The Weekly Digs #109
In the Garden
This past week started out with very cold temperatures and a hard freeze one night. I prepared as best I could by covering the celery, asparagus, and lettuce. Everything did pretty well except the asparagus had some of the tips die.
Our average last frost date came and went this week. I usually wait about two more weeks until I plant tomatoes and peppers. And it will be three weeks until I plant the melons and winter squash.
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I always wait a bit longer to plant the heat loving crops than most people do and I’ve never regretted it. We are lucky to have a long enough season that I don’t need to rush anything.
A New Calf!
The next day after the frost Cameron went to check on the cows and saw not six but seven! It was so fun to see a new baby calf and very cool how the cows just go and have the baby all on their own.
The kids named him “Jed” after Jed Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies. We also have a Granny, Ellie May, Jethro, and Jethrine all named from characters in the show.
Chicks Came!
The next day all our chicks arrived! This is our first time ever receiving chicks in the mail. We wanted to order some rare breeds, which is why we went the mail order route.
It was very exciting and I mentally prepared the kids ahead of time saying that sometimes chicks don’t make it through the mail. Out of 150 chicks, 12 were already dead in the boxes. I don’t really know what is normal and what is not for mail order losses but it seemed like a lot.
I sort of wonder if it had something to do with the abnormally cold weather and that they weren’t warm enough in shipping.
Then over the next couple of days we lost about 10 more. It must have been a rough trip and it was kind of traumatic for us trying to nurse them back to health and them watching them die anyway.
We are fermenting their feed and adding some apple cider vinegar and garlic to the water. The first few days we had them, we also added some sugar to the water as instructed by the hatchery for some quick energy.
Now that the first few days have passed, they have pretty much leveled off and we haven’t had anymore die.
We also had 15 turkeys come. Two were dead in the box on arrival and we lost one a day later. I hope this is it!
It’s been hard to lose so many birds but the rest seem very vigorous and healthy!
The plan is to breed our own birds from here on out so hopefully we won’t need to go through the mail order chick fiasco again.
House Progress
Cabinets came in yesterday! They look amazing! They will install on Monday. I will share pictures after they install.
We have really been having a struggle trying to figure out what to do with the DIY walk in cooler we are building. It’s almost done, all the insulation is in but we aren’t sure what to cover it with.
We’ve debated back and forth on whether or not to use OSB, FRP, plywood, or this other board that is ¼ inch thick thin layers of wood.
It’s been hard to strike a balance of functionality, decent price, and something that still looks nice. Cameron bought some of the ¼ inch layered sheets but once he started putting it up we both realized quickly that it looked awful.
So we’re back to trying to figure it out again. The board needs to be somewhat moisture resistant but I’d also like to be able to paint it. I need to do a little more research.
