Green Barn Happenings

Quick Chick Update

If you look closely, you'll be able to make out the white fence posts that show where the electric poultry mesh runs to create an enclosure for the chickens. This has worked very well as it has repelled Bishop and other predators. It has been interesting to watch the chickens respond to wildlife. A wild turkey walked up to the fence and all the chickens ran inside. Floozy kept a lookout at the door and when the turkey drifted into the woods, she came out and resumed scrounging. A rooster pheasant has been hanging around the perimeter of the fence. I think he's in love.

Ameraucana

I think she can kick my &#%. Look at those feathers!

Dahlia

I'm sorry, but I just can't get enough of this. Look at the white outlines of her crest feathers.

Group hug

Only one of these has a name. Lesley (my daughter) asked if she could change this Daryl to Jolie, which is French for beautiful. This hen is the whitest white imaginable.

Bat house

The Brownies Troop at my school gave me this bat house. I hung it on our corncrib and it has 4 or 5 bats sleeping in it during the day. There is also a colony of bats sleeping inside the barn at the peak. Sometimes Peter and I stand in there and look for them. We usually can spot some of them as they move around. I love the idea of bats living at our farm. We watch them zipping and diving and know that they are eating hundreds of mosquitoes each night. We have a small woodland pond and it was full of mosquito larvae. Now they have become mature young ladies, hungry for blood so they can create the next generation of mini vampires. (Can you see the little bat insignia on the bathouse?)

Guano

I'm not sure if you call bat poo "guano." But I like the way it sounds, so on the green barn farm, we have bat guano. It burns!

Real Crab Apples

I make tasty jelly with the apples from this tree. It turns out to be the prettiest pink color. This looks like a bumper crop!

Black Raspberries

I love making jam with these berries. I assume the bug Ruth captured is some sort of beetle. I usually get most of the bugs out when I make jam. ;)

Sunflowers

These Sunflowers survived the frost and are doing well! They are children of last year's sunflowers. Grow tall and straight! I just found more sunflowers growing in the gravel of the driveway. I'm letting them grow!

Frost Warning

Almost all the plants I covered died from the frost. These tomatoes weren't covered, but survived. All the brighter green leaves are post-frost growth. I think I have 7 tomato plants growing!

Puny Garden

I wanted to put in a garden this year, but haven't had a lot of time. So, I scratched out a four foot by fifteen foot patch, added some good humus and sphagum moss and stirred it up. I planted 8 green bean plants and six died from Mr. Frost. I resorted to planting green bean seeds directly into the soil and they are just now popping up. I also have three surviving peppers, and two eggplants. Lesley and I scratched out some long rows and planted carrot seeds and radishes. Here are the radishes. You can see some carrots mixed in with the radishes. OOPS! Oh well, hopefully this will give the kids something fun and edible to pick during Farm Day in August.

Hen and Chicks

These are my first successful brooding hens! I have these growing in an old bullet-ridden tub. I also plant Zinnias in the tub and they are a blast of color. Unfortunately I like the spot at the bottom of the deck steps for this tub and it is in the line of fire for when we play four square and basketball. It becomes very entertaining when someone dives and sacrifices his/her body to save my Zinnias.