Trees and Tractors and Scapes

Since today was partly sunny and more importantly, not raining, I set to working on the five-in-one European plum tree I planted earlier this year.  The problem I needed to address was that the branches are all very close together, and mostly heading up at something like a 76-degree angle.  I wanted the branches to spread out a bit more, and preferably to be at a 45- to 60-degree angle, as they'll set significantly more fruit that way.  But how to go about this task without spending a lot of money on branch spreaders?

Why, take inspiration from what I've done with the cherry tree, and use up most of the rest of the clothespins that Jazzy keeps attaching to the kitchen drawers!  I chained them into branch spreaders:

And I took twine and some of those rocks I've dug up from the ground, and used those to make branch weights:

We also worked some more on the chicken tractor today!  (The roof bits got added on when my parents and sister were here for dinner on Friday.  Having a couple more sets of hands to hold everything in place made the angled bits go together much more easily.)

We also learned that the chickens are indeed flight capable at this point when one fluttered up onto the side of their box while I had the mesh off.  Fortunately that was as far as she went!

And, finally, I had ordered garlic scapes from the co-op this last week:

I was expecting them to have a mild garlic taste, like garlic greens do.

They do NOT.

So, since they pretty much taste like raw cloves of garlic, I tossed a few into the blender while I made salsa yesterday. ^_^

Rainy Tuesday

One of Squiddle's current favorite books for a bedtime story is The Lorax.  Which is a problem for me because I always end up crying at the next to last page.  Much as I like to be an optimist, when it comes to things like the environment and climate change, I just can't be.  We've messed up too much and the greedy people with all the money and power don't care.  As a species, we're fucked.

On a slightly happier note (because not much can be more depressing than that), Wonderful Husband and I worked a little on the chicken tractor this evening.  Here it is as we finished:

In the lower right are the "ceiling" joists, which Wonderful Husband cut so that it'll be a thirty-degree angle.  We'll put those on, and the center beam, tomorrow.  And probably the mid beam on the sides.

We also found four of these fellows in the barn!:

The previous owner had mentioned field mice, but this is the first we've actually seen of them.  That beam next to it, BTW, is 1.5", to give a sense of how tiny they are.  Were the chickens fully grown, I would have tossed the mice to them (chickens are not strict herbivores; they will eat bugs, slugs, and mice if they can get them), but instead Wonderful Husband tossed the mice out into the wooded area out back.  Live and let live, unless there's a reason it needs to die.  (Like the wasps off the patio.)

Children and Chicken Coops

A Squiddle quote from the other day: "My brain is making me angry!"  We have been working on appropriate expression of emotions, so this was a good one.

And last night, when Wonderful Husband was going to bed, he found that Jazzy's bedroom light was on, his gate open, and his bed empty.  A full-house search ensued.  Eventually Jazzy was found tucked into Squiddle's bed beside his brother, fast asleep.  So sweet!  But knowing that Squiddle would likely kick up a huge fuss about his brother being in his bed, I picked up Jazzy and tucked him back into his own bed without waking either of them.

In a less-cute mien: Jazzy has taken to pulling a chair from the dining room into the kitchen and using it to reach/climb up onto the counters.  Wonderful Husband has installed a magnetic latch on the corner cupboard and we have moved the knife block, all other sharp objects, and all the vitamins and daily meds up there.  Because cute as he is and much as I love him, the three-year-old is decidedly not to be trusted around any of those things.

In project news, we finally began work on the chicken tractor today!  Transforming it from a set of 2-D drawings to a 3-D structure is going to be both fun and interesting.  Time to see if we can do this as well as we hope!

We started by assembling the 8' x 4' base, and roughly laying out a side to make sure it was what we wanted:

We've opted to give the total structure an extra foot of height from my initial sketches.  The side poles were initially to be 4' high.  Here, they're 5'.  The two crossbars will be part of the supports for the coop.  Everything is attached using a nail gun and some wood glue to fill in any gap space.  The bits of wood underneath the corners are just to keep any drips of the glue from attaching the structure to the floor as it dries.

