Early May on the "Farm"

We've continued to make progress on our growing garden. The first of the tomatoes are outside, huddled in their walls of water for another week or so. The second round of tomatoes are still happily hanging out under the kitchen windows--one even has a flower already! So exciting!

The bush beans--or "future dilly beans"--are all in the ground as of last weekend. The herbs I planted indoors all made it--and I haphazardly moved them outdoors to reclaim the windowsills in the kitchen. We'll see how they fare... the greatest successes in the garden often start with experiments.  Right?

I succumbed to the appeal of starts and bought a pepper and eggplant to replace the still tiny peppers and eggplants I started from seeds. They are still alive and growing--just veryyyy slowly....

The chickens have been outdoors for ten days now. And three of the four of them understand that they should go up the ladder and put themselves to bed come dusk. Those same three also hop up onto the roost.  The fourth is our special chicken...and every night Hyper (aka Chicken in Need of a New Name) comes back down the ladder and tries to heard Polly (aka Reluctant Chicken Who Doesn't Get It) up the ladder. She still doesn't get it and eventually Hyper gives up on her.

It's sad to watch because she gets all upset and while she knows exactly where the other chickens are, and if the craning of her neck toward the hen house is any evidence, and wants to go upstairs too, she just.doesn't.get.it. So we go out and walk her up the ladder--everything else they have "learned" has required us physically showing them how to do it it seems, so I am a stickler for making her walk up on her own.  The issue number two presents itself- she is finally upstairs and the three other chickens are up on the roost and she doesn't get how to join them. To her credit, she is the biggest by farm and the roost is higher than the one in the brooder box. But still...

So then we have to go around and open the side of the hen house and lift her onto the roost. Yup, I said she's our Special Chicken.

The chicken humor of the week includes their predilection for following Stella Dog around while she eats grass in the yard-- they think she's onto something delicious, and she's oblivious until they start pecking at her nose to steal the grass from her! They have also all decided they ought to come in the house, which I think also started when they were following Stella Dog around--she got to come inside and then I shut the door on them. And they all lined up on the door step and started pecking at the glass! I think I have a photo to upload of this adorableness too.

The sun is showing itself a little more often and I'm psyched to fill our 64 square feet of newly assembled raised beds this weekend--doubling the size of the garden and creating the space for the rest of the tomatoes, and the yet to be planted squash supply.