Seed Catalog Season Already?

Thanksgiving brought some balmy days in the mid-60's (*F) and mild nights that only flirted with freezing.  Bright blue skies and wispy clouds.  Makes it difficult to believe that it could be Seed Catalog Season already!  But it is, and my second catalog arrived this week - from Totally Tomatoes.  The tomatoes have such delightful names, like Jaune Flammee, Tigerella, and Purple Russian.  I want to buy them all!

This week it is going to be down in the teens at night again - Winter is doing her best to arrive.  All those cold desert days with barely a hint of green raises the odds that I will buy way more tomato seeds that I could possibly grow... Today is a breezy 54*F, though, and feels more like early Autumn, before the apple trees shed their leaves and the chill nights killed the last of the tomato plants.  In keeping with that lazy Autumn feeling, here's a picture of one of my ducks napping in the warm October sun.  Well, almost napping - the eyes are not quite closed yet.

I am so blessed to have had such a productive and enjoyable year in the garden.  The soil continues to improve with every wheel barrel full of composted chickie-poo pine bedding.  Automatic waterer did wonders to keep everything alive during the blistering Summer sun, and my flock were all to happy to devour excess zucchinis bigger than my arm!  

... Hill Billy, Old German, Orange Strawberry, Merlot and  Mexico Midget - tomato dreaming...

Random Photo Day

Some early morning photos from this morning.  Nothing fancy or revolutionary - just a nice  little walk around the garden before the blazing sun warms everything up.  The rule of thumb is, 60*F by 6 am, 70*F by 7 am, 80*F by 8 am, and 90*F by noon.  Remember, you can click on the photo for a larger version.

Just a few years ago this apple tree was a mere stick, barely bigger in diameter than my thumb.  It now sports a trunk bigger around than my wrist.  Fickle Desert Spring froze all the buds this year, so no apples.  Still, it is nice and green - and I harvest the suckers (some call them water sprouts) for the ducks and chickens to dine on.

 This is a purple bush bean called Velour.  The flowers and stems are purple, and some of the leaves have purple flecks in them.  The tiny beans (the one in the photo is about an inch long) turn purple as they mature, and turn deep green when blanched or cooked.  The plants are not as vigorous as say, Kentucky Wonder; however, they are cute, and the purple beans are easy to find among the green foliage.

 Early morning view of sweet corn in the foreground, the root stock of a peach tree (redish leaves), all overlooking sunlit weeds in the distance.  Fill flash was a little too heavy, giving it a very contrasty, almost artificial look compared to what I saw - but it still picked up the glow of the weeds, and that was one of my main objectives.

 Detail of a garlic scape.  I let about 50 of these form bubils.  Not sure that they will make new garlic plants, and even if they do, it could take 5 years before they are big enough to harvest.  Chickens really do eat anything, however, so I have been giving some to them.  Garlic is supposed to act as a natural de-wormer.  I don't think they have worms, but I'm feeding them the bubils just in case.  Besides, they love chasing down the little balls of garlic when I throw them in their pen.

 Nodding garlic scapes with their hundreds of tiny bubils.  The early morning golden light really brings out the pink colors in them.  During the flat light of the day, they look more brown.

 My girl on patrol.  Her web is in bed one and is strung between Sweet Marjoram, Rosemary, and Lemon Balm (although I like it's official name better: Melissa Officinalis.).  I know she is a girl because most male spiders have hooks on their front legs to hold the female with during mating.  She has been hanging out for a few weeks, now.  Eat and be merry, Garden Friend!

More weeds and morning sunshine.  This time the weeds are inside the garden.  I left them there because I want them to spread their 900,000,000,000 seeds all over my garden.  Actually, I left them up because the ducks rest on the other side of the fence in the shade of these weeds in the late afternoon.  Makes a decent wind break for them.