A Bit More Gardening

Saturday afternoon/night, I worked on the second trellis for my garden.  It starts out looking like this:

And as I build it, the boys play with stepping in the squares and sometimes try (and mostly fail) to cut the string for me after I finish each lashing:

I learned how to do the lashing from volume 24 of Kitchen Garden magazine.  I have 31 of the 32 issues, and have been referring to them a lot this year. Here's a close-up:

Buying some 6' bamboo stakes and a roll of cotton twine makes this cost a fraction of what buying a finished trellis would cost.  Plus I've learned a new skill!

Here's the garden as it was Sunday morning, before I installed the second trellis and put rabbit netting around the second bed:

Fractured Friday

I forgot to take pictures today, but I got most of the second garden bed set up!  It has my four surviving (tiny) habenero plants and all three of my lemon thyme plants in it, as well as the trellis I made, which will have Minnesota Midget melons climbing up it, god willing, and a row each of golden beets, Chioggia beets, and purple bush beans.  When I get the second trellis done, that will go on the other side and I'll put cucumber seeds in for it.

And, hey, tomorrow's supposed to be raining, so making another trellis seems to be a good indoor project to me!

I also drove Squiddle to school so that he could return his library book in the big purple dropbox outside before the school year ends so that we don't get fined for keeping it.

Beyond that, I experimented with sriracha mayo chicken for dinner.  I thought it was good, but I am outvoted, so I passed the recipe onto my mother and sister, who also enjoy a hint of heat.  And I wrote on a Rise of the Guardians WIP, as well as editing a Check, Please story that I'll be posting tomorrow.  N-chan's beta-reading was invaluable!

Pictures again!

Not much happened today.  I'm grappling with editing those two fanfics I wrote, and I went out to pick up prescriptions, and two orders we'd placed at Lowes.  So now we have most of the materials to make the chicken tractor!  (I forgot to order roofing stuff.  And linoleum tiles to make cleaning the coop interior easier.  But those are a bit down the line yet.)

I have, however, remembered to move some pictures from my phone.  So!  Here are the chooks, temporarily in a basket while I gave them fresh litter:

And here's one of the (now filled) garden beds, with the riddle I made:

Easy directions for making the riddle: screw or nail four 2' 2x4s together in a windmill pattern.  Rip another 2x4 into four even widths.  Sandwich a square of 1/2" hardware cloth in between them, and then screw the thin pieces on, preferably in the empty squares, not on the wire.  Use to sieve soil!

49 Lashings

Gah!  Sorry I've been neglecting this blog!  I'll claim distraction by chickens and chicken tractor planning, or something. :)

No pictures right now because this is a hasty catch-up post before I go to bed.  I added a French Wheaten Marans chicken to the mix, but it died, but Wilco fortunately will replace chicks that don't make it!  So I have another.  Which is good, because she was by far the most expensive chick.  I've been adding grit to their feed daily, and uprooting dandelions from the yard (we have plenty!) to give them variety.  They love their greens. ^_^

I finished two more fanfics for Check, Please and have them both in the beta-reading phase.  One is a 6K+ werewolf story I've been grinding on for months; the other was 5400 word American Gods-inspired work that came together in one day.  What a difference!

My parents came over last week in my dad's truck and I was able to use it to get half a yard of garden soil at one of the landscaping centers.  Between that and the 3.5 bags of Costco soil we had left out in the barn, I've got all three of my garden beds filled finally.  This evening I lashed together a 6' x 6' bamboo trellis.  49 lashings!  But it's done and waiting out on the patio.  I have the materials for two more out in the garage.

I also went to a board meeting of the Quilters By The Bay as the incoming secretary.  As I'm kind of accustomed to, I was the youngest person there.  By rather a lot.  But I like them and I like the guild.

And, there's been no sewing or quilting getting done, but I finally got my quilts back from the person in Texas!  I'm really really happy about that because one of them is the only quilt I have from my maternal grandmother....