Exciting Garden Things

There are things, exciting garden things, happening under that dome of plastic. 

They may only be exciting to us gardeners though.  I have some raised beds in the greenhouse!  Brandon helped me use some old lumber to create shallow raised beds in the center of the greenhouse on on each side.  We stood the lumber on it's side, and pounded wooden stakes in the ground to hold the boards in place. 

Then we used a shovel and removed the top two or three inches of soil from the pathways, and filled the shallow beds.  For the past several years I've been amending the soil in the greenhouse with compost, chicken feathers, old hay, manure, and weeds green cover crops.  All that organic input has resulted in beautiful black garden soil loaded with bits of organic matter.  By scraping the good dirt from the paths and adding it to the raised beds, the rich garden soil is even thicker. 

We spread old hay on the pathways.  It won't be long before that breaks down into soil too, and I can make more raised beds. 

I raked the soil surface, and planted lots of greens.  Because of our clay soil, drainage is a challenge in the garden when it rains.  Sometimes water stands on the surface in the greenhouse.  I'm hoping that the shallow raised beds will help with that problem, although I know if will require more watering when it's dry.  All that nice organic matter should soak up the water and hopefully keep it from drying out too fast.  

Look, seedlings!  I planted lettuce, mustard greens, turnips, kohlrabi, radishes, and sugar snap peas. 

The chicks that live in the brooder in the front corner of the greenhouse are doing really well.  They are two weeks old now, and are more than half way through the first bag of chick starter.  I visit the greenhouse twice a day to tend the birds and water the bed of greens.  The wind makes the plastic pop and rustle, but I keep the sides rolled up during the day so there is fresh air.  At night I roll one side down to block the cold wind.  

The First Day

The baby goats are nearly a week old now, but these photos are from when they were only twenty-four hours old.  In those early days they mostly slept in the hay in the stall while Peaches grazed in the pasture.  When she came to visit they would nurse on wobbly legs before taking another nap.  They seemed so small and skinny, and would shiver in the cold, but Peaches never seemed worried.  

They have tentative names.  My mother suggested Newnoo for the girl, since I said she looked like her older sister, Noobi.  She is our New Noobi!  Brandon's mom suggested Nibs for the boy.  Noobi, Nibs and Newnoo - all of Peaches babies, born right here at home.  When we talk about our goats it will sound like baby talk!    

Little Buck was quite interested in the babies, but he can't snuggle with them because he hasn't been allowed on their side of the stall.  I checked the blog, and Little Buck just turned two years old.  He is officially a pain in the ass!  I'm not sure if it's his age, or a reaction to birth hormones in the air, but he drives me crazy rubbing on me.  He rubs his smelly face all over me, given the chance.  It's not exactly aggressive behavior, but he's very pushy and will not stop, even when I get so irritated that I try to knock him away.  When I try to open gates he jumps all over me and bites me with his lips.  Brandon laughs and tells me he can't help it, he just loves me so much!  Ack!  

I'm happy that one of the twins is a girl.  She's adorable. 

Here's few moments of day old goat snuggles.  

As cute as the girl baby is, the little boy might be even cuter! 

Here's a short clip of him trying to use his one day old legs.  He's got the hang of it now.  

Twins!

A baby boy and a baby girl!  Once again, Peaches surprised us.  It was a sunny and seventy degree day, so Brandon went home from work early.  He was swinging in the hammock when he got a text from our good neighbor that said, "I see you have some new baby goats."  What?!

Sure enough, Peaches was happily grazing in one corner of the pasture near her two tiny babies.  Thank goodness it was such a nice day.  By my calendar, she delivered eight days early.

By the time I got home, Brandon had already relocated all the other goats so Peaches and the babies  could have their own stall.  When Noobi was born, we left all the goats together, but these little ones seem so small and wobbly we were worried those rambunctious boys might step on them. 

The tan one that looks just like Peaches is the boy.

The tri-colored one that looks just like Little Buck is the girl.  Their feet are so small!

And their ears are so long!  They feel soft, but also very skinny.  I can see all their ribs and hip bones.  They nurse and sleep and I'm hopeful they are just small because they are twins.  

Brandon tells me I'm imagining things, but I think Peaches pays more attention to the boy.  She likes to nuzzle and lick him while he nurses, but doesn't seem to pay the same attention to the girl.  I watched them for a long time to make sure she was getting to nurse.