Lazy Day Tour of the Summer Garden

Well, after a week of bronchitis, strep throat, doctor's visits, chest x-rays, antibiotics and asthma inhalers, I am feeling mostly alive again.  Of course, the chipmunks and birds took advantage of my inattention to the garden and have mowed down the last of the late sunflower seedlings.  At least one chipmunk made an attempt at young squash plants, too, but was foiled by the floating row cover.  Still, it left its calling card.

Chipmunk Poop on Floating Row Cover

The first sunflower is in full bloom now, obediently facing the sunrise, no longer tracking the sun in its daily arc over the sky.  Only 2 foot tall with a 6 inch bloom, I believe this is on of the dwarf sunflowers called Sunspot.

The first set of corn is doing well, enjoying their heavily amended and composted bed.  They are heavy feeders, and at the end of last year, I put two wheel-barrels full of semi-composted chickie-poo and pine shavings in that bed to decompose and mellow over the winter.  This seems to have worked well as the corn is flourishing and putting out suckers.  I will trim the weaker suckers and feed them to the chickens; however, the more vigorous suckers may also fruit.  We'll see.  It's one giant experiment.  

The second planting of corn did not have the autumn prep that the first set did, so I have tried to compensate by adding finished compost and growing bush beans with them.  They are growing an inch a week, so I think they are happy.

The garlic harvest is just about complete.  Yesterday I cleaned 7.4 pounds of good garlic and 3.2 pounds of garlic that has one issue or another that will necessitate its consumption within the next two months.  Stored cool, dark, and with ventilation, the better garlic should keep 6 months.  Frozen, it will last a year.  I'm going to make some garlic and olive oil paste and freeze it.  Although it may lose some of its potency that way, it will also be edible for about forever.

Garlic that has been allowed to go to "seed."  The "flowers" are really tiny garlic bulbs.

First of the bush beans are starting to produce.  It will be a few days, still, before they are big enough to harvest.  I planted purple podded beans as my main crop this year, just because I like the color purple.  And because I wanted to add as much color to the desert as I could.  Especially since the critters ate up all the flowers that I planted.

Hopefully I am back to work on Monday, and able to hack down weeds sooner than that.  The beds in the garden are mostly weed-free; however, the paths and edges have the desert denezines creeping in: cheat grass, tumbleweed and some type of eucalyptus plant.

Late Start In the Garden

Due to the last killing frost and last snow being at the beginning of June, it took a while for the garden to get into full swing this year.  This means that getting a corn, pumpkin or winter squash crop will be a gamble this year.  But heck, growing a garden of any sort here in the high desert is a gamble.

Either a Zuke or a Yellow Squash - of course, I am not organized enough to label them.  Good thing I like surprises.

Veggies currently in the ground:

• Black Beauty Zucchini
• Yellow Crook Neck Squash
• Yellow Straight Neck Squash
• Acorn (Winter) Squash
• A small, short season (90 day) pumpkin that I can't recall the name of
• 3 sad Alaskan Fancy determinate tomato plants
• 40 stalks of Golden Bantam Cross (F1) Corn
• Sweet Dumpling (Winter) Squash
• Lemon Cukes
• Market More 76 Cukes
• 6 sad little Okra plants that don't like our cold nights (still in the 50*F at night)
• A few garlic that really should be pulled by now
• Blue bush green beans (turn green when cooked - or when the temps top 100) - French Velour and True Blue
• Yellow "Pencil Pod" wax bush beans
• Dow Gawk "Yard Long" pole beans
• Kentucky Wonder pole beans
• Blackeye Peas - both purple hull and California No. 5
• Last of the snap pea vines (to be fed to the chickens and ducks this weekend)

Bush beans are beginning to bloom, so probably two weeks before we start eating them.  I'm not sure how blue the blue beans will be - the flowers are decidedly purple.   Planting more bush beans every week as they ripen their crop over a short time period (as opposed to pole beans that will bear until frost kills them).  Also, beans will fix nitrogen into my sand.  Since they are cheap seeds to buy, I am using beans like a cover crop.

