Here I shall stray from The Chicken Chronicles for a spell just to gloat over our new front yard. When we moved in, the front yard was dominated by a shitload of giant Junipers that in our opinion belonged alongside a freeway and had no place in any decent front yard, and made the space visually and tactically impenetrable.
On all sides of the junipers were agapanthis flowers...pretty...but just a TON of them. ANd then there was an entry archway covered in potato vine which was also pretty but built for midgets apparently. Anyone over 6' tall would literally bash their head on it trying to come up the walk. Calvin and his wife were shrimpy and apparently lacking in forethought on this matter. There was also your typical white picket fence which was iunstalled with plenty of earth contact and so was rotten to the core everywhere.
So, we ripped out the fence and archway, chainsawed out the potato vine/juniper and dug up their roots, ripped out SOME of the agapanthis, and started over from scratch. Our concept was to create some "elevated topographies" to the front yard, primarily by way of a variety of earth mounds planted in drought-tolerant grasses, herbs, shrubs, etc. These would be interspersed with large-ish boulders such as we could afford, and gravel walkways lined with river cobblestones.
It's a fairly small front yard, and the pictures really just do not do justice to the backbreaking work involved in the facelift thus far. Under all the new soil is chicken wire to keep the gophers out, and under all the gravel is weed-proof "felt". The biggest pain in the ass was moving all that gravel in wheelbarrows from the pile in the back yard up to the front and dumping it evenly over all the pathways. I believe I moved easily over 100 cubic feet of this shit over the course of two weekends. Plus also moving around 8 cubic yards of planting soil, thought that was the easy part.
The river cobble borders are a little too easy to kick around right now, and the dirt tends to sneak underneath. I belive I will be going in and setting them (to each other) permanently with mortar so that they don't roll around and will keep the earth from sneaking underneath a bit. We've only used about 1/2 the cobble we bought, so along with this next step I'll be supplementing the existing cobble edging with the extra stones to also make the border higher/wider.
After that I've gotta re-create the front fence, though it's going to be a different kind of thing: a series of trapezoidal "piers" faced in slate veneer connected by split rail.
2.) You swap out the fake eggs for the real chicks (Indiana Jones style) in the middle of the night when momma hen is way out-of-it and when she comes to in the a.m. she thinks she's hatched the eggs.
So right quick I had to modify the new henhouse to accommodate our three other adult chickens instead: that mean building laying boxes, roosting poles, and a slip-proof entryway plank. Here's a pic of Mr. Bawkbagawk trying out the new laying boxes/roosting poles prior to installation.
HOWEVAH: Beaker has gone broody again so we decided to take the plunge and get some new chicks for her to raise as a surrogate mommy. The back story is that "going broody" is something that certain breeds are prone to (like our Orpingtons) which basically means that their instincts tell them to get ready to incubate eggs...even if (like us) there are no roosters about and thus no fertile eggs. It's nuts: they fluff up in a big ball and make these scary-ass noises when you come near 'em. But they don't hurt you at all. All the blood goes to their underbelly so their combs and wattles get very pallid. They stay in their coop and do not eat or drink at all for the most part for about a solid month (I swear!). here's a pic of it: she's already done it once before.
