Mohawk Chick

 Just sitting down to do some blogging...

Look at Magpie's new head feathers! Very strange.

We got 4 eggs again this morning! Even later though...this time they only laid them around 11. 

The little brown chicks hang out together. They all like running around in the sun in their coop (they come inside after 'play time'). 

Today Nathan worked some more on the aquaponics set up - he siliconed a piece of aluminium mesh over the bottom of the big tank and started building the drain pipe.

I prepared the rest of our greenhouse beds and transplanted the cucumbers, melons and gold nugget tomatoes. Then we got the rest of the drip irrigation set up - it's set up for 40 minutes every morning at 7:00 am.

Morning scritches for Barney.

The Farm is Growing

Grazing together

We got a lot done today! First we picked up our 4 new laying hens. They were in a pretty crowded barn and had been replaced with this year's model...they might be a year old, as we were told, but who knows, really. We'll see if they lay us any eggs in the next few days! Omelettes tomorrow? Or roast chicken next week? (just kidding....)

Checking our their new digs. One is big, one has white speckles, and the other two look alike. We had to catch them tonight to put them in the hutch-coop and they weren't very nervous of us. We haven't finished the fully enclosed outdoor part of that coop yet, or they would have been locked in there today to get used to it. 

In their coop this evening. It's small but they'll have the enclosed outdoor area too, and they'll mostly be free ranging.

The playhouse coop with the netting over top. This is when we realized that we'd fully enclosed a chair by accident.

The chicks had their first day outside today! This is how they reacted to the great outdoors at first:

Luckily they had their trusty guardian looking over them.

Perhaps not so much of a guardian...Ryan seems to think he has a stake in a chicken share. Raise the chicks now, get a chicken later?

 While the chicks hung out just outside the greenhouse (the nice warm air blew right out into the xpen), we worked. I transplanted the hot peppers, bell peppers and tomatoes. 

Nathan cleaned the dust off the expanded clay balls that will serve as the grow bed for the plants.

 The bathtub will be the grow bed - it will drain back into the fish tank.

Fred deciding if he wants some hay.

The Chicks Are Coming!!!

I pick them up tomorrow. Eeeeeee! 

I have to stop at a feed store to get a red 250 watt heat lamp (buying the reflector for $12 off craigslist), some chick starter feed, pine shavings and food and water dispensers. 

The first few days they'll be on paper towels on top of newspaper (with just newspaper they can slip and get something called spraddle leg). For the first week the temperature should be 32 C (90 F), but apparently you can tell if the temperature is right pretty easily by how the chicks are behaving - huddled together under the lamp, they're too cold. Huddled as far away from the lamp as possible, they're too hot. 

I made a brooder out of the bottom half of a vari kennel. I zap strapped the door into place and then zap strapped cardboard on the inside of that to stop shavings from flying out. The top is a sheet of hardware cloth. I didn't want to cut it in case we use it for something else later so I just folded it over the edges of the kennel. I think the heat lamp will be fine sitting on top but if that's too warm I'll clamp it onto something else. 

On a less exciting note (still exciting for me - I sit and look at the seedlings alll the time), here are the replanted kale, broccoli and arugula seedlings! Ready to go straight into the greenhouse.

Growing On Up

Today I transplanted the 5 melon plants (3 cantaloupe, 2 watermelon) and 4 of the tomato plants into bigger pots. I would have done all of the tomatoes but I ran out of pots...I'll find some more tomorrow. I'm hoping that the other seedlings will be ok in their little 1" pots until the move (tons of pots/soil on the farm - and the arugula, broccoli and kale will be good to go into the greenhouse asap). 

The seedlings are so pretty...they deserve SLR photos :) 

(also I should document them now, while they look this healthy. I'm kind of shocked I've managed to get them this far and I'm worried they'll suddenly die...especially after transplanting!)

Melons

New cucumber

Basil

Bell Peppers

Sweet Million Tomatoes