Speaking of cover crops, I found some old clover seed, and it is making a fair stand under the apple trees.

As for veggies, the rest of them will probably start being ready for harvest whenever I'm on  my next business trip. It's just the way of the world.  A new sprinkler and battery-operated timer setup should at least help insure that the plants will live.  

Spring Arrived for a Day, and now It is Summer

One day it was 70*F or so, and we all thought, "how nice." The next day it was 90*F.  And since then, for at least three weeks now, it has been pleasantly warm in the high eighties and low nineties.  Looks like a cool summer again this year - maybe only a few days in the triple digits?  If so, the garden will love it!

Two week old corn is two to three inches high.  What survived initial bird depredation (in spite of using a row cover), is now healthy and growing rapidly.  Planted out the second set this past weekend.  I may set out some more next weekend, but the beginning of July means that there is a 50-50 chance of a hard frost in September followed by several frost free weeks.  Still, if the third planting just turns out to be a place for the chickens to play, that works ok for me, too.

Ate a few peas yesterday.  Chickens like the shells, but the ducks thought I was throwing rocks or something, as they were not enthused about green things flying over the fence.  The chickens were all to happy to go into "shark attack" mode, however, and swarmed the pea shells.  Sorry, duckies.

Been feeding the ducks and chickens tufts of grass that still have the seeds in them.  The ducks like to thresh the seeds out with their bills while the chickens like to "scratch and attack" the grass stems until the seeds fall out and can be eaten.    The benefits to the birds are that they get some fresh food and exercise.  The benefit to me is grass weed reduction.  The benefit to the grass clump is that they get a trim and extra water and get to grow more seeds.

Egg production is in full swing.  Out of 15 hens, I am still getting 6-8 eggs a day.  In some ways, it is better than the 10-12 eggs a day that they laid in their prime. Still, it is almost like zucchini - be careful - if you stand still, I will hand you eggs!

I hate to jinx myself, but there may be a chance that I have morning glories this year.  I need to plant more.  I am babying along the 6 or 7 that I currently have.  They are getting one new little leaf every few days.  Hopefully they will hit critical mass soon and start climbing several inches a day.

Also looks like I will have more than two dozen sunflowers this year.  I planted a dozen or so more on Sunday, but it's getting late for planting sunflowers, too.  I have a set of volunteers from bird seed - we'll see how they do.

I am letting the garlic that is too small to bulb go to "seed," so to speak.  Their scapes will "flower" with tiny bulbils - each a tiny, tiny garlic.  If I time things right, I can plant out hundreds, which in a few years, will be almost big enough to use as planting stock.... or, I might just eat them.  I planted hot garlic, however, so they will definitely add a fiery zing to whatever I put them in.  Maybe put them in pasta sauce to mellow.

 

If you build it, they will come.

Random Photos

My son is helping me paint the chicken coop so that it looks like a "Red Barn."  Next payday I'll buy the white paint for the trim.  You might recognize this photo as a sepia-tint photo from a recent post.  Notice how the weeds between the garlic and the chicken coop are not nearly as prominent looking in the sepia-tinted photo!  The weeds keep the sand from blowing around, so even though they harbor bugs, I keep them around until I am ready to plant - which means most of them will make it to viable seed production.  That's ok, though - as the weeds also add valuable green matter to my compost pile.

I will likely never see fruit from my hardy nectarine.  It seems to always burst into bloom shortly after the first 70*F day - never learning that here in the High Desert, that a day like that invariably is followed by a 20*F night later in the week.  Still, it's a beautiful tree all covered in pink.  And it survived two winters where we got into the negative temps for a week or more each.  So I can't complain at all.

Oregano is growing like crazy, tender and strong smelling amid last year's woody flower stalks.

This photo is from a few months ago - a Maran and an Easter Egger hen - my organic weed-eaters. They chickens don't like garlic at all, and are very dainty about not stepping on it.

