Nobody Told Them to Slack Off!

It was another perfect day at the Compound.  In the 70's and a swift breeze.  It made working so much easier than those summer days with heat indexes in the 100's.  We took care of the Hooligans, all are doing well, and still giving us between 18 and 22 eggs every three days.  So much for lower production when there's less hours per day of sunshine.  I guess no one's come by to tell my chickens they can slack off!  They're production rate is supposed to slow down when you have less than 14 hours of sunshine per day.  We're averaging right around 12 hours this time of year.  They are also supposed to go into a molt in the fall.  They haven't gotten that message either.  Just like children, they'll do it in their own sweet time!

We spent the day doing small projects like weeding the garden, and building a new set of shelving for the container.  We've accumulated a lot of stuff over the past year and a half, and trying to keep it organized has been a hassle.  So, the new shelving should help.  We also offloaded a trailer load of mulch.



Here's one wild blackberry patch.  It's really coming into it's own. I put mulch around the base of the canes, to help control the weeds, and begin its natural composting process as in Back to Eden. I read somewhere that you need to try and keep the canes to around 2-3 feet tall only.  They'll produce more berries.  I've got my eye on this section, as it's nearing the height where it needs to be trimmed back.  And that's no easy chore.

Here is the strawberry patch.  We built a strawberry pyramid last year, and the past 6 months or so, they have sent off a lot of shoots, so the amount of berries we get this season (Jan - March) should be greater than last year.  We also had an issue with the amount of sun the plants would get.  Even though the "book" states full sun, it actually burned out my plants.  So we put up a sun/shade screen on top, and ever since then, they have really taken off.  I have blossoms already and a couple of berries starting to work their magic.



We picked a few cucumbers, from a couple of the remaining plants, and the Moose is looking forward to cutting up these little peppers for his famous homemade salsa.

We did finally get to offloading the trailer load of mulch this weekend.   The trailer load only covered about 1/3 of the area, so we'll need at least 2 if not 3 more loads of mulch to complete this section.  We have one other area besides this one to finish.  I can not begin to tell you how easy it was to pull out the few handfuls of weeds that were in the garden. 

That's all for now, have a great week everyone!  Thanks for following along!