The past couple of weeks

It's been awhile since I posted last, but I have been busy. We bought four more chickens - these are Barred Rocks. We got them from a farm that had a couple thousand chickens. It seemed a little silly for us just to get four, but that brings our flock up to 15. They were missing most of their feathers off their backs. Now, a mere two weeks later, their feathers are growing back nicely. Egg production is a lot less because we suddenly have been experiencing 85 degree temperatures. We went from getting back up to 7 eggs per day to 4, and yesterday we hit an all-time low of 2. Pathetic! I hope they get used to the heat soon. I'm glad we have 15 chickens right now. I'd hate to come home to no eggs at all. The hens are just really starting to get along with eachother. That has been tough as well.

Now, to talk about my gardening ... My brother had my rototiller for a couple of weeks. He got it running rather well for me. I need a new gas cap as mine has a big hole in it and is letting dirt get in and run through my little engine. It's been clogging up my carbuerator (how do you spell that?). But now it runs rather well. The evening i got it back, I rototilled up the expansion of my herb garden. With all the little herbs in it it looks like crap, but that will soon change. I have dill, cilantro, baptisia, lavender, mints (3 varieties - apple, chocolate and peppermint), yarrow, oregano, tarragon and rosemary. I also have columbine and purple coneflower that I started from seed. I can't wait to see how this looks next year. That was a Thursday ... the following Sunday, My daughter and I finished planting the main garden with beans, kohlrabi, tomatoes (I seed-started all those as well), broccoli (seed-started) and cauliflower. Yesterday, a mere week later, I noticed that my beans are up already. I have 4 varieties of beans: wax, green, purple and dragon's tongue. Yesterday I also dragged the rototiller out to the field because my neighbor finished planting his field corn this past Thursday and left a nice raked up spot for me to plant my viney stuff. So I broke a bit more ground and planted my potatoes, sweet potatoes, lemon cucumbers, Japanese long cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, spaghetti squash, buttercup squash, gourds and pumpkins. It's being watered right now ... as I write this!

We've already eaten some strawberries out of my garden. I have to go build a cage to keep the birds out. Fortunately, I have enough chicken wire and old pallets to do this with. We also have eaten some spinach, and will probably have more spinach for dinner tonight ... or perhaps I should scramble up some eggs with some spinach and ham for lunch? mmmmmmmmmmmmm ... I'm getting hungry already!

Happy gardening!