I'll first start with what has to be one of my most prideful moments EVER! Our incredibly cool neighbors to the east, Michael & Rosalyn, hired a professional gutter company to replace/re-route their gutters and install a rain barrel system of their own... well, the contractor approached us near the end of his installation and commented that he was admiring our rain barrel system and asked if he could look it over. He did and proceeded to ask how we did it, where we got the materials, ideas and where he could get old wine barrels... needless to say, i was beaming big time! Abby (the cat) is checking out my handy work and is not so impressed...
Our equally cool neighbors to West, Bud & Joanie brought us over about 6 raspberry canes from a yard at one of their dozen or so rentals in portland (Bud by the way is the unofficial mayor of Kenton). These along with a new blackberry start, additional strawberry plants and grape vines that we just picked up at portland nursery (http://www.portlandnursery.com/) , completed our fruit quota (for now anyway). To date our fruit producer count is 8 raspberries, 2 blueberries, 14 strawberries, 1 blackberry, 1 plum tree, 1 apple tree, 1 pear tree, & 2 grape vines - We are going to be jam making, fruit salad eating, pie making & eating, wine drinking fools.
Finally, we have our first money making scheme in place... we have been housing the chickens indoors in what will be the roost (hen house) that will be connected via an entrance ramp to our chicken run when it is finished and moves outside. It works fine as a brooder but we really want to finish the roost but can't with the chics living in it else we impale them with drills, nails, etc. so late on a saturday night, we discussed the concept of building a separate brooder. Within a 1/2 hour, we (nicole) designed it, sunday morning we gathered up the necessary materials, and by sunday night, we (nicole) had the brooder fully constructed and in place. Honestly it turned out sooo good that we (mike) thought of the idea of renting it out to other newbe chickeners when our 3 ladies permanently relocate to the backyard. The brilliance of the design is that it has removable partitions so as the chickens grow, it can grow with them, it can be easily disassembled by removing a few nuts & bolt, can be transferred flat (think IKEA style) so can fit into the trunk of a car, it's easy to clean and so on. Nicole should be really proud because it is really really really good and we will make some money off this little design because for new chicken parents, a brooder is very necessary but very temporary...
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Lesson: don't build your own brooder, rent out the mufe expandable brooder at an easy on the wallet value of only $50 for 8 weeks, we'll even throw in the infrared bulb for an additional $10.
Real Lesson: A farmer at the local Vancouver farmers market said a great space saver for strawberries is to plant them around the base of blueberry plants about 8 inches apart. who knew. we planted 6 around each blueberry and will keep you posted on how it works out...
In my completely unqualified opinion, I think $10/week is reasonable and maybe even $100 for the full 8 weeks...don't undersell your hard work :)
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