Farm Life is the Good Life. Up early for chores, followed by a hearty breakfast, almost always including the daily ovum or two from Red. Egg production should increase greatly soon as the chicks are now 10 to 12 weeks and looking healthy indeed. Free range diet supplemented by thinned greens from the garden and our own best table scraps. A couple of splash pools for the ducks, changed daily, for their exercise and entertainment. Happy poultry are healthy poultry.
There is also Balance at the Bar None. A prized Buff Orpington lay still in the coop yesterday. Clearly demised, no wounds visible but a fresh blanket of white feathers indicating a tussle of some sort. Ten weeks of feed that will now yield not a single egg, varmint just got personal with me. I’ve got the shotgun loaded and propped by the door, keeping a keen eye out and will pop whatever interloping gourmand that slinks in today.
My garden is looking like most of my other endeavours. Ambitious, even exemplary barring the fact it is as chaotically organized as my office. I used USATF Course Measurement protocol to set my rows. The Shortest Possible Route (SPR), but in reverse. The beet rows rather wavy if not curvy, my explanation being that I could get more seeds in that way.
The sweet corn is up. The neighbors all warning that I’m only opening a deli for the coons. Jedediah likes the prospect. He like me, ever vigilant for the critters. Asparagus bed still confounding me, only a few spears a day, will double the bed size once Spring production ceases. Beets thinned, French Breakfast Radishes up and tasty. Kale, lettuces and chards already included in several dishes. My early start bringing early delights. Parsnips catalog perfect. Potatoes marching in long tight formations. Tomatoes out the wazoo, to wit: Russian Black, Hillbilly, Peace Vine, Green, Chianti Rose, Beef Steak and Pink Berkeley. Traviata and Lao Purple Stripe eggplants. Poblanos, Big Jims, Jalapenos, Padron, Carmen, and Big Reds all promising peppery pleasantries post picking.
Watermelons, pumpkins, and squash all putting out tiny tendrils that will support massive melons in a couple months.
Grapes setting fruit this year, last year’s promise fulfilled. Blackberries and raspberries hinting a rampant and bountiful summer. Strawberry bed flourishing with early, mid, and late season producers. Jams and jellies for winter bellies.
Have a great weekend and may your blossoms all be bright!
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