First Dust Bath

Saturday was a busy day. Terry and I put up the last panel on the high tunnel first thing before the wind came up. It went somewhat better for our experience with the upper end panel on the other side. Here’s where we are now. Once we get the doors up, we’ll be ready for the cover.

The high tunnel

After we got the panel up, we put up the chick fence. It’s been awful hot this week, and it seemed like it would be good to get them out in the fresh air. We opened the door and Hilda chased them all out and closed the door from the inside so she could change the bedding. It was getting pretty ripe in there! At first, the chicks just stood around outside the door, wondering what this was all about.

What is this green stuff? Can we eat it?

After an hour or so, they were moving around, eating grass and taking dust baths. The dust baths weren’t very dusty because of rain on Friday, but their instincts are good. I don’t think I fully appreciated instincts until I got chickens. They know so much right out of the shell. Good thing, too—how would I teach them to dust bathe?

Exploring the new world

dust bath video

We are poised to have a good grape crop this year. I’d better get drinking the rest of the grape juice from years past.

The poppies! The poppies are popping—more every day. The baby’s breath is a nice accent. And both of  these are reseeded from the free seed mix I planted on a whim last year. Burpee was doing a promotion that had to do with sharing a smile. You were supposed to grow the flowers, cut a bouquet, give it to someone, and send Burpee a picture of that person’s smile. It’s ironic that they included poppies. Even though they propagate like crazy, the flowers hardly last a day on the plant. What could we expect when they’re cut?

Poppies and baby's breath

Also from the department of beautiful flowers, we have a blooming catalpa tree. I’m not sure I ever looked closely at a catalpa flower before. The nectar guides start orange and turn red as they age, like horse chestnuts but unrelated. The convergence suggests some sort of adaptive significance. But what?

Catalpa flowers in red (left) and orange (right)

Check out this bud! It’s all folded up like origami, and somehow it will open perfectly into a beautiful blossom. Ain’t nature grand?

Catalpa buds ready to open

High Tunnel, part 7 and more!

It’s been a busy week, as most weeks will be from now until the first frost. We’ve had some new visitors to the bird feeder. A brown thrasher showed up early in the morning a couple of times.

Brown thrasher

At first, I thought this little guy was a juvenile fox squirrel, but when I did some research, I saw that fox squirrels have brown bellies, and this one’s underside is clearly white. It’s a red squirrel! I did not know they came this far south. We must have enough conifers on the property to support him or her. The evidence is right there.

Red squirrel

This large dragonfly hung out on the deck door screen for quite awhile one day.

Dragonfly

The penstemon are in flower now.

Penstemon

More poppies are blooming every day in the south garden. I was surprised to see so much polymorphism (many forms). Most of the poppies are dark red and have green/brown pollen, which you can see on the anthers that surround the central ovaries. Some have four black and white markings in the middle.

Poppy with four black and white bars in the center and brown/green pollen

Some have only two.

Poppy with two bars (top and bottom)

Some have none. Of those with none, some have red petals and some are more orange. The orange ones have yellow pollen and a white ring around the middle. Amazing.

Orange poppy with white in the middle and yellow pollen

I saw a hummingbird buzz a poppy this week, but I’m skeptical that it could get any nectar from a flower this shape.

We started harvesting cucumbers this week.

Cucumbers

Terry and I were out early Thursday morning to tackle the highest end panel on the high tunnel. We wanted to get it done before the wind came up. First, we lined up the straight edge with the crossbeam. My job was to hold the plastic square and tight.

My job: hold plastic square with the edge of the crossbeam

Terry put screws through lath to secure the plastic.

Terry screws down the lath while I hold

Once that was done, we hoisted the top of the plastic over the rafter. I helped hold while Terry put on clamps.

Plastic clamped over the rafter

Then Terry put screws and washer in to hold the plastic to the metal rafter. He started on the west end.

Terry attached the plastic to the metal rafter with screws and washers

He worked his way toward the middle. Note that he is already stretching to reach.