Peaches still has some gore on the back of her legs and down the back of her udder.  I tried to wipe her off with a warm wash cloth and she squirmed and stepped on the kids, which made them cry out.  I decided she would rather be dirty than harassed so soon after giving birth.  If I really want to clean her up, I'm going to have to lock her on the milk stand so she can't get away.

The nights are going to get cold again, so I'm going to worry about these tiny babies until they fatten up a bit.  

Did you see my new picture on the right side of the screen?  Brandon took my photo holding the girl baby and I thought it was fitting that my old picture was me more than ten years ago, holding a baby goat while wearing a pink sweatshirt, just like now.

This is the younger me photo that you are used to seeing.  I'm older now, and wear glasses, but I'm a little smaller.  

Still happy to hold a baby goat!  

Chicks and Eggs, and a Surprise Turkey

The chicks arrived!  I was out of town for work when they arrived, but Brandon took a photo of them all crammed in their box so he could text it to me.  He picked them up at the post office and unpacked them into the brooder.  He said he was very nervous.  Six of these chicks were for our friends daughter who was anxious for them to arrive, so he was under extra pressure not to let them die.  We have never used the artificial hen chick warmer before, so he was careful to watch their behavior and adjust the height of the warmer.  The instructions said that it was the right height when most of the chicks were laying down and none were unhappily peeping.  This is the video he sent me of the chicks under the warmer.  

In the video, you can see them leaning into the warm plate with eyes closed, like they are finally snuggled up with mom after a few days in the mail.  Because they were all still standing, he lowered one side of the warmer until it was barely an inch above the wood chips.  He left the other side a little higher, so they could figure out how to get under it.  So far, it's working wonderfully, even with below freezing temperatures outside.  

The orange chicks are meat birds, and the black chicks are a breed called Dominicker, which is one of America's oldest chicken breeds.  These will be black and white striped, and will go to live with a friend when they are older.  The little brown chick in the foreground is a bonus chick, of unknown breed.  See that big white chick in the back right corner?  I think it's a turkey!  

This chick is much larger than the others, it's eyes seem different, and it has a little soft nodule on it's forehead, like it might grow into that dangley bit of skin on a gobbler.  I didn't order a turkey, and it wasn't listed on the packing slip.  Maybe the hatchery thinks a free turkey will get me hooked.     

The greenhouse had a subdued light with a coating of snow on the plastic.  I visit the greenhouse frequently and think about the seeds I bought.  It's past time to stop thinking about it and take some garden action! 

My old hens have finally started laying again.  Once my young hens start laying too, I'll be covered up in eggs.  I can't wait!  Our good neighbor has over twenty young hens that just started laying.  He gave us five boxes of eggs, each with eighteen eggs in it!  That's a lot of eggs!  I steamed a bunch for snacks, and put the rest in the freezer by scrambling eight eggs together in a quart freezer bag and laying it flat in the freezer.  I froze extra eggs last spring, and we used them up when the hens stopped laying for the fall molt.  Now I know that I need to freeze even more.  

Brooder and Greenhouse Greens

Wendigo and I worked to clean out the chick brooder and set it up for our next shipment of babies.  This time, six of the chicks are going to live with a friend so her daughter can experience the joy of raising little fluff balls.  Another six chicks are destined for a friend once they are able to live without a heat source.  Because the hatchery will only mail chicks during the winter in a box of twenty-five, we combined our order and I filled out the rest with more of those red ranger meat birds.  We are all anxiously awaiting the email that says the chicks are on their way.  

Always before, I used a heat lamp to keep the chicks warm.  This time, I invested in an artificial hen chick warmer.  It's like a hot plate on legs, that the chicks lay under.  As the chicks get taller, I can adjust the leg height.  I plugged it in to make sure it works, and it never felt that hot to me, although I didn't have it on very long.  I'm excited to see if it works because the worst part of raising chicks is dealing with the heat lamp, which is a fire hazard and frequently blows the bulb when the chicks rattle it.  

The greenhouse is ready to be planted.  I bought some lettuce, pea, and other green plant seeds that I think will grow well in the cool spring weather. 

Does this look like a salad green called corn salad?  I've never grown it before, but I planted some seeds last fall and now there is a row of these small green plants.  I guess I'll have to eat them and see!  

