Investing in lint rollers and weekend to-do

Frank the brat-cat decided he has a new favorite place to sleep. Yes, that's our laundry basket.
A close-up view.
Of course my husband, the softie when it comes to brat cat Frankerton, thought he looked too cute to disturb. Great, now we'll look even more like fuzzballs. I was all for piling more laundry into the basket. Then again, Frankie and I have an interesting relationship. He knows EXACTLY how to push my buttons, so, in return, I push his. I do love him, but I do think he's a brat cat too. I mean, what else do you call a cat that walks across your lap and pauses to rub his fluffy tail in your face a few times before scampering, gleefully, away?

I swear, the cat is alive in the above photos.

On to things to do this weekend:

I made two, new, edged in rock planterbeds, which need to be figured out. B made a large planterbed for herbs. There's also a large area next to our cars that I'd like to develop and put sunflowers. So, we'll tackle those.

The pergola needs to be finished. The chairs need to be (started and) finished. I've decided to paint them white rather than spend hours sanding and attempting to get the stain to match the old and new wood.

My potatoes need to be hilled, as they are getting quite large (mostly the yukons; the fingerlings I will do next week). The hilling protects the new potatoes from the sun as they form. You do not want the potatoes to get sunburned. I'm thinking of doing a mixture of coffee chaff and dirt. I can't have it too high in nitrogen, because that will result in stemmy plants and fewer potatoes. So, mixing it with some loamy, light soil and chaff will provide a loose cover but not hurt the plants.

I need to weed where the tomatoes are going to go. I then need to build tomato boxes.

I need to get some more mulch to continue our efforts against weeds.

The sawdust for my blueberries needs to be spread.

I have an almost-dead asian pear that needs to be planted in a small raised bed and nourished. The poor thing is not a happy camper.

I will need to put some netting over my blueberries. I don't want to lose them all to the birds.

It may be time to soon plant my beans. It's beginning to feel that way. This means I will need to soon build my trellises. I want to have the trellises built BEFORE the beans, that way I don't disturb the beans by building the trellises. I have many many beans. I'm excited.

I may cut some black plastic over the sweet potatoes to keep their roots warm. Hmm...

I'd like to work on my woven fence. That's a project that I've been putting off but that I'd suspect I'd love if I got started.

I need to plant pots of lettuce and pots of flowers.

I need to plant my hanging pots of love lies bleeding (for the pergola).

B needs to determine what type of hops he wants to grow. I'm thinking it'd look cool on the pergola, but also along the above-mentioned woven fence.

The fun is really beginning. I love to walk around the yard and see what's coming up. So enjoyable!

Chicken Smorgasbord

It is beautifully sunny out today, and the chickens have a feast. I documented it.

Fresh cut grass, slurped down with enthusiasm.

Must pick the right piece...

Eating up leftover mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, fresh greens, peas, and sprouted grain.

They never stop moving.

Yum yum. You can also see their little hanging basket of greens. They like to peck at it. With every peck, it spins and moves around. Cheap entertainment.

Hmmm... what's over here?
Like a pack of hungry wolves.

They're so big! Any day now: Fresh eggs from the red girls.

The process: gobble gobble peck mashed potatoes, wipe beak on gravel, repeat.

Oh, and ocassionally stop to look at the camera and the crazy human.

Checking out what her sister ran off with to the back of the pen.

What's up, chicken butt?

Yes, we step all over our food. There's really no sanitary way to feed a chicken.

The baby! She's the same age as the rest of the red birds, but she's about 1/3 smaller.

The baby is totally sweet too. She always says hi to me before eating breakfast in the morning.

The first investigation of the grub for the day...

Necessary slurping of water.


Investigation of weird human creature.

Posing for the camera...

Look how big they are!

And that's the end. Too many chicken photos. :)

MY LION, you dingbat human! and cleaning up.

This is Maddie's Lion. You may think I'm a questionable dog mom for permitting her to keep such a pitiful toy. But hopefully, this photo spread will explain why I keep it around.
In addition to the hole in his neck, Mr. Lion also has a hole smack dab on his nose. His once-creamy fur is a mucky gray/tan, and his lovely fluffy mane has been trimmed/pulled out. As the above picture also shows, he's clearly lacking stuffing in at least the first third of his body.
But, obviously, a certain Madster loves him. I wish she'd love him enough to LEAVE MY SHOES ALONE (left a pair out yesterday, and she removed the cute buttons on them. Her kennel almost got put out on the deck). Corgi is at 100% attention when HER lion is being dangled from a lofty height.
And yes, in one very over-exposed photo, with bits of laundry and paper in the background (we were cleaning, sorry), the corgi "MY LION, YOU DINGBAT HUMAN" glare is given. No, I do not attack my dog each morning with mascara. I promise. She gives that stinkeye all on her very own.

