Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Sun, chickens, rasberries and syrup.

The chickens got a new home today. Well, not really. I moved them back to the farm for the summer. I recently (yesterday) finished their new coop which is much bigger to house the entire group when the new chicks arrive. This morning Jim (a gentleman that helps me on Tuesdays) and I fenced off an area just adjacent to the greenhouse. The chickens will clean it up for me, I'll reshape the beds, install the track and move the greenhouse over it when the things in it now are more established.
They seemed to settle down after a while. They didn't care for the ride, or being put in their travel crate at 4 am today. (For those who don't know, when chickens are roosting for the night they become docile and very easy to handle. Nearly impossible to catch heritage breeds like these during the day.) I had to put up a sheet of cardboard on the north side to protect them from the wind.
A couple of weeks ago I went through and pruned the raspberry patch. I removed all of the old growth. This allows for more fruit and the air circulates better. This is especially important when the summer is like the one we just had.

I also moved our picnic table to the farm this weekend. Her it is in the sun. As you can sort of see (being there really does it the justice it deserves) it's the best seat in the house.


Finally, I tapped a few trees at the farm on Sunday afternoon. I brought home my first batch of sap tonight and it's currently evaporating on the wood stove.






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