Suburban Permaculture Project

This cold weather is dragging me down. Between that and finances, I'm further behind than I wish to be on getting ready for spring. Thanks to the help of a recent houseguest, however, I am not as far behind as I was. :)

The pagoda has been started, but due to an unfortunately timed bout of illness is not finished. The patio is swept, however, and all the leaves stacked in the big pen. I also finished one more panel of chicken wire. The pathway is weeded, and in the process we found more path! This is one of the joys of an older home. :) It can surprise you.

The ladies are clucking along, 2-4 eggs a day, despite the weather. Possibly because I've been winter-spoiling them when it is cold. I hate the cold, so I presume they do to. I'll give the wyndottes this much, they may not like the heat, and they are annoyingly consistent flyers, but they weather winter like no ones business.

I've built a makeshift windbreak on the side of their kennel that faces in to the nest box, and have been feeding them warm rice and lightly coating their feed with drippings on the freezing days. Seems to be helping, or at least not hurting any.

I found that seed catalogs are far too tempting and lead to great indecision. Since I want to start a garden bed and fill the earth boxes this spring, I've decided to go with what providence suggests. In this case, three articles that showed up in my inbox had lists of suggested veggies. One of "Easy to grow", one of "kid friendly veggies" , and one with "top ten nutritious". So I'm gonna make a list of those, and whichever of them I can find, that is what I'll try to grow this year. Fate, fate will be blamed. bwahahaha

ahem.

I may have a lead on some no-longer-fit-for-critters hay, which would be awesome, and make building the garden bed just about free.

Now if it would just warm up.... ~longing sigh~ I really hate the cold.
( cut for big copypasta )