Terry moves east, putting in screws and washers

The middle was the hardest. Here he is standing tip-toe on the highest rung of the ladder (standing on the very top rung is not recommended).

Terry on his tip-toes, putting in the highest screws

And here’s how it looked when we were done.

End of the day

The chicks are already getting their flight feathers. This is one of the Big Red Broilers.

Big Red Broiler, 12 days old

Here is the tan and brown Americauna

Americauna chick

And here’s one of the silver-laced Wyandottes.

Silver-laced Wyandotte

We changed the wood chips yesterday and opened the whole coop for them. (Previously we had blocked off half the coop so it would be easier to check them for pasty butt each morning.) They hung together as a group while they explored their surroundings.

The chicks explore their new space without social distancing.

They all seem to have adjusted well to the expanded space. It would be good if we had some decent rain today. We haven’t had measurable precipitation since June 10, when hurricane Cristobal gave us 2”. It will be a great deal easier to put up the chick fence if the ground has some moisture. Right now, it’s hard as a brick.

High Tunnel, part 6 and baby chicks!

Hurricane Cristobal brought us some much-needed rain on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week. The rain came with high winds, which were less welcome. Terry grumbled about picking up branches. Cristobal gave us a parting gift of a rainbow Wednesday evening.

Rainbow as Hurricane Cristobal moves east

Friday morning, we finally had the right combination of physical stamina and calm weather to cut the end panels of the high tunnel. It was a high stakes operation—do it wrong, and there’s no going back. We rolled out the plastic on the driveway, weighting it down with boards so it would not catch the gentle breeze.

Unrolling the panel

 My job was to hold the end of the tape while Terry measured and marked the width…

Measuring width

And the length.

Marking a line down the length of the panel

Then we took deep breaths, and Terry made the first cut.

cutting the first panel

We put in the first four panels Friday afternoon. Four of the panels are on the inside to strengthen the corners. These are held with “wiggle wire” that we wiggled into a metal channel. It doesn’t seem possible to get the plastic completely taut, but it seems to hold well and will make replacing the plastic easier when the time comes.

Reinforcing panel on the side of the high tunnel

We put up the end panels next to the door next. This was trickier because of the curve. The plastic goes around the rafter and is secured with Tek-screws and washers. When we got the north end done, we called it a day.

Panel next to the door

Also on Friday, we got the long-awaited call from the post office. After nearly two weeks of getting up extra early thinking that we would be picking up our chicks at 6:00 a.m., they came on a later truck, so we didn’t have to go until after 8:00. Here’s the chicks in their box. The tan chicks are Big Red Broiler meat chickens. The three black and white ones are silver laced Wyandottes. We also got three Americaunas, which are the mismatched chicks in various shades of brown.

Delivery day chicks

Box of chicks video

Here’s a picture of three of our chicks at three days, which was the day we could put them on wood chip bedding and add chick grit to their food. We had only two chicks with pasty butt on the second day and one on the third and fourth day. That one was a broiler, and I have no idea if it was the same one. I certainly hope there will not be any pasty butt today. Once that happens we can let the chicks run around the whole coop because we will not have to inspect them every morning.

The chick in front is one of the Americauna. The middle chick is a sliver laced Wyandotte, and there's a Big Red Broiler in back.

3-day-old chicks video

I’m excited that the mystery flowers in the south garden are poppies! I love that bright red color (no surprises there). Poppies are ephemeral. The Johnny jump-ups have not yet lost a single blossom in two weeks, but poppy flowers start fading in their second day.

Volunteer poppies

I’ve stopped picking asparagus. From now on, it can keep all of its food energy to store in the roots for next year. The first crop of radishes was ready. We’ll try a second crop even though I’ve never been successful. I’ve heard it said that it is possible.

Radish harvest

The pole beans are up, as are the zucchini and cantaloupe.

Pole beans

The down side of the rain was that every weed seed in the south garden sprouted. I will get down there shortly to start pulling them out while the weather is cool. Ever since Cristobal went through, the weather has been perfect for outdoor work—upper 40’s in the morning and low 70’s in the afternoon. Soon it will be beastly hot again. The worst part of that is keeping the chicks cool. It’s so much easier to keep them warm.