"Year Over Year" Journal Entries

My Mom got my gradeschool-aged nephews a digital microscope for Christmas. I am totally green and purple with envy. But, alas, that is out of my budget at the moment. I did, however, purchase a little 45 power field microscope with battery powered LED light - and while it isn't quite the same thing, for $5, it is a whole lot of fun. I would say, ounce for ounce and dollar for dollar, it is my favorite new toy.

Below are some Journal Entries from the last several years. Current comments in brackets [like this].

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4 January 2009

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Thinking of fencing off some of the west side of the chicken run so I can plant corn and stuff for them there. Then when the summer heat hits, they'll have shade and also stuff to play in. Open it up in sections so they don't destroy it all at once. corn, sunflowers, maybe try pease in the fall. [I never did do this. Perhaps I will do this in 2011?]

Can I really keep them [the chickens] out of the garden all summer? I am going to have to if I want any flowers or food [for us] out of it.

Last year was the Year of the Chicken... this year is the Year of the Garden.

Maybe next fall I [will] spend 3 months raising a feeder pig - but maybe not. We'll see just how far I want to take this farming thing. [I didn't, but the question comes up every year...]

I still can't believe that I am living the dream! It isn't perfect, but it IS very good. I am so very blessed.

Fresh eggs for breakfast - most only hours old, the rest laid yesterday! Gave away 18 to the neighbors. DSR is going to bring some to work tonight to give away. Whenever I end up with eggs that are over a week old, I feed them to [the dogs] and back to the chickens - glad they both like scrambled eggs! Yum!

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10 January 2008

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Snow last night [is] keeping my trees watered with "sweet" water as opposed to my salty, alkalai well water.

[Need to] clean and move my plant shelves. Then I will allow myself to start some seeds.

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14 January 2007

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Still frozen; no water [the water line from the well to the house and from the hot water heater to the house were frozen as we experienced nighttime temps in the 2-3*F range and daytime temps in the mid 20*F range. Yipes!]

[Reading] Cutting Gardens by Anne Halpin & Betty Mackey. [My notes on] Conditioning Flowers

• Recut at a slant
• Underwater Cut - carnations, sweet williams, dianthus, china asters, marigolds, marguerites, snapdragons, sweetpeas
• Hollow [stems] - fill with cool water and plug with cotton - delphinium, dahlia, hollyhock
• Sear sap bleeders - campanula, hardy mums, daffs, narcissus, dahlia, forget-me-nots, heliotrope, hollyhocks, hydrangea, lantana, lobelia, poppies, stephanotis
• Tough flowers - split stems, dip in boiling water for 20 seconds - asters, chrysanthemums
• Strip leaves that will be underwater
• AFTER cutting treatments, put in cool, dark place for a while
• Conditioner - 1 TBSP suger + 1 TBSP bleach [I don't state "in how much water" in my journal, but I am assuming per 1 gal water]
• Foliage - lay in flat pan of water and soak
• Silver Foliage - wrap in tissue, dip stems in boining water [for] 20 seconds, then [dip] in cold water

With this cold, I wonder how my tiny orchard is doing? [Survived.]

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14 January 2010

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First sunny day in a while! Makes me want to go out and dig in the dirt!

Snow if finally nearly all melted. I know it insulates things, but I hate snow. I hate weather below freezing, and especially weather below negative 10*F.

Still months away from seeing if any of my fruit trees survived - and if any have, did anything above the rootstock make it? Only time will tell. [Lost the cherry tree and the old apple tree brought from California to late snow.]

And another question - did my super rosemary survive [the negative degrees]? It isn't supposed to live through ANY of our winters, so I won't be too devistated if it's gone. Still, I'm rooting for it. [It did survive.]

Happy New Years!

Apparently Scout likes to help with "catching" the snow when it's time to shovel the back patio. Lows in the teens on the overnight, reaching the high twenties during the day. A little more snow predicted for tonight/tomorrow morning, but that should be it for a while. As for me, I'd rather stay inside and dream of Spring.

