The Barn Coop And Ruger

The weather here in western Washington has been like spring weather without the rain!  Temperatures have been in the high fifties which has been perfect for working on the chicken coop.  Even Ruger (our lab) came out to help this weekend.  She's more of a fair weather builder.

Ruger The Coop Builder

I've decided our new coop looks more like a barn than a chicken coop, hence my calling it a barn coop.  Maybe I'll make a sign for the door when we finish construction, just like I did for our rabbits.  Our rabbit hutch sign currently reads: Angora Prison Farm.  But more on that later...

So, the barn coop is really coming along!  We almost have the second story finished and the roof is ready to be constructed.  We decided on a second story for our barn kitty, Pazuzu.  She'll probably like living above the chickens in an actual building rather than underneath the front porch.  Poor thing is chased under the porch on a daily basis by our huge German Shepherd.  The second story will also be a good storage space for hay too.  I'm pretty sure the idea initially arose from my bitching and moaning about the hay mess in the garage.

Barn Coop in progress

Winter?

What happened to winter?  We're supposed to have a 64 degree day this Friday and it's February!  I'm fine with the comfortable temperatures, it's fantastic for yard work and chicken coop building.  One minor problem with the nice temperatures though... what happens if we get another freeze?  It's still possible since the winter months aren't quite over, but with this warm weather most of our plants and trees have started budding.  Even our chives and green onions have started to come up.  Will having another freeze stunt our crops and orchard trees?

Chives and green onions from last summer

They're Alive! Also, A Chicken Coop On The Rise.

Old seeds do grow!  The brussel sprouts and broccoli are well on their way.  I thinned them out a bit after the photo below was taken.  I wanted just one start in each starter container.  The grow light is still positioned above the starts but yesterday I added one of our old heat lamps that we'd once used when we had baby chicks.  It's so cold in our garage right now and that's where our starts are located for the time being.

 In addition to winter container gardening we were able to finally start building our chicken coop yesterday!  When we first moved to this property we unfortunately found that bobcats are quite abundant in this area, as one quickly picked off all of our chickens while we were away on our honeymoon.  Now we're building a proper coop and chicken run (with a roof this time) with lumber from our cedar trees here on the property.  Kenn has spent months cutting down trees and milling lumber, using his alaska mill, for the coop.

And That's How The Yard Caught My Hair On Fire

I've burnt many brush piles in my life but recently found that one should probably employ the buddy system when doing so.  I would have lost less hair, I'm sure, if my husband would have been home to let me know my hair was on fire.  Luckily, my sense of smell is pretty good and burning hair is a smell I know well (I played with a lot of fire when I was a kid).

So, the reason I was burning brush this week is because we've cleared a large section of our property for a chicken coop and chicken run.  We piled up all of the stumps and branches and decided burning them was the best way to get rid of them.  I'm starting to wish we had just dumped it all into the ravine.  Burning this pile is going to take ten years.  Okay, that's probably an exaggeration but it could take a while.

Kenn on top of the burn pile

Anyway, at some point during my burning stumps I stood back to watch the fire and that's when I noticed the smell of burning hair.  At that point I knew exactly what had happened and contemplated whether stop, drop, and roll was necessary.  Deciding it wasn't, I started smacking the top of my head to put the fire out.  Okay, so there wasn't really a fire on my head but rather a burning ember from the brush pile.  It did burn a nice-sized chunk of my hair out though which is a bit depressing.  I immediately called Kenn at work to tell him that the yard was trying to kill me again.  He said that was probably an exaggeration but came home soon after anyway.

Lessons learned:

1. Wear a hat when burning stumps
2. When you want your husband to come home early from work just call him and tell him the yard is once again on a murder rampage
3. Dump unwanted stumps into the ravine next time

Trying This Blog Thing and Winter Container Gardening

Broccoli and Brussel Sprouts

I have to admit that I don't know what I'm doing as far as this blog thing goes but this is for my own sake so that's okay I guess.  I needed a place to keep track of our sustainable living endeavors so that we don't keep making the same mistakes over and over again.  Someday we're hoping to live in Montana and completely off the grid.  We're close now, not location-wise since we live in Washington, except for the fact that we have underground electricity. 

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about my attempt at winter container gardening.  Again, I don't really know what I'm doing but I figure I'll learn something in the process.  I like to learn from trial and error.  I should probably start doing more research before I try things but what fun would that be?

Ok, so the vegetables I'm attempting to grow in February...  I had broccoli and brussel sprout seeds leftover from last year.  My mom told me once that you're not supposed to use old seeds.  Apparently they don't always grow?  Nonetheless, I'm going to try it anyway since I love trial and error.  I mixed some of our rabbit poo and dirt together, shoved it in my starter containers, planted the seeds 1/4 of an inch below the soil surface, and stuck the containers under a grow light.  We'll see what happens!