A New Gate

The gate to enclose my backyard is in! This means that no deer can get in to eat my garden and hopefully fewer stray cats will use my gardens as a litter box!

The problem now is that between the coop and the new gate - my old fence looks pretty shabby. So the next step will be to power wash the old fence and re-stain it. I am hoping to get a little done tomorrow - but it Saturdays are busy with swimming lessons and things so I will have to play it by ear.

In chick news - they finally figured out to go up into their house at night and to come out on their own in the morning. I have to start thinking about a way to divide the house so that the new chicks can go into the house a few weeks after they arrive. The new chicks arrive in one month - two white Silkies, a bantam Barred Plymouth Rock and three more Easter Eggers. The three Easter Eggers are for my mom - they will stay with me until they are big enough to go outside - then they will move into a horse stall at my parents place.

The garden is doing well - I think by next weekend I will have broccoli to harvest! It has been a cool rainy week, so as long as we get one more week like that I think it will keep growing and not bolt. The Chinese Cabbage bolted so I had to pull it all out, and I harvested the two head lettuces I had. They were both very good. I think it will be too hot soon for more lettuce, so I am going to plant pole beans where the lettuces were and maybe radishes and pumpkins where the cabbages were. I hope I can get that all done this weekend, along with the fence work - we will have to see.

My yard doesn't look very nice for pictures right now because the grass is too long - but my lawnmower starter broke so it is in the shop until next week. So please forgive the shabby looking yard in any new pictures in the next week :) I hope I can get it all spiffed up in the next few weeks - when the new babies arrive I really want to have a coop warming and new chick welcome party out in the yard! Wish me luck!