Some of the red lettuce plants survived the freeze. 

And a few green lettuce plants too. 

I pulled weeds from the onion bed.  I think it's time for a lettuce, corn salad, and chive dinner!  

Which Oak?

Earlier this week Jamie and I spent some time working in west Kentucky mapping the boundaries of wetlands.  

Some of the wetland boundaries were easy to see, as they were dominated by a tall reed called Phragmites austraulis, which is considered a noxious and invasive plant.   This reed is very aggressive, and sends out long runners that can reach as much as thirty feet in a single year.  Where this plant gets a foothold, it's nearly impossible to control.  

Navigating through reeds that are nearly twelve feet tall was a challenge, but Jamie would put his back to it and push a path through the stems.  We tried to stay on the beaver trails when we could.  

The wetlands that weren't open and sunny reed beds, were dominated by trees.  Mostly common species like red maple, green ash, sweet gum, and river birch, but occasionally we would find oak trees, like this one.  What kind of oak is it?  

The leaves that we could find on the ground under the trees were jagged on the margin, like a chestnut tree, but chestnuts don't grow in wetlands.  

The cups on the acorns were large.  The bark was a light color, and seemed flaky.  

I think there are nearly eighty species of oak tree in the United States, but thankfully my Trees and Shrubs of Kentucky book only lists nineteen types of oak, and based on the description I think the trees we were seeing were swamp chestnut oak (Quercus michauxii). 

When I look on the USDA plant database website, and zoom in on the range map for swamp chestnut oak, I can see that the green counties of occurrence are clustered in western Kentucky.  So, we were in the right part of the state, the photo of the leaf looks right, the description of the bark "light gray and scaly" fits our observations, the habitat "wet flats, and other moist ground" is spot on, and we saw lots of sweet gum trees in the area, which is listed in the book as an associate species.  Bingo.  It's a swamp chestnut oak!  

The Yard Light

Flying at Night, by Ted Kooser, 1939

Above us, stars.  Beneath us, constellations.

Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies

like a snowflake falling on water.  Below us, 

some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death, 

snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn

back into the little system of his care.

All night, the cities, like shimmering novas, 

tug with bright streets at lonely lights like

his.  

Baby Goat Bump

A friend of mine talks about getting goats someday.  Her kids - human kids - would like to get goats right now, because they think goats would be fun pets.  Especially if they were the little goats like my River Brothers.  We talk about goats often, and I can never decide if I recommend goats as pets.  Obviously, I like having goats myself, but I wouldn't recommend anyone take on goats unless they understood what they were getting themselves into.  Goats want to reproduce!  

I'm not sure how you could have females goats as pets when they go through hormonal cycles every twenty days or so.  They cry and swish their tails and just aren't satisfied with life when they are in heat, and it lasts several days.  The neighbors would be irritated by the noise, I'm sure.  If you let them breed they take a break by being pregnant and then nursing.  Male goats, like Little Buck, have hormonal challenges too, and might not make good pets if they go around peeing on their chins, stinking up the place, and challenging the mailman to a fight.  

Probably the best bet for pet goats would be wethers, which are castrated boys.  My wethers are very friendly, but it's sort of a rambunctious head rubbing on my boots and jumping on my clothes kind of friendliness.  The girl goats seem much more calmly affectionate and sensible.  So really, pregnant or nursing females are the best kind of goat pet, but that means you have to breed them, and that's not so easy unless you have a male too.  Then you end up like me with a whole herd! 

I asked Brandon if he would recommend goats as pets and he gave an emphatic no.  He said goats are livestock, not pets, and only if you enjoy the challenges of animal husbandry should you take on goats.  Animal husbandry implies breeding, right?  

Peaches should be pregnant and due to deliver next month.  The baby should be held on the right side of her body.  Is that a baby bump?  The left side is a food baby. 

In this picture from above, the food baby looks like it sticks out just as far as the baby bump.  The last time she was pregnant I couldn't tell, but maybe I'm getting a little better at judging this time.  Or maybe she has a bigger baby bump because she has more than one in there!  Two or three is common in goats.  Oh my.  

Little Noobi could be pregnant too, and due in May.  I don't see a baby bump, but it's a bit early.  It's wild to know that our baby goat might have a baby of her own!