Suburban Permaculture Project

Quick update, then I'm back out into the yard. :)

Yesterday was Big Event. For those not in Aggieland, Big Event happens every March, and those of us who sign up get four hours (ish) of help from a group of volunteer Aggies. I've participated a half a dozen years now, twice as a student, four times as a member of the community, and it has always been a good experience.

This year, I got 8 girls from a Christian Sorority, all of whom were enchanted by my poultry and impressed with our efforts to grow produce. They swept off the gutters, helped me gather about a tree's worth of branches and sticks from around the yard, and took all the wire down from the old chicken pen, salvaging what they could. They also raked up leaves and placed them near the current pen for me, and organized as many bricks etc as they could find so that they are easy for me to re-use. :) I let them go early cuz they had worked so hard I ran out of things to do that weren't obviously adding on things to my job order (which is a no-no).

Later in the afternoon, the rental neighbors had someone over finally taking the big limb off the tree (it cracked during the ice storm and has been laying on their roof since). I went over as they were finishing up and asked if anyone needed cold drinks...fetched water, and as I handed the last one to the one who seemed in charge (he got to drive the heavy equipment) admitted I had an ulterior motive...what would he charge to take this small ugly tree down in my front yard?

He did it for free! :)

sweeeeet

Between that, and finding a pile of old fence boards on the side of the road, I feel pretty darn happy. Karma even gave me a chance to give back when two teens fundraising for a trip to DC came by that evening...I gave them my tip money.

Happy day.

We have lots of green tomatoes refusing to ripen on the vine, might be time to pull out the frying pan.

Our chickens, after the recent loss of one, seem to have settled in and are recovering from the overcrowding at the other place, so that now we are getting an egg every couple of days. Not bad for a relatively cold time of year. We even had an egg two mornings in a row recently. This makes me happy.

At this rate, if you calculate the cost of layer feed to the number of eggs we are getting, we are paying about 40 cents per egg...but since we are also getting "happy", and scrap management out of them, I really don't care a whole lot about that. I want to expand their space and then get some more ladies next year, bringing our flock up to the 10 hens we are allowed, but for now: happy happy to watch my ladies clucking and scratching about. Eggs are just a bonus. Eventually we'll need to get more eggs out of the girls to support their upkeep, but for now....

Chickens!!

I'm in love. :P

This is the lady who meets me at the gate each day, "Top chicken". She was a little unsure about this flashy thing I had brought with me, and was letting me know that even as I snapped the picture.

The other girls decided that if Top Chicken was nervous, they were going to the other part of the pen, thank you much....little did they know that I have a sport option,and running from my camera will not keep it from capturing their souls.


And on a "greener living" note: we haven't turned on the a/c or the heat for a month, with the minor exception of a few hours during a recent party. The house could still use some insulation, but I have to say, starting with brick is a lovely thing. Our neighbors down a few blocks got solar panels for their house, which has me completely envious, and we recently attended Go Green First Friday in Downtown. It is so lovely to see all the little corners of environmental consciousness poking up about town. :)

Ok, I've been really bad about posting lately, many of you already know the power supply on my pc blew and I'm having to share computer, but also I've just been lazy, so here's a quick update.

The chicken pen is taking longer than we thought, mostly because life keeps throwing us curve balls, but progress is....progressing. Basically, we have all the posts in for the main section, and the two rows of poultry netting in place that make up the walls, and a kind helper came and installed the privacy fence panels left from our last project to make the walls of the eventual-coop section.

This means what is left is putting the poultry netting over the top (more to keep predators out than to keep chickens in, if our dog was worth anything we wouldn't need this part *grin*), wire the top and bottom panels of netting together (I wish they sold 6' poultry netting here, but they don't), and put paving stones around the inside at the bottom of the wire. We actually didn't know we would need to do that last part, but our chicken-experienced friend came over to check things out (thanks laughingturtle !) and informed us that if we want to save headache later we should do that now. She informed us that  chickens like to scratch holes in their dirt to give themselves dust baths. I knew that part, what I didn't know was that they have a decided preference for doing so at the EDGE of their pen....and then escaping through the resultant hole.

Suburban chickens + hole in their panel= unhappy neighbors. So we will absolutely want to do the paving stone thing.

So complicated.

On a fun note, we attended the monthly Brazos Progressives potluck and met several other suburban folks with backyard chickens. When they heard we were installing a pen we were regaled with funny stories about their own building surprises and some really hysterical tales of what happens when city folks are faced with their first egg and/or butchering.

It was good to hear others walking this path and know, without doubt,  we aren't the only ones who are finding the practical is often more complex than the theory.

If gryphynshadow  hasn't told you, she has her first tiny broccolis starting on the now very-much-larger broccoli plants, and we have a few strawberries, they just aren't red yet. She plans to harvest the first crop of (tiny) onions this weekend, and I'll try to get pic updates to you as soon as my pc is back up and running.