and the chickens make the move...

Last night was the chickens' third night out in their coop. We have cleaned out the office, so they no longer have their cardboard box to retreat to. They seem to be adapting quite well. They've finally figured out the ramp and have succumbed to the notion that the upstairs is connected to the downstairs by it. Yesterday, we spent the entire day outside. It was 85 and sunny and the kittens and the chickens were happy as clams out in the sun. Well, I suppose clams wouldn't be very happy out in the sun, but you get the idea. Charlotte and Emily would periodically stop in their house for a bite to eat and a drink of water. We ate dinner outside last night for the first time this year and as soon as it started to get dark, the chickens ran into their coop and stumbled up the ramp to snuggle down in bed for the night! They're so funny, they sleep right on the edge of the opening to the downstairs, so they frequently lose their balance and you can see just their feet and some fluffy feathers scrabbling to stop themselves from falling. Oh, chickens...

!!asparagus!!

So, we planted aparagus this spring. We ordered it online and then waited and waited for it to arrive. It came as these little blobs of roots that we were supposed to plant. So, we planted them in one of the raised beds. In fact we built a raised bed special for the asparagus. Next, we waited and waited for it to grow. I've never grown asparagus before, so I had no idea what to expect. But just yesteday, I was crouching down to inspect the dirt where planted the asparagus (and where the kittens have decided is their new litter box) and lo and behold.... There were tiny tiny tiny asparagus spears! Exactly like regular asparagus, but miniature! This discovery has made me truly ecstatic. And even more devoted to crouching in the garden to watch things grow.

ms. bronte- how dashing you look on this fine day!

We'll see how long the thyme lasts at this rate... Just before this picture was taken, I turned around to see her chomping down on a big branch.

charlotte & emily tour their new home...

We introduced the chickens to their new home today and I'm pretty sure they like it. They pooped right away, which is always a good sign. We put the pine shavings in the top part and they got inside and ate some seed. They have not figured out the ramp yet. Hopefully they will soon... Eden loves the chickens very much. I think he thinks the coop is for him and the chickens are just checking it out. He has mastered the ramp and the little front door and has made himself quite at home.

and the coop is complete....

At long last, the coop is complete and after waiting a long week to get it down off the deck, it's out in the yard. Theresa and Eugene saved the day and helped us lift it up high enough to get it over the railing... I reattached the window box this morning (after having to take it off to move it) and planted some nice creeping thyme. Thyme just creeps along; it creeps right along until you don't know what happened to it! Abigail inspected the whole thing and it would seem that she approves.

coop troubles...

The good news is that the coop is finished. The bad news is that I built it on the deck and we can't get it into the yard. It is too wide to go down the stairs or fit through any of the openings. So, it has to go over the railing and down into the yard... Unfortunately, it is too heavy for us to lift that high without the help of some burly fellows. And so, on the deck it stays until some future time when the stars align and we have enough muscle to move it. Sorry, chickens. You almost had a home... Maybe you can find a nice cardboard box somewhere that's held together with duct tape and love.

slugs...

I think the slugs in our garden have bellies of steel. A couple of weeks ago, we planted a large variety of vegetables in the garden. I planted quite a nice crop of butter lettuce, which is probably the most delicious lettuce I've ever tasted. It's almost like candy, it's so sweet and good. Almost... Anyway, I planted the nice crop of 6 butter lettuce plants and watered them and waited for them to grow... The next day I went out to survey the garden, only to discover that two of the lettuce plants were gone. GONE! Just annihilated without a trace. I thought that was a bit odd and sprinkled some pine shavings around the remaining lettuce plants. (One of those was half-eaten). A couple of days later, I checked on them again and ALL the lettuce was gone. And there was a big fat slug just sliming along the brick wall of the bed, all full and happy and looking for more lettuce.

We opted to use the freed-up space to plant a basil plant we'd been waiting to put in. The day after planting that, it was half-eaten too! So, I covered (I mean, really covered) the ground around the base of the plant with sand. Slugs aren't supposed to crawl on sand. But sure enough, these slugs with their steel-plated-stomachs slimed across the sand and chompchompchomped away at the rest of the basil. It's time to bring out the beer...

hookin'

Normally, the next step after cleaning the fleece would be to card and spin it. However...I've been wanting to make a nice fluffy rug for the office-one that feels good on your bare toes...So, I picked up some burlap the other day and decided to give rug hooking a whirl. I really tend to have no idea what I'm doing when I start out on these projects, so it's been an experiment. So far, it's been fairly successful. Last night I started sorting out the wool I'd already washed and pulled apart little segments. Smoothing each tiny segment out between my fingers, I then used a crochet hook to reach through the burlap and pull one end of the wool through the cloth. Then I sent the hook through a second time (one or two stiches away) to catch the other end of the wool and pull that through. The result is that all the ends of the fluffy wool are exposed at the top of the burlap. It's pretty exciting, I must admit. Though, it will probably take me till October to finish it. The fleece I got has so many variations in color, it really has the potential to be interesting. So far, I've divided the coloring into two groups-lighter and darker. The lighter wool, I will use to outline the entire rug. Then I will intersperse what's left of the light with the dark in the middle. The toughest thing about it is estimating how large a rug I can make with this one fleece. Ideally it would be 5'x7', but I'm doubtful that I have enough wool for that. Maybe 4'x6'...3'x5'...who knows. Here's a picture of the beginning of the rug...Ah, the birth of a new project...