 

High tunnel, part 5

The high tunnel frame is complete. We are now waiting for a calm day to cut plastic for the end panels. The ground beneath the high tunnel slopes from west to east. Thus, we needed to fill in the west side so the door would be straight. Terry made these awesome raised beds, which will keep the fill in place. He will fill some in the center with soil soon so we can plant our herbs.

Terry also made a narrow entryway on the east side so we can get in and out of the high tunnel without raising the main 10.5’ door. I just hope I don’t gain much weight.

It’s been at least 3 years since I planted a native pollinator garden by the garden shed. I only got one wild blue indigo (Baptisia australis) among the plants. As of last year, I feared that it was getting crowded out by the more aggressive plants around it. This year, however, it has come back like gangbusters with lots of foliage and, even better, its first floral spike.

Wild blue indigo is in a different genus than true indigo (Indigofera tinctorial). Both are in the legume family. Wild blue indigo does not produce the rich blue dye associated with true indigo, although it has been used as a (poor) substitute.

My woodland garden is looking better. The large plants in this picture are joe pyeweed. I have already opened the top of the netting so Joe can get out. I should probably get down there and take down the netting before it gets entangled in new plant growth.

We finally got the last of the south garden planted this week. This garden is always a gamble in these days of having a 100-year flood every 4 years. But we ran out of room in the north garden. We haven’t planted pole beans in a while, and their trellises take a fair amount of space, as can be seen in the photo. We also have two rows of shallots and a row of zinnias. At the end of the bean rows, I stuck in some cabbages and Brussels sprouts that were left over from the north garden. Zucchini seeds are in the row at the left.

My johnny jump-ups are blooming their little hearts out. They are such cheerful little guys. They make me happy.

No fireflies yet.

Memorial Day

It seems like Memorial Day was a long time ago, but it was just last week. Pat, Nancy, and Jane came out for a bonfire and cookout. We didn’t have much to burn, relative to our usual fires. Mostly this was a funeral pyre for the Eastern red buds that died in the polar vortex. Here we are at the fire, practicing our social distancing.

Socially distancing at the fire ring

The most exciting thing about the fire was the discovery of a downy woodpecker nest in a snag right behind where we were sitting. The parents seemed unconcerned by our presence and kept feeding their babies right along. They cooperated well with our photography. They paused and looked around before entering or exiting the nest.

Downy Dad brings food to the nest

Checking that the coast is clear before leaving the nest

Mom takes a turn feeding the chicks

Off for another hunt

My maidenhair fern is still alive! I was glad to see it. It certainly took its sweet time to unfurl its fronds.

Maidenhair fern

As spring transitions to summer, the shooting stars are blooming. They might be my favorite spring flower.

Shooting stars

Jane grew some Johnny jump-ups from seed and gave me some. The first one bloomed on Memorial Day. Two other blossoms joined it during the week. I’m impressed by how long the flowers last.

Johnny jump-ups

The irises are blooming as well, both the wild blue flag that I transplanted when we moved here and the domestic iris that Nancy gave me two years ago.

Blue flag (wild iris)

Domestic irises

The potatoes are finally up.

Potatoes

The radishes, lettuce, and scallions are happily growing in Earth Boxes.

Left to right: lettuce, radishes, scallions

The update on the tadpoles is not good. I walked to the last remaining puddle on Tuesday and there were hundreds of tiny black tadpoles.

Tadpoles

Tadpoles with my finger for a size reference

Most were hidden in the muck but with each step, they fanned out in front of my feet to look for a different hiding place.

We got a half inch of rain on Thursday, but it wasn’t enough. I walked over last night before I put the chickens to bed and saw that all of the living tadpoles were crowded into three small, shallow pools. There will be no survivors this year. I see birds pecking around in the area. The tadpoles will be a good source of protein for growing chicks. Life goes on.