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.