June 23, 2010
East entrance to house with part of kitchen garden
"little" ducks & chicks moved outside on May 7...you can see the male duck watching them
"little" ducks & chicks in their temporary enlosure in the orchard
Unfortunately, Mr. Big Duck paid a price for his curiosity…he was so drawn to the females that he would not go into his house at night. (We had been locking him up with the big chickens in their mobile coop.) One morning we went out and he had disappeared…except for 3 feathers. Our neighbor says it was most likely a fox.
June 20, 2010
Light bulb keeps off the chill
Morning - greens, water, food!
A lovely green salad with orach (magenta color)
May 19 - messy porch with bigger birds!...time to move out...
This artichoke plant survived the winter next to the south side of the house with a cover of dirt and straw. It came back strong and produced 5 heads! More were started from seed this year and transplanted…they’re growing great!
May 20, 2010
We’ve been up to our eyes in busyness…spring is that way.
Here are some more photos from March:
potting soil made from worm castings, sand, compost, peat
Rain garden at night in the rain...dug down a couple of feet & filled with mulch & rocks. It filled up with water and didn't overflow.
(originally posted in March) As you can see, spring has been busy. We have several seedlings going indoors as well as peas, lettuce, spinach, parsnips, parsley, carrots and leeks planted outside.
We’ve also planted 3 plums and 2 apples and have ordered more fruit trees to supplement what we already have.
Seedlings of leeks, broccoli, cabbage, lemon balm, creeping thyme, basil...to the right is a bay leaf "tree"
seedlings of tomatoes, and (not pictured) peppers, butterfly weed, rosemary, lovage, salvia, artichokes
March 17, 2010
Sadly, we lost mrs. duck. She was the friendliest duck and seemed to watch over the male ducks. You can see her in this picture looking straight into the camera. She always did this, and the male ducks never did.
She had stopped laying a few weeks ago and we thought she just needed a break – she had faithfully laid an egg every day even in the worst weather, but then just stopped. Maybe the weather was just too intense.
Mr. duck seems to be doing fine. He stays close to the chickens so I guess they keep him company. We will probably get another female or two to replace his mate.
February 26, 2010
We’ve added pages (at left) where you can read some of what we’ve written for the permaculture course.
February 16, 2010
We are taking an online permaculture course from Australia!! Here is the link:
http://www.permaculturevisions.com
Check out our page about permaculture (link is to the left of this page)
OK, this will be the last of the snow pictures this winter!! Any more will have to wait until next winter!!!
This is the super snow-blowing machine that we finally had to hire after 3 other trucks got stuck trying to plow.
This is the view out the front door on Wednesday the 10th…after shoveling the front walk and cleaning the car, it snowed over 10 more inches! And then started to blow around!! We decided to stay home…ha.
The path to the chicken and duck house
Can we stay inside today?
Food! Food! There are no bugs!
Where's our pond? Where's the food?
