02/07/2009 Saturday: Work Continues on the Cottage Garden, Planning for the Chicken Tractor

Lovely weather today, sunny and fairly warm.

Mike and Mary showed up this morning to drop off some chains that I can use to hold the pig feeder/trough against the side of the hog panel. With luck I can incorporate a t-post into the picture to really hold the hog feeder in place. One of the chains I already know is going to be too small but the other one will be about right. I may figure out how much chain I need and buy a piece that will fit. I'll wrap the chains around the braces and through the fence. I just need to keep the pigs from rooting the feeder so far away from where I feed them that I have to get in the pen and lift the dang thing back into place.

They also brought over a large box of canned goods plus some onions and potatoes for Enrique and his friends. I put in several fresh chicken breasts and some carrots. After hearing that they had gone for a week just eating potatoes three weeks or so ago, I felt sick and scolded them severely and told them not to go hungry around me, especially when we have a pantry full of food. A couple of weeks ago I gave them two boxes of food to take with them to get them through the tough times. I think I included some frozen meat - probably chicken breasts because I buy them on sale and repackage them for our use - but can't remember for sure.

Another busy Saturday around Hope Creek. I'm bushed.

Juan didn't come today but instead Enrique brought Herman. I guess Juan was feeling out of sorts or had something else to do. Herman, like Enrique is a hard worker, plus he follows directions well. I'm such a fuss-budget but I want things done the way I want them done. She who pays the piper selects the tune, LOL.

I had them work on one main project today - the cottage garden.

Herman and Enrique started by adding wood chips around the smallish stepping stones that lead to the new arbor with the wisteria bush.

Then they removed the grass and weeds from the existing paths in the cottage garden, enlarged several of the paths which hadn't really been worked on for awhile and leveled them off with the wood chips they put on once the paths were ready. I still have a large pile of wood chips from last summer.

The new paths look wonderful. The stepping stones in front of the red arbor have also been put into position parallel to the seat; the wood chips now surround the stepping stones and the arbor as well.

I have enough room for a small bed south of the large (what was once a) dalia bed. I'll have the guys clean out the grass and put on manure in the (future) small bed and put a narrow path along side the raspberries.

Once they finished refurbishing the paths, I had them do some trimming on the brush that had grown up last year on the hazelnut bushes we trimmed back in 2007. They also trimmed and removed the debris from dead plants that I didn't get around to doing.

Now I need to get into the area and remove the weeds that have grown up in the flower beds and make them look pretty for planting.

Herman piled up the chicken compost into a rounder circle (it was a fairly large semi-circle before he organized it) and gave me some walking room between the metal and the chicken compost.

While Herman was attending to the chicken compost, Enrique and I cut two of the hog panels I bought two weeks ago to make a chicken tractor. Once I get the wood 2x4s on the top and bottom, and find a tarp that fits over the top I'll move it into the vegetable garden so that the chickens can scratch up the ground and scratch out the weeds and eat any bugs they can find.

I turned off the power to the electric fences and moved the girls to an uneaten pasture, D4. I need to spread lime on the pastures and maybe even some compost or nitrogen fertilizer to get the growth back. The pastures look pretty bare.

Then I took my scrub brush and washed out the Dexter tub on the automatic waterer. It was a little bit green but not too bad. I should probably dump in some bleach to kill off the algae.

I also scraped off the horse mat that I put down in front of the tub to keep the Dexters from sinking out of sight.

Dinner was spaghetti with pesto (store bought) and shrimp.