Tag Archives: chicken

Garden Mystery: Solved (somewhat)

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I think we have solved the mystery plant puzzle. I believe it is a pumpkin/gourd. Here is a picture. What do you think? We have a few of them springing up everywhere in the greenhouse. It is growing so much that it is pushing the potted plants off the shelves.
gourd/pumpkin

Is it a gourd or a pumpkin?

In any case, the greenhouse is so full we cannot even walk in there anymore.

Greenhouse jungle

We also have a few things popping up in the garden.

Curvy Cucumber
A curvy cucumber

Broccoli
Broccoli

Garlic top
Garlic Top Bulb looking down at it

So, this is looking down at the garlic. If you don’t cut the garlic scape as we did earlier in the spring, apparently it creates this bulb on TOP of the plant that looks just like a miniature bulb except it has all these little seed like things coming from it.  It’s weird the things you learn in the garden.

Chicken

And of course, what would a garden post be without a picture of some chickens! 😉

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Gardening in Greeley Colorado

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free-seeds
Our Seed starter setup

It is the start of the gardening season here in Colorado.  All the local stores start to stock seeds, compost, potting soil, pots, shovels, gloves and all the related items a person might need to grow some food or do some landscaping.  Cassie was lucky enough to score some free seeds at a local gardening workshop.  More seeds than we could possibly use.

We are going to plant a variety of peppers, tomatoes, melons, lettuce, strawberries and some flowers.

I got an early start last weekend but maybe I wore myself down to much.  I was sick the previous week and recently I’ve  had a fever of 102 for the last few days.    It really sucked, mainly kind of a chest cold.  It put me down for the count  and all I could do was sleep and try to keep warm.  Luckily today I am feeling better and I decided to resume light garden work and it was a beautiful day.

We’ve decided to move the chicken from the greenhouse (which was a temporary location) into a home built chicken coup that I am making so she wont eat all the seedlings.   More on the coop in coming days.

When I was expanding our vegetable garden I moved some rocks and landscaping fabric.  I found a whole lot of bindweed.  This stuff lives under any condition imaginable.  Its been under wraps for over 3 years and was just continuing to grow.   Why can’t food to grow this easily?

bindweed
Bindweed

Noodles?  No…Bindweed!

We bought some compost a week ago to amend the soil in our vegetable garden.  It was $1 a bag which I didn’t think was too bad.  But it is cow poop, so I dont think they could charge too much.  Their marketing spin on it was “Steer Manure”.   Makes it sound better.
garden-expansion
Chicken bug buffet

It is also time to cleanout the greenhouse where the chickens have been fertilizing all winter long.  We use an old cat feeder for the chicken food and Cassie’s mom Charlotte was kind enough to give us a chicken water dish.  She actually just happened upon it beside a trash can  one day while she was watching the chickens for us when we were in Puerto Rico! That is just plain lucky.
greenhouse-cleanup
Chickens old house

Due to the chicken needing to be restricted from growing plants we also have to build a section of fence.  We were finding parts today and some of them wouldn’t fit in the Honda so they went ON the Honda.

gate-on-car
Strapped to the roof

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Chicken BAAAAAAGOCK!

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I was sitting downstairs playing some Grand Theft Auto while Cassie was teaching aerobics when I had the odd feeling that I should check on the chickens. I went outside and saw one of the local cats that lives in the fields behind us was giving the chickens a hard time. I chased off the kitty and started my search for the ‘other chicken’. One was in the greenhouse and I couldn’t find the other…Fearing for the worst I checked outside the fenced area first thinking a cat could have scared the chicken over the fence. Didn’t see any chicken….People in the neighborhood didn’t look as if they had seen a chicken….So I went back in the backyard.

I saw the white chicken in the flower bed. Good, I thought. I went to grab it and it shot off like they do. After watching them eat grasshoppers and other bugs I’ve noticed that chickens have no latency. Their reaction time is instantaneous. It bolted off right down the window well.


“Chicken Little” in the window well

I figured at this point that it would be easiest to grab her from the downstairs window. Our roommate Luke lives in this downstairs bedroom. But he wasn’t home. I snapped a picture because it hit me…how odd is this? This situation certainly hasn’t happened to me before. So I snapped a few more.


Behind Glass

It was time to meet Cassie on bikes downtown, so I figured the chicken wasn’t going anywhere and I left. We came back and it was dark, the Chicken was still there. This video I think explains the chicken rescue.

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Pollo Frito

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Puerto Rico is not known much for its food, although if it stuck to the more traditional fare, it could be. The staple dish is rice and beans, there is sofrito (flavorful sauce), piraguas (shaved ice), pasteles (kind of like tamales but with yucca root -casava- instead of corn meal), mofongo (we ate at a restaurant called Mr. Mofongo and thought that was great!) and pinchos (chicken on a stick with a piece of french bread on the end). They also have tacos and burritos and other foods you would think would be like Mexican food, but they are all deep-fat fried. And of course, pollo frito! I have never seen so many fried chicken fast food restaurants! They are everywhere. And then we noticed what it did to many of the people. Most of the teenagers were in pretty good shape, but after about 20-25 years old, a LOT of them ballooned big time. So Britton (and my) code phrase for an extremely overweight person is pollo frito. Anyway, now you know the code, so its not so much of a secret.

The reason I get off on to this subject is that I want to raise chickens in Puerto Rico for their eggs, and maybe their meat. I do not think I could kill a chicken, so Britton would have to do that part. But I am sure the chickens would live better than most of the chickens in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs). They would be free-range and eat all the grains, bugs (big, yucky bugs I hope!) and fallen fruits. But I don’t want to wait…After going to the county fair this weekend with Britton and our niece, I think I may have Britton convinced to let me have a laying hen/chicken or two in our backyard! I think it would be good practice. Plus Schnoodle needs help eating all these grasshoppers! I just hope that there aren’t foxes, skunks, weasels, etc that will eat them here or in PR. I am still worried about Callie for that same reason. Still no sign of her. Maybe she’s on summer vacay….

Here’s a video of Noodle trying to help rid us of the grasshopper take-over, but I think she is playing more than working!

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