I was not prepared.. I should’ve checked the weather forecast before bed… but instead I relied on memory and gossip for a solid weather forecast. Guess what, gossip was wrong. The rain did NOT come later on in the day Monday (today) but instead early and first.
What does that matter? Well.. my darling husband, bless his heart, got up with me at 4:30 a.m. to trudge outside in the rain storm to collect two cockerels who had hunkered down in the open last night for bed time. They are young still AND new to the whole perching and living free range and so they haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. Since it wasn’t going to rain and it’s relatively warm, I figured why not let them figure things out on their own! But in a downpour is NOT the right time. Besides the two Orpington cockerels there were also a couple of cardboard boxes I was going to use yesterday to plant the onions & radishes AND my seed packs!!! Stupid me.. I’m terrible about cleaning up after a long day of work and if the weather is going to be good, I just leave stuff where it is and go on inside. This has worked out to my/our disadvantage I can’t TELL you how many times, but still… still I slack & get lazy and figure, it’s no big deal. Well.. as I get older I care more and more about ruining things that I’ll have to replace, but instead of putting things away right away.. I’ll just get up at 4 a.m. if I have to 😉
So I didn’t get to plant the radishes or onions because turning over the garden beds took MUCH longer than I anticipated. We did get a good portion done of the back garden bed, with the new fence, so I went ahead and put in a few cucumber seeds in the back corner. I used a broken water cooler bottle w/the bottom off and really buried that into the ground over the seeds. I should hope it will create the perfect environment to sprout a seed within 7-10 days, and to grow a seedling for another 3 weeks post. On good & sunny/warm days I can take it off and on cooler days I shall just leave it in place… or perhaps open it for short bursts or tilt it a bit if need be. Wednesday & Thursday we are expecting SNOW so I shall wait before putting in the onions & radishes I think until after this snow & frost passes and we’re into the next warm spell. I still need to work the soil a bit in that garden area so it’s better to wait. I’ll stay busy with my indoor gardening, and seed starting.
I also have eggs to care for as the first incubator started whirring yesterday morning with I think 40 total eggs inside. Not NEARLY enough egg from my GLO families but they are young and the season is just starting. One of the coops that one of my pairs was in kept blowing open in our crazy wind storm allowing her out with the free ranging rooster(s) and so I have to segregate them for 3 more weeks before I can collect her eggs. WHAT A SETBACK!!! So instead i collected all the BlueXBlue Orpington eggs I could get. I would really like some splash chickens so badly, and they are awful hard to come by. Everyone wants Blue Orpingtons, but you can’t just hatch Blue Orpingtons without a Splash & Black Parent. So that would really save me from hatching extras of the wrong color. During the next 3 weeks.. well 2.5 weeks, I have to perfect a “hatcher”. A hatcher is a box meant for the purpose of hatching eggs, NOT incubating. That means that the requirements are a little more flexible, a little less strict and in my case I need 2 so that I can always reliably hatch different families in different places to keep them straight! I have two clear tubs, some preliminary experimentation has taken place and now I’ve got to get them going and ready for the eggs in 17 days from now.
That’s all for now, I must start getting things done!