Summertime

It is ridiculously hot today.  One of those days where I lose any ecological fervor and just want to sit under a sprinkler all day, sipping icy drinks made with fruit from a million miles away.  (Local, schmocal...give me a pineapple-mango smoothie and an avocado on the side for a snack, please.)


I don't, of course, indulge myself this way, but I'd like to.  However, with a heat index of well over 100 degrees, I am doing my best to ease the chickens through the day--they had a watermelon treat this morning, fresh from the refrigerator, and I've been checking their water often.  Last month, I froze the remnants of a fruit salad in a square plastic freezer container, and I decided to sacrifice that to the Girls today too--I ran the container under hot water for a minute so that I could slip the big chunk of frozen juice and fruit into a bowl.  I've created a little chicken-Shangri-La on the (slightly) cooler concrete slab that is shaded by the pergola in the back yard--with their water, food, the frozen fruit, the portable nest box from the outside pen, and a slowly dripping hose.  If Roxie still insists on being a diva with heat stroke, then she can just go ahead!

Roxanne.  Big mouthed hypochondriac

I also harvested garlic today, and was barely in time for some of it.  Last fall, when I planted the cloves, I doubled the size of our garlic beds--and yet after digging it all up today, I am sure we will still run out half way through the winter.  It was hot, HOT work, but I am glad to have it done.  In the process of digging up the bulbs (under the heavy straw mulch that had been fortified by a winter in the chicken coop) I was happy to see a gathering of the biggest earthworms I've yet to discover in the garden.  Huge, huge suckers, all scrambling out of the sun and heat.  It is so nice to see the long, slow work of soil-building beginning to show some progress.  I wish I'd had the preschoolers here to witness these gargantuan, wiggly guys; something tells me they would have been a huge hit.

A few months ago, I noticed a bunch of volunteer sunflower plants coming up under our birdfeeder in the back yard.  Since they were already 18" tall, I decided to transplant them rather than starting my own from seed.  So, I moved them a few feet away along a southern wall of our house and went on to sow seeds from a old-timey flower mix underneath the sunflowers.  My plan was to transform a rather ugly little corner with a riot of blooming color.

One small problem:  the chickens also like this wall as a place for dust baths and sunbathing.  Have I mentioned how quickly the girls can take a patch of green and turn it into a dust-bowl?  In an attempt to give my flowers a chance to become established without the constant interruption of the four chickens of the apocalypse, I used some (rather ugly) metal fencing to barricade the flower beds.  The seedlings flourished behind their fence, while I plotted how to create a more aesthetically-pleasing barrier....

Anyone remember the simple wooden fence I made years ago for my herb garden at the old house?  I got the idea from Gayla Trail's You Grow Girl, and used small branches and sticks to construct a very minimal fence along our sidewalk.  Last week, I decided to finally get rid of the metal stuff and recreate my stick fence--in the hopes of making this corner pretty AND chicken-proof.

The outcome?  Well, definitely a prettier corner than having it be a wasteland of dust baths for the chickens, and the stick-fence is worlds better than the metal stuff.  But chicken-proof?  Please.  Not with my spoiled gang.  Perhaps mildly chicken-deterrent is a better way of phrasing it....