Last night as we were putting our chickens in the coop, I noticed that in our coop the plywood that made a floor in the nesting area completely collapsed. A steady dripping from rain and years of rot and aging finally made the floor give in. It brought down with it some of the hardware mesh which crumpled to the ground under the broken plywood. And to top it all off, Cameron wasn’t home to help at all.
Picture of coop is below, you can see why the plywood collapsed, the whole coop needs a little TLC!
Looks like I have an extra trapped in the run Haha! And no, he never wears shoes, even after his run in with a copperhead.
Once I saw that we couldn’t put the chicks away, I told my boys to run and grab the drill and screws so we could at least get the hardware mesh back up so the chicks would be safe for the night.
If you’ve worked with hardware mesh before you know it’s not super easy to maneuver, especially after its been all smashed and bent. The boys were screwing mesh back to the chicken coop and all the sudden we heard thunder. I hadn’t even noticed a large storm cloud had moved in. Less than five minutes later a torrential rain started.
I think the combination of standing beneath trees (I know… not the smartest idea during a thunderstorm but that’s where the chicken coop is) and the heavy rain made it feel like we were getting drenched with buckets of water. Within 3 minutes, I felt like I had taken an outdoor shower and was completely soaked through. I’ve never been in such heavy rain that I had to wipe my eyes constantly because I couldn’t see with all the water running off me.
During this time I had run back to our shed to grab a long stake and made a makeshift roosting area for the chicks and then got them all on the roosting sticks. The boys finished putting the coop back together so it was all secure from predators and we put our larger chickens in their coop. One of my boys had run inside and grabbed a jacket for me, which was so sweet. I thought it may be pointless as I was already soaking wet but it was warm and dry and really quite nice.
With the chickens all secure, I shut my garden gates, brought in some seedlings that were out in the garden, and pushed my curing garlic further under cover. Then… and this is the best part, the storm passed just as quickly as it came and there was no more rain.
Hardneck Garlic Drying
Softneck Garlic Harvested a few weeks ago
In the garden:
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Harvested 45 bulbs hardneck garlic
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Harvesting cucumbers YAY! Lots of pickling cucumbers coming now. Green peppers, banana peppers, the first few cherry tomatoes, basil (made lots of pesto this week), bulb fennel, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.
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Planted black turtle beans where my lettuce once was
In the kitchen:
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Made pesto
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Canned 3 quarts and 1 pint of chicken bone broth
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Canned 7 pints and 1 half pint of blueberries in honey syrup
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Dehydrated 5 pounds blueberries down to 1 quart jar and 1 pint jar.
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Dried basil (the dehydrator is constantly humming in the background these days)
