birds, blooms, & manure

this past weekend it was just me and the (mini) farm. brandon was away in woods hole, massachusetts completing his arctic safety training so he can be ready to fend off polar bears & build emergency fires this july on the glacier commonly known as greenland. 

the weekend gave me a better sense of how much the chickens have become brandon's "thing". in fact, a few weeks back he said, "you know how you have your dog people & your cat people? well, i think i'm more of a chicken person." chooks don't require too much, but they do require that you get up at a decent time to let them out of the coop, clean out their water dish morning and night, & put them to bed at a decent hour. our chickens have been entirely spoiled on a yard full of dandelions, so they also demand (yes, demand!) to be let out of their coop to roam & range our yard at least once a day. 

my money is on this one being a rooster. brandon is not convinced.

yard birds in action.

this is frankie, who is my favorite. she is a total loner & scared
of her own shadow, but i find all of that quite endearing.

the bleeding heart by our front steps is doing even better than last week.
i hope the lavender in the planter does as well. 

i finally got my garden prepped and ready. we will have two raised beds, an in ground bed (against the fence), two potato cage towers, & an experimental "gutter of greens" hanging from the top rail of the fence. i am hoping the llama manure i got from one of my coworkers is the black gold i am banking on!

the potato towers are in the bottom of this photo.

what a typical evening at our place looks like: drinks on the back deck while we enjoy the sounds of our yard birds clucking around from the comfort of our adirondack chairs. it is a good life indeed!

hey rowan, can you spot the sprinting chicken?

this is my experimental "gutter of greens".
i didn't want to allocate precious garden space in our raised beds
to lettuce so we gave this gutter a new life as a planter,
which hangs from the top rail of our fence.

this is my pea-bed, which is next to the chicken coop.
although it needs to be weeded quite badly,
the peas don't seem to mind their company.

 i plan to get my tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, kale, onions, garlic, broccoli, brussel sprouts, & carrots in over the course of the next few evenings. it feels wrong to plant my garden before my birthday here in this high altitude place we call home, but all the signs are there for a longer growing season. fingers crossed!