In other news, the backyard is clean. No, it was never filthy, but the deck had a bunch of mish-moshed stuff on it, and the yard had bits and pieces of debris (like nursery plastic pots and deer netting and etc etc. The landlords come tomorrow.

On the house front, we have NOT received notice that they want/need to enter. But, I would not put it past them to knock on my door and say "heeeey, would you mind if we checked out x?" I don't want to give them reason for suspiciousness, so we're cleaning. Not that we have anything "suspicious" to hide. But those dust bunnies need to be gone! Yes, I will be LIVID if they enter the house without our permission and without appropriate notice. But I'll cross that what-to-do-now threshold if we come to it.

I guess the main reason we're at all cleaning up is that our lease is month-to-month. While that's great for us someday when we need to move out, it does not give us the security that we've had with longer leases.

I realllllly hope that the landlord does not declare the nasty clumpy grass in our yard to be "lawn grass" and thus require us to replace/reseed any areas where that grass may have been hurt. He said something to my neighbor a while back which gives me the worry that he may think there's more sod-type grass in the backyard than there really is. This would mostly impact us where we want to lay down mulch to keep the weeds down.

I get it. It's his property, and we're on it. We've just put a lot of work into the property, so I'm hoping the visit goes well.

Spreading around woody bits.

So as you may have seen in a post from late April, our yard was being invaded... by tall tall, thick, clumpy, hard-to-get-rid-of, grass.
We aren't allowed to use pesticides in our backyard (organic only per the landlord). While I like this, it does get a bit grumbly when the grass invades.

So, we had it weedwacked down on Sunday, which made me SOOO incredibly happy.
But, once grass is weedwacked, it grows back with amazing speed. The best analogy I have is trimming your fingernails. The first week after you trim them? Growth spurt on nails. That's how it is with darn grass too.

But, mulch is crazy expensive at the place I like to go to. Like $20 per cubic yard. So, I found out where the city puts its mulch. Lo and behold, there's a massive pile, free for the taking, near where I live! We got about 2 cubic yards on Sunday, and yesterday, in the middle of practically a monsoon (it was dumping rain like crazy!!!), I spread out the first batch. I laid newspaper down first, but I may not do that for the entire areas I need mulch. I want to, but I'll have to find a source of newspaper; you go through a lot!

Anyway, here's the resulting look, so far (this is the 2 cu. yds spread out):
I think it looks a bit piece mail right now since the yard isn't finished with this coverage. But you have to imagine this in between all the boxes and whatnot. The area under hte pergola is a different color of mulch, and we're thinking about surrounding the pergola with a little bit of grass to provide some color and greenery. We can't afford to grass the entire yard (rental...).

I think in some areas we will put some paver stones and fun things IN the mulch to provide little paths and some extra pops of color and dimension. But really, once I envision this EVERYWHERE in the yard, it becomes much more prettily uniform.

On another note: The landlord is coming down to visit my (bungalow)neighbor on Thursday. He changed roommates, so the landlord has to do a deposit walk through. Anyway, it's the first time the LL is down since we moved in. When we moved in, the yard was full of garbage and clumpy grass. I hope the changes are met with approval. They know we are doing lots in the yard, but there's a difference between emails and seeing it.

Weekend updates

Good gosh, what an insane weekend.

Friday afternoon found us out and about with friends. Amongst other errands, I swung by a super-cute, family-run nursery and found a fuchsia. Isn't it gorgeous? It's hard to tell, since this angle shows only how messy my porch is, but it does a lot for the deck. It feels lush and wonderful with this plant.

I also picked up four little succulents... they will get potted soon. Poor things are stuck in their little buckets still!
Then on Saturday, after volunteering to to more yard work for a local non-profit, B and I decided to go and get a second fuchsia. The pair work really well together.
Then, we stopped by the recycling place, where I found insulation for my cold frame. This way, I can close it and the seal will be airtight. I also found another hanging basket thing that grips the edge of the railing on the deck. Photos to come. $2 total, it was my kind of recycling store trihttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1160110128502001167p.

