The Patient Farmer

Four or five weeks ago I took stock of the herb garden and was convinced our lone week of below freezing temps had killed off several plants. Well, with my thesis near completion (woohoo, sigh) I was able to look up from my computer and see that everything except for two rosemary bushes had come back and flourished. Maybe being a lazy farmer can pay off afterall. Turns out tarragon, mint, and chives completely die and return in the spring. Who knew. The tulips have sprung and the orchard has blossomed. Soon we'll be drinking lemonade watching our new expanded flock run around. We fell in love with the Silkie chicken breed when we had Muppet and decided to raise a few from chicks. They are incredibly difficult to sex so we got four thinking we will need to re-home two roos. For those of you who were privy to the discussion of how many chicken can we really get, we were slated to also get a Favorelle breed chick but they just never came in to the feed store before the silkie chicks became to old and feisty to accept new girls to their flock.

The fuzzy girls have quadrupled in size but they still have about four more weeks inside. They need extra time to get their adult feathers and for nighttime temperatures to rise before they can be outside. And they are not all girls. We even picked out names: Stuffy, Razzle, Beaker (our definite roo), and Petri (not sure yet). They like to be petted, sit in our hands, and the typical chicken activities of eating, scratching, and sleeping. Their feathers are missing a stiffening barb on the end which makes them fluffy downy soft. I think they look more like stuffed animals than chickens. This is likely the reason they all got fanciful character names.

Well (much to my sister's concern) here are the new little ones. We sadly were required to re-home both silky roos which made room for more. As luch would have it this was the same time that those elusive favorelles came in to the store along with a new very rare breed to the US called penedesenca which lay almost black eggs (we shall see . . .) So we got two each knowing we would sell half and we did to a very nice couple living on a farm. Then mike went to get more feed and found new arrivals of polish chickens and came home with a last chick. And that is how we came to have 9 chickens (including our original four adult hens). If you're keeping up with all this that means we have 1 black silkie, 1 white silkie, 1 ameraucana, 1 buff oprington, 1 welsummer, 1 australorp, 1 polish, 1 salmon favorelle, and 1 partidge penedesenca.

The new wee ones took quite well to the older silkies. As a general rule it is disastrous to blend chicks after 2-3 weeks of age. We were concerned despite being told that silkies are the most gentle and maternal of all breeds. Turns out, once again, we should listen- if you look closely your will spot a four day old polish chick sleeping soundly under the wing of our black silkie. Current names are: Lulu (polish), Tilla (favorelle), and Penelope (penedesenca).

Shells

We've been talking about it. We've been wanting to do it. The first time we saw them we thought they were soooo cool. The chickens really dig them (literally & figuratively). The Mayor of Kenton hates them ("...don't get those damn things in my yard..."). They never decompose. But Best of all, the bazillion slugs in our yard are gonna hate them and will now stay away from our fruits & veggies because we now have them (hopefully the slugs slime over to the mayors yard). Can you say 2 pickup bed full of 100% Oregon Grown Hazelnut shells from one our favorite new places, Boring Bark. Bring on the slug free Strawberries!!

Spring Has Sprung!

I don't care what the calendar says- around here there are just too many signs pointing to spring. We've got warmer weather (third warmest January on record in Portland), the bulbs are sprouted, our girls are all laying eggs (with the exception of Gladys who is slowly finishing up her molt) and brand new baby! No. Not us. Nicole's sister had a healthy (and fast) baby boy last weekend on Superbowl Sunday. Welcome to the world Roark- we are excited for you to visit and play on your aunt and uncle's urban farm. Check out the smiles on mom, dad, and auntie nicole...

We've logged a few miles on the prius- the day before our trip to Seattle for baby Roark we visited Raintree Nursery (about half way from Portland to Seattle) and loaded up on this year's perminant additions to the orchard. We couldn't help but find a few other odds and ends. We moved the apple tree to the front yard and planted lingonberries underneath to make room for a new black mission fig tree in the back. Other additions: black, white, and red currents, a dwarf half nectarine half peach tree, non fuzzy kiwi trees that produce small oval kiwis that are eaten like grapes, marionberry, boysenberry, thornless blackberries, more strawberries. and asparagus. We should have a lovely harvest in a few years when they grow up. And we took advantage of the great sunny weather by cleaning up the yard and getting ready for new projects but that's for another blog entry another day . . .

On completely unrelated news- some friends introduced us to a fabulously crack-like board game called Settlers of Catan. Its relatively new and out of Germany. Think monopoly, stratego, and risk all rolled up together. We like the sustainable spin of trading resources and building farms with the resources of grain, ore, lumber, brick, and sheep. Check it out- its hard to convey its complex strategy and how easy it was to learn. Quite engaging! Or better yet . . . call us to play!