washing a fleece

How to wash a fleece:
1. Pull off a good-sized section of the fleece (maybe 2 or 3 square feet, depending on the size of your washing container).
2. Fill the sink or large bucket with hothothot tap water. I use the kitchen sink and then clean the whole area really well afterwards. Add 2-3 tablespoons laundry detergent or dishsoap. I like to use an eco-friendly non-toxic laundry soap to minimize evil chemicals.
3. Gently submerge the section of fleece in the soapy water. Make sure it all gets wet, but don't move it around very much. This process if very delicated because wool felts very easily and you'll end up with one big solid mass of wool that might make a nice compact camping pillow. Set timer for 20 minutes.
4. Carefully pull the wool out of the soapy water and set aside while you prepare the next bath. I keep a collander handy and transfer it to that so that excess water can drain out of it. Empty the sink or bucket and rinse it out.
5. Refill the sink with clean hothothot tap water (no soap in this one). Submerge wool in the hot water and set the time for 20 minutes again.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 as many times as necessary until the water is clean at the end of the rinse cycle.
7. Put in the washing machine on "SPIN CYCLE" ONLY! You do not want new water to enter the washing machine. We're just spinning the water out of the wool to help it dry. You can also use a salad spinner with small quantities of the wool.
8. Lay flat on a towel to dry. Outside in the shade works well, as does a dry room inside. Once dry, it is ready to card or do whatever project you've been waiting for!

the aroma of sheep fleece in the morning air...

Last year, I learned to spin wool in the hopes that one day we will have our own sheep and alpacas to raise and shear. Up until now, I've purchased fiber that is alread cleaned, carded, and ready to spin. It's awfully easy this way, but I know that it certainly won't be coming off our sheep that way. So, I wanted to learn all the steps from fleece to yarn. I contacted Reflections Farm in Eatonville, WA ( http://www.reflectionfarm.net ). They raise sheep and take the fleece to shows to sell. Alice was helpful and responded quickly to my inquiries about fleece. I ordered one from her and received it in the mail today. I opened the box and whoooohheee-Fleeces smell like sheep! Big surprise, right? A far cry from the tidy bundles of wool you buy at a yarn store. It's really kind of an amazingly wonderful smell... like a barnyard and earth and sheep poop and grass and who knows what else... The lanoline in the fleece makes it very greasy to touch so the first step will be to wash it....

bleeding heart...

Had to add a picture of the bleeding heart...It blows my mind that nature creates something with a flower that looks like this?!?!?

bloombloombloom

A brief sidenote on red tulips--Upon moving into our house last year, we planted lots of bulbs and other flowering plants. Last spring we didn't see much in terms of blooms, but this year our yard is an explosion of color! More red tulips than we know what to do with... Also, crocuses, daffodils, phlox, daphne (good god, daphne smells amazing), some little purple and white things (I can't remember their name), red/yellow variegated tulips, azalea, and bleeding heart... Occasionally throughout the year I think flowers are a waste of space (the space could be used for planting veggies or fruits), but at this time of year it all seems worth it...

big chickens need a big house

As the chickens grow, it has become apparent that they will not be able to live in the office forever. As you may imagine, there are several reasons for this, the first of which is that they are HUGE. The Orpington will be 8 lbs when full grown; the Barred Rock will be about 7lbs. It was time for them to have their own house. After much research, it became apparent that to buy a chicken coop already built or in a kit was ridiculously and unnecessarily expensive. Not to mention, there would be no room for customization. For instance, what if your chickens really did need that window box with flowers planted in it and little shutters that open and close depending on the weather? We decided to build one.

First we mulled over drawings and ideas for hours, finally settling on a simple house-shaped house. We have a fairly small yard, so we wanted to maximize the amount of space they would have, while conserving the amount of space the coop would occupy in the yard. We decided to build the coop with their enclosed house on top and a caged-in run on the bottom. They would have access to both areas using a little ramp that descended from the upstairs.

After enlisting the help of the men in the family, we set out to start construction. This quickly proved to be a mistake. The importance of men directing construction projects is highly overrated. Eric and I decided after an excruciating afternoon of mistakes that we would continue on the project alone. This quickly evolved into me building the coop on my own since the weather in Seattle generally tends toward rain on the weekends when we both have off work at the same time. So, I built the coop on Friday's while Eric was at work. And you know... Let me just say that there's no reason why a woman can't figure something like this out on her own, dammit.

Regretfully, I didn't take pictures of the coop until this point, when it's close to completion...