There are a few thoughts on what to do with last season's "trash." Some maintain that the left over crop residue should be removed from the field and composted, thus removing insect eggs, mold spores and disease. Others believe that the crop stubble will protect the ground, prevent erosion and hold water. Since the desert is in need of keeping every particle of organic matter and every drop of water that it can, I am going with the later method. Besides, I just like the look of dried corn "trash" after a winter snow.

The chickies are not particularly fond of snow, and when they realized I didn't have any goodies for them, decided that they would stay in the confines of their toasty coop.

I am, of course, using the weather as an excuse for not cleaning out the chicken coop. Too windy last weekend. Too snowy this weekend. Supposed to be above 30*F tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow. It isn't too nasty yet, but it will be if I don't get my act together soon. Besides, it's time to get the compost bin filled up with chickie-poo soon if I want more of that good stuff ready for the spring garden. Takes a good 3 months during the summer to cook the excess amonia out of it and turn into to sweet smelling compost. I assume it will take longer when the temps are regularly below freezing at night.

September Garden Status

The last sunflower is blooming, along with oregano, sweet marjoram, yellow squash and desert mallow.
 

Well, some days I actually feel like I had a real garden this year with an actual harvest.  A review of some of the crops:

• Birds and everything else will pluck out newly sprouted sunflower seeds and peas - must rig up some protection for them. At least a dozen sunflower sprouts and 100 pea sprouts were donated to the local wildlife.
• Garlic beds dug up a month or more in advance worked out very well - nice, soft, easy to plant beds. Ones not made up early are not nearly as easy to plant out. Now I am looking at planting some directly in unprepared beds, and that will be even worse, probably inhibiting good bulbing up in the spring.
• Sunflower seed heads need to be well protected or the wildlings will eat them all - even before they are mature. Chickies got very few this year, and there are none for the wild things for the winter. Sunflower leaves,however, made excellent chicken greens all summer long. And after the sunflower seeds had been consumed by the wild things, I pulled the stalks out and the chickens had a riotous good time eating up the leaves and pecking at the seed head itself.
• Collards grew very well under the shade of the large, yellow squash leaves. Next year, need to grow more. The chickies really like collards, and I added some to our salads.
• Spinach was a great success. I only half-hearted saved seeds. Some of the ones I saved did sprout when planted in the fall, but I don't know if Matador is open pollinated, so I didn't really work at it. Chickies and Granddaughter indulged in much spring spinach.
• No matter how many edible pod peas that I grow, there is never enough! I like to eat them right off the vine. The chickies like the peas, the pods (from ones that have grown too old to eat more than the peas themselves), and the leaves.
• Peas sown in September will probably not ripen before the first hard frost - still, at least they will make some nice greens for the chickens.
• Bi-colored corn was stunted as usual, but flood watering them produced a significantly higher number of ears of corn this year. Pollination was spotty, so most ears were missing kernels here and there - not pretty, but still very sweet and yummy. I ate several raw, right off the stalk - and happy chickies got to peck at the resulting cob. The bright red stalks and leaves of this variety is beautiful - need to look up what type I planted so that I can order that type of seed again.
• Yellow squash was a great success in bed no. 3. The ones in the ground, however, were eaten the moment they sprung forth from the earth.
• My garden blessed me with any wild things in the garden this year. I saw my first and only humming bird while sitting quietly in the garden before work one summer day. Lizards lapped water from the herbs in bed no. 1 all through the summer. Pigeons nested in the chicken coop (although Old Biddy kept destroying their nests, so they did not raise a brood). Chipmunks and mice raided the garden from time to time, and red tailed hawks (or so I believe them to be), soared overhead. Rabbits, luckily, are well-fenced out!

Well, I am sure there is more, but if I am ever to get this posted, I shall have to stop for the moment.

