Ginger and Huckleberry Finn

I could not have posed this picture better myself. Ginger and Huckleberry are definitely getting closer to each other. I have heard of male and female dogs that take care of each other like husband and wife....They are most assured a duo and Huck watches out for Ginger. Ginger's first heat has come and gone. She started May 1st. She has been acting strange lately and I question if she is either 1. prego or 2. having a "false pregnancy". She has been nesting under out front porch step, her teets have gotten bigger and Huckleberry is rather interested in her lately. I however can't hear or feel anything in her tummy. As for the other dogs Kodiak is going to be fixed this week and Max and Toby are in good health.

July 19th... things look promising!

Radishes and Brussel Sprouts

















Bok Choy
















Cabbage
















Tomatoes





























Corn, Peas, green beans and herb pots.
















Left side garden: Tomatoes, Cabbage, Collie Flower, Carrots, Lettuce and Squash
















Right side garden - Broccoli, Radishes, Brussel Sprouts, Bok Choy, Swish Chard, Lettuce, Spinach, Onions (red, white and yellow), Potatoes, Blue Berries and Lavendar

Fort Worden

Pacific Ocean / Straight of Juan de Fuca. The land you see far off in the distance is Canada.

A few weekends ago Kurt and I decided to take a road trip.... drive the complete 101 circle around the Olympic National Forrest. We took all the dogs (minus Kodiak since she gets so terribly motion sick...) and took off that morning. Our first and main stop was at Fort Worden near Port Townsend. We hiked around the park, saw the light house and the old bunkers where the guns were located to protect the Straight of Juan de Fuca if war times occurred. Guns were never fired from this Fort when it was in operation. It is a rather large State Park now that has several beach trails. This state park also has cabins to rent during the summer. As we continued on our journey around the 101 loop we stopped in Forks for dinner, the great home of the Twilight series plot. Oh, my goodness... what craziness that town is under! All advertisement signs stated something related to Twilight... "Stop in for a burger.. this is where Bella eats!"... "Vacancy - Twilight Special" ... "Bells buys here groceries here!" We attempted to have dinner in Forks however the lines were VERY long at all restaurants (20 minutes to get seated, 20 min. for someone to take your order and 45 minutes for your food to come per the waitress)... we we grabbed a "bite" (ha ha) to eat at the grocery where Bella shops of course! and headed home. It was a very nice day outing.

This picture was taken of our garden area on June 21st. Boy has it grown in one month! The picture below was taken on July 19th. This is the gate into the garden area. There is a tilled garden off to the right and the left hand side. We have plans to placed a gravel path between the two gardens leading up to the chicken coop gate and into the rose garden. In the garden off to the right we have planted: blueberries, potatoes, garlic, red/yellow/white onions, broccoli, brussle sprouts, spinach, lettuce, radishes, bok choy and lavender. In the garden off to the left we have planted: corn, peas, green beans, tomatoes, cabbage, colliflower, lettuce, carrots, fancy lettuce, squash, cucumbers, zucchini and peppers. As of today we have harvested some radishes, lettuce and some peas. I have also placed some herb pots on the back plastic you can see in the garden with: basil, dill, chives, cliantro, thyme, kale, lettuce and a few other potted veggies. Everything is growing like mad, including the weeds. I am having a REALLY hard time keeping up with the weeds. I continue to mulch like crazy and find myself searching for things to mulch with (grass clippings galore) to help curb the weeds to a manageable state. I try to weed at least a row every day and by the time I am done with a cycle through both gardens the weeds are a foot tall once again. Any organic suggestions would be welcomed readily!

Juliet's Roses

Juliet's memorial rose garden is definitely a work in progress, but consistently progressing. All of the rose bushes/plants etc. planted have produced this year. We have also planted some Calla Lillies and Peonies in the garden. We have a vision of the entrance to this garden being stone pavers arched with the arbor Kurt and I got married under. We vision a square garden with the edges lined with roses and the center of the square hosting smaller rose plants, a bird bath, decorative stones and a memorial plaque for Juliet. In the far corner of the garden we want to place a small bench, a quiet place for us to go for peace and quiet (as much peace and quiet that you can get with Waddles and Wanda in the background :-) I will keep taking pictures and adding to his entry as the roses come into bloom.

