every night. One of the purple types tastes especially good - it's like eating dijon mustard.

I planted some peas and beans around the chick pen to trellis them up the chicken wire, thinking it would be simple and would end up looking really pretty. As soon as I planted them, though, the hens came running over to dust bathe, flinging peas and beans all over the place. I used some twine to make a little fence and they hopped right over it and started scratching around and pecking. In a last effort I used some of the extra bird netting from the top of the pen to stretch over and block the soil. It's possible that planting seeds right around the chicken coop was a bad idea...

The failed twine 'fence' with sunflowers in the pots. Today we let the chicks out for a bit when the chickens weren't around and they jumped right into the sunflower pots, of course.

Speaking of chickens, I think our hens have mites (*edit* they are lice, not mites). I was petting Denise today and I noticed a tiny white bug on her face. I've been doing some research and the solutions range from some pretty toxic stuff to putting your chicken in a bag of diatomaceous earth, holding her by the neck and shaking her around. Seriously. Shake without the bake (yet). 

"What the WHAT??"

Ryan finally ate his portion of the rabbit after I threatened him with the amount of guilt I would feel if the bunny went to waste. I'm not so sure that he enjoyed it, but he did eat it. Maybe farm life is making him want to become a vegetarian.