Chickies and Hungry Jack (the rooster) enjoying sunflower stalks for a late afternoon snack.

It Starts with Chickie Poo

Several months ago, I cleaned out the chicken coop and piled the chickie poo filled bedding of pine shavings into a pile about 5 feet long, 4 feet wide and 3 feet tall. For 3 or 4 weeks, the amonia that was released by Billions and Billions (use Carl Sagan's voice, please) of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria totally stank! I watered and turned it diligently, keeping the temperatures down to between 140*F and 150*F, enabling the aerobic bacteria to flourish and pathogens to perish. Around the second month, the temperatures did not climb so dramatically, and the main nitrogen burn off was complete. Still, the pile would rise to the E. Coli and Salmonela killing range of 140*F a day or two after turning and watering. So I continued turning the pile every few days when it started cooling down. And day by day, the pile was getting darker and darker, and smelling less and less.

I had read that the compost would "smell sweet" when it was done, but I had no previous experience with "hot" composting, and I was not sure what the authors meant. So one day, the pile did not heat up after watering and turning. So I watered and turned the pile again. And still, the temperature barely rose to 120*F. So per the advice of the compost mages, I ignored it and let the pile sit for several weeks. And low and behold, after that time, I put my hands into soft, barely warm, sweet smelling compost.

I spread the compost where I will plant garlic in late September or early October (depending when the bulbs get here). I sprinkled some goodies for the chickies on it, and they tilled it into the sand for me. The cycle is complete - they will have chopped garlic leaves in the late spring to help clean them of parasites. ...And now, it's time to clean the coop again and make more desert gold.

Determination

The corn is stunted, heat and drought stressed - but life is resilient and determined. Even though they barely grew to 3 feet tall this year, the corn is now bravely shedding pollen and setting fruit.

Likewise, one small, solitary apple ripens in defiance of relentless desert winds and a hard winter that froze most apple buds to death.

Sometimes I think, I should just let Mother Nature win and take back this small plot of desert. And then I see chickens sneaking into the corn, chickadees stealing sunflower seeds, and a rosemary bush that continues to defy odds - and I think, if they can persevere, so can I.

Hens, Nests and Eggs

These photos and the video at the end of this post were collected in the late spring/early summer of 2010. The photos taken inside the coop are a little hazy since they were taken with an iPhone3G with only indirect lighting.
A pigeon has decided to build her nest on top of the chicken nest box in the hen house. This pair of eggs are white and about 1 1/2 inch long.

Here, in the actual nest box below, are a clutch of chicken eggs. By the end of June, about half the hens are laying every day and about half are laying every third day or so. Not nearly the production as when they were younger, but not bad for 3 year old hens. The Marans are still out-laying everyone by a large margin.

Hens checking out the next box when it was first built. My husband and son did a nice job, and the hens started laying in the new nest box the day it was built.

My dust-bathing beauties. This is their favorite place to bath. It's in the garden where we once burned a big pile of brush. I had raked the leftover ashes into the sand so it wouldn't blow around - and they love it.

And, of course, what Mama Hen would be worth her salt without a video of her babies!

Wishing for the Weather to Settle

Although the apple trees survived our extra brutal winter this year, only the two Fuji's bloomed with any vigor. The Gala had less than one dozen flowers. Since the Gala is the cross-pollinator for the Fuji's, and visa versa, there chances are pretty slim that we will have apples this year. Add to the fact that they bloomed during a cold, windy week at the beginning of May when the bees were still sleepy means the chances are really about none. Inspection of the trees confirm this. At least the three young trees seem to have survived the winter. The old tree of unknown parentage that my husband saved from the house-builder's bulldozer, however, does not look like it will survive this brutal spring season. I continue to water her as if she were going to live - but if not, then this summer she will become something else. I recently saw a book on wooden buttons. Maybe some of her branches will be reincarnated that way. And her gnarled trunk might warm our house as firewood. And, of course, I have my photos of her. But for now, I encourage her with water, food and words.

