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.