CHICKENS ARE COMING! Our day old chicks are due to arrive April 20th. HL almost completed the chicken coop but he cannot do anything simple. The missing area under the window will be a pull out drawer located below the roost for easy clean up and collecting of excellent materials for the compost bins. Behind the nesting boxes will be a small room to hold feed and room for a setting hen. You will also be able to access the nesting boxes from this room instead of directly insdie the coop. I plan to use the old type white wash on the inside and out to help with external parasites and the growth of bacteria. There will be a large chicken yard off the front of the house that leads to the garden's edge. They will have free range during the day once they are grown. We will butcher 10 of the 25 we have coming and keep the rest for eggs & repopulating our flock. We will have several different types of white and brown layers. Leghorns being the primary breed since they are a dual purpose bird. 

Meet the newest member of our family, Zone. He is a Great Pyrnees & Akbash cross. He is a great Livestock Guard Dog and we are very glad to have him. In these photos he is a little under the weather. The female he was housed with bit him protecting their puppies and he got an infection. He is now on the mend and looking better every day. 

Makinlee getting to know the baby with a little help from mom. 

More goat photos. 

New Kids on the Block. The paint kid is a little doe. The other two are bucks. 

New birthing shed for the does HL threw together while he was home. He finished just in time! 

We started landscaping the long drive going up to the house. Since these photos were taking we've added a second layer of retaining bricks to the beds and deep blue Texas stars to the fence. We should have the driveway topped in a few weeks. We are using deep red recycled brick to pave it. It should all come together especially when we start the pastures on the right hand side giving the trees on that side something to border. We planted 48 trees including Magnolias, Bradford Pears, White Flowering Dogwoods, and deep pink Crape Myrtles. The beds hold Oleanders in white & pink. This was the only safe place to plant these toxic but beautiful plants. There is also pink and yellow Lantana & Mexican Heather in the beds. 

The only flowers I will have this summer. Since we are building our house next spring I'll wait to start the flowers. This bed contains lantana from last year & several annuals. I still have to add the brick border. 

Garlic and green onions growing in recycled "lick" tubs that hold minerals for cattle. They are great for container gardening. This was last year's crop we moved to the new farm.  

Blueberry plants we planted. The first of our fruit orchard. We will add thornless blackberries, grapes, rasberries, & apple, peach, plum, fig, & pear trees. We have a nice lemon tree in the greenhouse. It's too cold in the winter to plant it. It produces very large lemons for us. 

Worms, Eat My Garbage! Can of Worms purchased from Planet Natural, my favorite organic gardening supply store. Ladybug house is next! 

It's hot, hard work! We must work on the ventilation in the greenhouse when HL returns. It's way too hot for my seedlings. It's only April, I cannot imagine how hot it will be in August. 

Seedlings we started in the green house including culinary herbs, cantaloupe, watermelons, squash, eggplant, & brussel sprouts.





 

Texas Sweet Onions thriving. My nice crooked row.  

Breaking ground for our garden.

Garden spot from different angel. It's only a few feet from the greenhouse, compost bins, chicken coop, & worm bin.
H.L. working the ground with his new toy.
Potatoes are coming up nicely. This is my first attempt at growing potatoes. H.L. found this nice white gourmet potoatoe at the local feed and seed. 

Greenhouse completely finished.

Tomato, strawberries, bell peppers, and mixed sweet and hot peppers.

Front and side of greenhouse. Compost bins will be to the left of the greenhouse.
Close up of plants we started using organic potting soil and recycled plant cups.