Still, as the matron apple tree appears to decline, there are young, fresh plants just beginning their journey. Seven sunflowers in Bed 2 are up and about with large leaves patiently waiting for the hot summer sun. 15 more are barely out of the ground on the west side of the garden - planted under chicken wire, and hidden by dried weeds to thwart the hungry birds. They are planted on the west side, because, invariably, a sunflower will face the morning sun when it prepares to set seed.

Other Garden Status

• Peas - over 30 of them, ranging from just sprouted to 4 inches tall
  
• Spinach - var. "Matador" - 39, some with their first set of true leaves
  
• "New Toy" Day Lilies - 3 sets, barely out of the ground and only a few inches high - hoping their bright pink blooms will add color to the garden all season long
  
• Rosemary - continues to bloom
  
• Lemon Balm - self seeded babies are launching their first true leaves
  
• Bearded Irises - Deep maroon tips peak out of lengthening scapes
  
• Garlic - waits for the summer heat to spur them to bulk up their bulbs
  
• Hens - Acquiring 8-12 eggs a day

Enjoying the blessings of the season - in spite of snow last week and the chance of freezing night temperatures still in the forecast.

Apples this season? Almost

Fading September Fuji apple blossoms turning into tiny apples in mid-May. They are about the size of my thumb nail at this point.

Alas, summer thunderstorms in July that produced wild winds (but no rain that actually reached the ground) knocked all the apples off of the trees. The chickens did eat them up, but instead of ripe, fist sized apples, they got hard, green, golf-ball sized apples. At least they were not totally wasted, but still, I was hoping for some apples that maybe people could partake of. Still, at least I know that I have the right pollinators. My rescue tree of unknown parentage along with both my September Fujis and one other apple tree (I want to say it's the Gala) bloomed and fruited this year. Another apple tree didn't bloom, but it's young, yet, so I wasn't really expecting it to bloom.

Babies at about 3 weeks. They lived in my shower for about a month and then moved into the bottom half of a dog crate in the laundry room.

Baby chickies born in mid May should be laying eggs after Thanks Giving. Of the original 6 that hatched, 4 survived. 1 died of injuries sustained by overly helpful German Shepard (Dog was very gentle trying to put chickie back in the chickie cage, but not gentle enough. Our son put the chickie out of it's misery with my pistol.). The other died of unknown causes. Here you see a Silver Laced Wyandotte x Maran and a White Easter Egger x Maran.

The Roosters are pretty hard on the hens and have now been separated from them. The hens should be much happier and egg production might even go up. Only really need to have the Roosters running with the Hens when I want fertile eggs.

Babies! Babies!

This one was born on Saturday.
He/She is up and about, eating, drinking and causing a ruckus. And apparently, will need to move to a box with higher sides soon.

So, I think this one might actually be a Maran (R) x Easter Egger (H). Difficult to tell what color the EE was - white or brown, but this one certainly doesn't look black like SLW or Maran parentage.

The chickie here was born on Sunday, but was not yet robust enough to hang out with the older chicks. By the time the other three had hatched, this one was running around and was put in with the older ones.

Memorial Day arrivals with two more eggs left to hatch. Babies aren't even dry yet. It's a miracle. I AM reminded that there is a Higher Power somewhere.

Wow, what a weekend. I feel like the Chicken Maternity Ward. We thought Old Biddy was sitting on 7 eggs, but she was sitting on 9. 6 live births gives us a 60% success rate - pretty good for going "all natural". 1 didn't make it through its hatch. Two more? Well, they are still within a normal time frame - normal being between 18 days and 25 days. We are on day 23 right now. Going to keep them hydrated and see what happens. Some were put under old Biddy on the Sunday, so the ones that hatched today could have been "22 day" chicks. Still, even if the other two eggs don't hatch, I am deliriously happy with the small, noisy peepers in my bathroom.