When we finally got home in the early afternoon, I set out on one of my goals for the weekend: BUILD A NEW COOP FOR THE LITTLE CHICKS. The little chicks had been in a pen inside the older birds' pen. But, after almost a month (those little things grow!) and with the introduction of three new birds, and with the pending addition of KFC (kooky freaky chick), they needed more space. BADLY.

I worked like a crazy woman, and by Saturday evening, I had this:
Eventually, only 2-3 birds will be out here. The rest will be introduced to the red birds slowly, once they're all the same size. Luckily, our little chicks vary in age, so these introductions can occur gradually. If the red birds refuse to accept newcomers, I can build another one or two of these portable coops. For right now, it does perfectly well in housing EIGHT little ones.



I thought pretty hard about what coops like these need. I found several problems with a design like this one and this one: You NEED to have access to the coop part to clean, you need access to shut the coop door at night (and open in the morning), and you need access to their water. But also, you cannot have such large access that the birds may escape when you do these activities. So, with that said, here is my design. I'm sure I'll find faults with it, but here it is.

First off, there is a little door at the end where I can access their water. It's large enough also for me to hop inside, should I need to make repairs to a part of the interior coop (I could always crawl under the coop, but this saves that hassle). This door is also up a bit from the bottom of the coop. I normally won't open it while the chicks are in their yard, but this way, if I need to open it while they are, it's up a bit and thus more difficult for chickens to hop out.


I made this little teeny opening, so that I can reach my arm in and open/close the coop door in the morning/night.The birds are not coordinated enough to fly up and out of this hole, so it's a super-safe way for me to access the interior coop door!


Here is the interior coop door. It opens and the door forms a little drawbridge. By it being small, the hens have access to their coop, but they don't have the door taking up too much of their yard space. It's latchable (see the upper corner of the door) and reachable by the little door (see above photo).


See, this is the interior coop door, shut. And what an unflattering image of my arm. I swear I actually have Size Small arms.


Finally, we have the back door to the coop. If the chickens are out in their yard, I can close the interior coop door. Then, I can open this door. That gives me chickenless access to their coop to clean it. Or I can just quickly open it to have at eggs (when they lay).


The coop floor is lined with linoleum (leftover from the main coop construction) for easy cleaning. While it will get dirty, it is better than wood soaked with droppings.


I poured coffee chaff in the coop. The chicks went NUTS. They LOVED the stuff.


So that's the coop. I have 17 very happy birds right now: the 9 out in the big coop, and the 8 smaller babies out in the portable coop out back. LOVE it! Let me know if you want more photos or information on how I built it. Estimated total cost: $50-$60. Much better than the $250+ that is quoted in stores. Yes, it is EASILY portable, and it is a lot of space.

Sunday morning, I went to pull a few weeds in my boxes before we filled them up with dirt. And surprise, look what I found:


Can't see it? Look closer for the teeny snake:
I'd seen him/her before in this general area, so I wasn't pee-in-my-pants scared, but I still get a bit of a jolt. Non-poisonous, but still spooks me a little. A little prodding, and he went on his way.

Then Hank my yard guy came by. He brought over 5 cubic yards of soil (2 trips), which we unloaded into wheelbarrows and dumped into my remaining boxes. THEN, he got out his weedeater. Oh the bliss. The long tall weeds that were EVERYWHERE, despite out best efforts, are GONE.

No more weeds between the flower bed and the deck.


No more weeds by the rose bush.


No more weeds behind the one side of the chicken coop.


No more weeds on the chicken coop path by the strawberries and garlic.


No more weeds on the east side of the berries.


No more weeds on the west side of the berries.


And lo, here is our path from the front to the back yard. BLISS!!!! I now need to lay down materials and mulch. We went and got 2 cubic yards of mulch from the city... it's in a pile on a tarp on my driveway. Eeek. Now to spread it. FAST. Before the weeds grow again.
On to plant updates. As you can see, above, the peas are getting tall. Hurray!

The broccoli is coming in very well (the rain last night and today helps you really spot them).



My potatoes bring me such joy. Here are my yukons-- look how big they are!


AND, here are my 2 beds of fingerlings! I know. They're growing like weeds.


My onions are doing well, but I need to give them some attention. They are a bit sad right now.


And, my spinach is slowly coming in. The basil bed is next to the spinach, but I need to weed it and cover it (insulate it) before I take photos of that one. :)

That's it for now. I'm pretty tired, but wow, that yard is beginning to look good. I'm a fan of the weedeater. Talk about clearing things out! Now to keep those quickly-grow-back-after-being-cut plants from growing back! Mulch mulch mulch.