Chickens sure are curious birds. We have three ages of birds. In this picture you see the older birds which were born on May 8th. They are Golden Red Sex Link, Barred Rock & Silver Laced Wynndots. I have to say the Golden Red Sex Links are the nicest chickens and the Silver Laced Wynndots are mean to the others. The Barred Rocks are neither here nor there and are pretty complacent birds. So they are about 9 weeks old. These are the king birds of our coop. There are 18 of these birds altogether. We originally bought 20 with the idea that at least 5 would die, due to the learning curve we are under as chicken farmers. Two chicks died the second day we got them.. survival of the fittest at work in on garage. We have purchased all hens, but as you can see in this picture sexing chicks is not an easy task because low and behold we have one rooster. This is my favorite chicken of them all. I name her "now him" Henny Penny... not so Henny or Penny anymore. So a few weeks after we got the chicks, the ones which are now 9 weeks old, I decided to get 8 more chickens. I was very interested in getting some chickens that lay green eggs and I also was interested in getting some chickens that grow feathers on their feet. I had heard about the Americana chickens from a farming class I was taking and was told if you include one green egg in your batch of farm eggs for sale they will be more profitable. AND.. the chickens with feathers on the feet... well frankly this really intrigued me and I had seen one of these chickens at the fair and wanted 4 for my own. So I got four of each type of chicken to add to our coop. They were born on May 21st and are about 7 weeks old. Of the 8 we originally got, we now have 7 left. Not as steep of a learning curve that I originally thought would be present. I guess it is not that hard to raise chickens! So, that puts us up to 25 chickens... but wait there's more! I get a call from Julie, a teacher from Star Lake Elementary school (the school I worked at in Federal Way) and their classrooms are hatching chicken eggs as a school project and she wanted to know if I would be interested in raising the chickens when the class project is over. OF COURSE! I said. Who wouldn't want more chickens for their farm!? So between the two class rooms there were ten chickens that were hatched and survived. They were born around May 25th and are about 6-7 weeks old. These chickens are a mix of varieties and frankly I am still unsure what exactly they are. I don't know yet how many are hens and how many are roosters. Of the original 10 we have lost 2, so now we have 8 of the babies. We just lost one of these chicks recently. Kurt found the chicken nearly paralyzed in the coop. We isolated the chick in our garage, afraid it has some kind of illness that could spread to the others. We observed it for a day, hand fed it and watered it... but this was the first chicken we had to lay to rest by our own doing. Interesting experience to say the least... I now know why we don't name our chickens! This is a hard thing to face initially. However, it is also very prevalent when living on a farm that animals live and animals die.. just a fact of life that isn't always easy to face. The baby chicks which are still quite a bit smaller than the other hens can fit through the horse fencing we placed around the chicken coop. We have had two back to back day's of golden retriever (Ginger) vs. baby chick and round two was Kodiak vs. baby chick. Thankfully we were present for both matches and the chick survived. Ginger was actually very gentle with the chick... don't get me wrong she was very excited to catch the chicken and carry it around but it was obvious her intention was not to kill the chicken but just carry it around. Kodiak on the other hand... I think had we not been there we would have been down to seven baby chicks really quick. The chicks were also getting into my garden area and desecrating my vegetables... so we placed about one foot of chicken wire around the coop and that has since prevented them from getting into my garden and the dogs have reminded them not to go into the yard.

Chickens don't really take that much time. We actually probably put more time into the chickens that we should. We secure the chickens in their coop at night. We have heard many horror stories about possums, skunks, foxes, raccoons etc. coming into a coop at night and destroying a flock. So every night we close the coop door & lock it. We call this "putting the chickens to bed" around our house. Lately, some of the older chickens have decided to roost in our apple tree at night instead of going to bed. They have seemed to be fine and no major predator catastrophes yet. So, when we wake up in the morning first thing we do is going out and open the chicken coop. We lay down some feed and scratch for them.... fill up their water dishes... clean out the duck pool every other day. I have been cleaning out the chicken house about once per month.. I have read that this is actually more often than necessary but I have been need mulch for my garden and find the sawdust and chicken poop works well for weed control. We have resident blue jays, pigeons and doves that come and eat the chicken food as well. We have not yet figured out a way to control the other birds from coming into our coop.