The Weekly Digs #88

This week we prepared to leave for a trip to visit my Mom and Step-Dad in Texas! My Mom asked me to bring some of the food we grew for our Thanksgiving dinner. I have a very sensitive stomach and any big shifts in the way I eat make me feel sick. So we brought a lot of our normal homegrown food so that wouldn’t happen. 

For the Thanksgiving dinner, we brought butternut squash, sweet potatoes, home canned cranberry sauce, frozen corn, lettuce and carrots from the garden, a few lemons we grew, and home canned grape juice. 

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For car snacks, we bought some nuts and I mixed in our dehydrated blueberries and pumpkin seeds we saved this year. I also brought a half gallon of dried apples to snack on. I made sourdough bread the night before we left and we made sandwiches so we didn’t need to stop for lunch. 

We also prepped our chickens for a few days without us. We had planned on having friends come up and fill food and water everyday but unfortunately that didn’t end up working out. We live way out in the country now and after thinking about it a bit I figured out that we could set everything up so it was automatic while we were away. 

We put three large automatic waterers (I was nervous about them flying on them and tipping them over so I put in two backups!) and a large automatic feeder in their coop.

The coop they have is an A-frame that they can easily jump down after roosting for the night to access grass and bugs. 

However, the coop was originally built for four birds and we have ten now and it’s not quite enough space for them to stay in all day. When we are home it’s not a problem because we let them out every day in a large run area outside the coop.

The issue with leaving them in that A-Frame coop while we are gone is we don’t have an automatic door to let them out into the run each day. Since we didn’t want them in cramped quarters for several days, we decided to add a little temporary run. I used some of the pvc row hoops I use for the garden as the run and we covered it with plastic. 

The A-frame has a small door and the bottom that we usually leave closed but we kept it open because it connected to the temporary run. 

It worked so great! They were much happier with the extra space while we were away. They also still had plenty of food and water when we got home. I’m so glad it worked out and they were all safe in there.

In the garden:

Earlier this week, I took a few photos of the garden and the house. We got a drone a few months back so I could make sure my garden rows were straight 🙂 Actually I love it so much more than I thought I would, it’s been nice to be able to view the whole garden at once and photograph the progress. 

There isn’t much going into or out of the garden right now. It’s the time of year where things are very slow growing or not growing at all, mostly just holding in the garden. 

We have been picking carrots, turnips, kale, cabbages, and lettuce.

I am working on planning out the garden for next year. It’s one of my favorite parts about gardening! I love the dreaming of the future and all the fun things that should be planted. 

House Progress: 

The HVAC guys came out this week to put in all the ducting. We had the same nervous feelings that it would get ruined or moldy because we still don’t have a waterproof roof yet. 

The piping stuff (I know it probably has a better name but I’m not well versed in home construction) has fiber batting insulation in it and that stuff really sucks up moisture. We saw the HVAC guys unload all the piping and tubing on the floor of the house and it was supposed to rain the next day.

The floor of the house gets covered in water every time it rains. Cameron texted our builder and he said he would move the stuff. When we came home, everything was installed. Hopefully it’s all good.

We are excited to make progress but of course want to make sure everything with the house is done as it should be. I think we will breathe a big sigh of relief once the roof is installed.