The Chicks

Henrietta - Helen - Betsy

They are to cute for words. I could watch them peep around all day.

Springtime in the PNW

The Coop all stained up.

The Ornamental Pear getting ready to bloom.

Lilac Buds

Crocus

Quince

And last but not least our ornamental cherry.

Coop Construction Continues.

The roof is on. This week will be filled with staining, painting and waterproofing the best we can. After that we will build the run. Can't wait to see what the chickens think. 9 Days till the chicks come home.

Today it was 56 and sunny! We ate our lunch outside. Those are two things I can't imagine happening at our old home on the east coast.

Irish Red Ale.

Joe steeping the grains.

The wort with hops added.

Jen smelling the wort as it gets cooled in an ice bath.

The ale fermenting in the loft.

We brewed this ale when we had some out of town visitors in order to sway them into brewing their own.

Brewed on 1/17/10 with an original gravity of 1.042 and a final gravity when bottled on 1/30/10. Giving it an ABV of about 4%.

We first tasted this beer way to early 2/6/10. We were hoping it would be ready by the super bowl but it wasn't. Our second try on the 11th was much better. We are finding now that the longer the beer ages the better it tastes. We will most likely not drink much of this until the pale ale and porter are gone. The porter which has been bottled almost a month now is amazing. The Joy of Home Brewing recommends saving a 6 pack of each beer brewed to drink at the two month mark to show its true flavor. Hopefully we can restrain ourselves.

We spent 24.95 on the Irish Red and if we bought it at the store it would be around 50 dollars. Which makes us 113.63 in the hole.

Garden Planning.

I have made lists. Mapped our our small plot on graph-paper. Thought about it some more. I think it is time to get some seeds. We are mostly going to plant greens. We eat lots and lots of greens. Currently we eat a head of lettuce and a bunch of spinach a week. This could be much more. Every morning at least a cup of spinach goes into our smoothies. I could easily add sauteed greens as a side to many of our dinners. The plan is spinach, arugula, devils tongue lettuce, kale, and swiss chard. In the summer we generally spent 5 dollars a week on Farmers Market greens. The other big component is going to be beets. We love beets. Farmers market beets are the best but usually we can't justify the expense to eat them as often as we like. Bunches of beets are usually about 3 dollars and only come with 3 small to medium beets! So I plan on 2-3 varieties if there are extra I will try my hand at pickling. Carrots are anther big thing that we eat. We went through 5 lbs in the last two weeks! I don't want to plant orange carrots instead I am going to do a purple variety and a white one. Then there will be scallions, bunching onions, and celery to round out our food staples. We are excited about the idea of canning and pickling so I am going to grow some pickling cucumbers as well. We are also going to plant at least 7 if not more tomato plants.
I am looking to get seeds from Uprising Seeds and Territorial Seed. I will check some racks this weekend so I don't have to pay for shipping and can support some local stores.
13 Days til our Chicks arrive!

Chickens! 20 Days!

This lady is a Black Australorp. She is 'very good' and producing brown eggs.
Should have a sweet temperament.

This Lady is a Buff Orpington. Joe and I already call her Fat Chicken. (affectionately of course.) She is 'good' at laying brown eggs.

And last but not least is this lady a Rhode Island Red. She, I imagine, will be the ring leader as she is the most aggressive breed in the brood. They are described as prolific layers of brown eggs!

Ok. These are not mine. I ordered these three breeds on the phone today! Woo! It feels a little funny to buy animals on the phone but it saved me some gas by not driving to the store just to have them run my credit card. Soooo the chicken count down begins! 20 Days til the chickens come home to roost! (or you know.. be cute chicks in a box)

Coop Raising

With no garage at the house our work areas are the beds of two pickum up trucks.
Murph has all the plans, cuts, and measurements in his head. Impressive.

Here you can see how it will look inside. The ramp can be raised and lowered with a pulley. The ramp leads to the living quarters and nesting box and above that is the roost.