Chickens: a Story in 26 parts

The chickens could probably deserve their own blog. There is just that much to say about them. It all started several years ago when my mom won a silent auction bid for a carpenter. That was the start of her master plan to build a hen house. (the carpenter job was big enough to build the hen house but not big enough to re-build our house) The hen house has been waiting empty for some time now. but a few weeks ago my mom decided to get her money out of her initial investment and 26 baby chicks arrived in the mail. TWENTY SIX. (hense the 26 part chicken story) All of the sudden our lives were consumed by chickens. we are like that old lady who ‘ leave her dog alone for more than two hours. The chickens might need water, the chickens might get hungry, the chickens are a pain. We had to take multiple trips to the feed store. Or different feed stores, and get equipment, and even more equipment and supplies at the hardwear store.

They had to live in the house for the first month. Specifically our basement. By my exercise equipment. You couldn’t use the treadmill, the sauna, the elliptical machine, and any of the extra space for the free weights was taken up by the chickens. They were kept in a box enclosure and then transferred to a wading pool that my dad rigged up with boards to keep the sides from collapsing and covered with mesh. The whole basement began to smell like barn and it slowly permeated throughout the whole house. The real reason no one could use or go near the basement. If for nothing else the chickens provide something we (Ellen and I) love to hate. And you will hear a whole lot more about it.

Green Acres

today when i went out to the living room for the Morning Family Getogether Before Chores. (we sit around in bathrobes discussing what we need to get done) It was the chickens that spawned the fast decline of our conversation. The chickens is a story in 26 parts. and by the end of the summer I will post all 26. Today Pa Pitts was talking Expansion. getting a turkey next year maybe even two. and a duck to eat the slugs out of the garden. I officially want nothing to do with birds.(see Chickens in 26 parts) I will stick to the garden and pulling weeds. then for some reason (brad's fb post) i brought up mini pot bellied pigs, and then my dad was saying we should move to the country and get a farm and goats, and things that farms have. what? no.

as i was headed out of the living room i spied my mother's latest book purchase. (she is a solid advocator of using the library so when a book is purchased is a Big Deal.) it was the Complete Encyclopedia of Country Living 10th Edition.
How to sharpen an axe and all your knives! prune a tree! drive a tractor! the art of bee keeping! and about 500 more pages of farming thrills. the farm idea may not be that far away...

Carrots. a very good investment.

I’m emotionally attached to my plants. I didn’t think it could happen or even would happen to me. But it has. Pa Pitts harvested a row of baby greens for a salad last night. I couldn’t eat it. These were my plants that I slaved over and protected from slugs, and drought, and weeds of the most voracious kind. (Actually I just wanted to eat Chinese food instead and didn’t know about the salad until it was gone.)

I forced myself to thin out the carrots and I felt like I was putting my garden at risk. What if the strongest ones dont survive? what if i pulled the wrong ones? I don’t like pulling anything remotely resembling a good plant. I forced myself to pull out the tomato plants that sprouted in my spinach and carrots because I couldn’t have them crowding out the other plants. Survival of the fittest is not allowed in the wrong spot! I will soon write an entry on what constitutes a weed (according to Pa Pitts). I am very attached to carrots.

When Pa Pitts harvests my lettuce I will look like a failure! I will no longer have nice neat rows of lettuce that are a testament to my prowess in the garden. I’ll have to try my hand at growing more things. So as not to leave gaping holes or patches of dirt. So far I’m good with lettuce and carrots. I suppose it’s because I consider them real food, where bok choy and okra are a little iffy. Seriously? Who eats those? Carrots are read edible food that often appears in my refrigerator. By way of the costco. No more! I will grow my own. I will be the best carrot farmer in the world! Until my father pulls them all out and we feast on them for dinner. And then I have to start the whole stupid circle of life over again. Dangit.

Peas Grow

Apparently my father is a wise old man with more knowledge about farming than I gave him credit for. I tried trellising the peas. It was about 10 at night and I was doing it with Adam the Giant who had his own ideas on how to pound trellis stakes and wake up the whole neighborhood. (Trellising by flashlight.) Now we know why the pioneers got up early, there were no flashlights to save their pea crops.

The next day I admit when I looked at the one row of trellised peas I managed to do in the dark, there were some serious design flaws*. However I refuse to waste my time by redoing it. The peas were going to have to deal with it. Pa Pitts interviend on behalf of the pea plants and trellised them using a W shape strung between the industrial sized metal stakes with twine instead of a z shape that I decided on. The peas are not going to turn into a pea bramble bush. It did get me thinking about the father of genetics, Gregor Mendel, I wonder how he trellised his peas.

One crop is saved. We only need to reclaim the rest of the garden from weeds, vermin, and drought.

(*I would like to mention that had I had the forethought to plant the peas against the garden fence they would have naturally trellised themselves like the morning glories have done and I would have saved a lot of time and effort, and now I have to do demolition on the morning glories.)

((Upon noting this to my father about the peas and the fence he reminded me that we planted pole beans along the fence. the lack of pole beans and the presence of morning glories leads me to believe that the pole beans met their demise in this particular episode of Weed versus Seed.))

The Forced Begining

A few weeks ago I came home from college. Immediately I was tasked with planting our garden. This was an eight hour process which felt like it took about twice that and by the end my sister (who had to help) and I never wanted to see that garden again. 80 dollars worth of steer manure and a failed attempt at roto-tilling will do that. Did i meantion its nearly 675 square feet? I successfully avoided it for a month, then I realized planting the garden made me responsible for it. Thus I began my descent into urban farming. and nothing was the same again.

I probably should have started this as soon as the baby chickens arrived and started to live in our basement. or when i realized the fruit trees in our front yard were an attempt at an orchard. (They are still in their pots) or when i started having to chase chickens around with a pitchfork when the escaped from their ourdoor pen. its going to be interesting.

Labor Task Force/work experiance:

Ma Pitts: had a rock garden once. the one who started this.
Pa Pitts: raised on a farm, rumored to have grown plants, bailed hay, milked cows, raised chickens, not sure if this is the stuff myths are made of, he successfully planted and cultivated last year's garden. Possibly beginner's luck.
Emily: part of my intern duties was the education garden. i can plant seeds, and pull things out. watched my roomate cultivate plants. has a desert plant. that does not aquire watering.
Billy: can google the words garden and farm
Ellen: beginer at chicken wrangling,
Adam: beginer at chicken wrangler, can pull stumps using as he puts it, "leverage"
Bitsy: expert chicken wrangler/whisper has extensive knowledge due to watching the waltons with Ma Pitts.

its going to be an experiment.
at least its not flammable.