My Edible Yard: Baby Chick Stampedes and Other Goings On

Have you ever seen a baby chicken stampede? It's a sight to behold. Eight puffy little chicks of assorted colors and sizes, new feathers protruding rather awkwardly from their wings and tails, running as fast as they can from one end of the cage to the other all for the sake of a fly or moth or whatever flying insect has made the extremely poor decision to enter the little chicks' air space. The chicks take off as if they are one, stumbling  and climbing over each other, pushing each other out of the way, honing in on the prize with admirable concentration. "Oh, was that your head I stepped on? Sorry, but I've got to get to that bug first." "Shoot, I knocked the waterer over again. That's okay. Mom doesn't mind cleaning it up for the third time today." I've got to get a video camera. Pictures will never do this scene justice.

2 Cuckoo Marans, 3 White Rocks, 2 Easter Eggers, and 1 Rhode Island Red

The new little munchkins eat like horses, as if they're worried they'll never have another meal. They are a source of much enjoyment, chirping all hours of the day and night, pushing each other around for perfect positioning at the feeder and waterer. They are constantly on the move and then comically suddenly drop to the floor of the cage for a quick nap under the light. They are enjoying their expeditions out into the yard, first eyeing their new surroundings with a little trepidation, and then furiously scratching, pecking, and hunting for bugs as if their lives depended on it. Lots of fun. I would suggest getting chicks to anyone contemplating an urban homesteading lifestyle.

As for the garden, aside from the fact that this past weekend I harvested my first batch of Pink Beauty radishes from the front yard garden (I planted a batch of D'Avignons 2 weeks later to keep the radishes coming) and pulled about 5-6 pounds of carrots from the backyard garden, we now have a grape arbor totally put together and straddled by 2 Concord grape plants in pots.The beans they are a blooming, as are the zucchini and yellow squash, and I've put the husband to work making trellises out of electrical conduit and jute string for the shelling beans and summer squash. I decided on the jute string because it's compostable, so when I go to pull the bean and squash plants up at the end of the season and they are all entangled in the string, I don't have to untangle the plant-string mess. I'll simply put it all in the composter.

Pink Beauty radishes

I'll take pictures of the front yard next week when we should have the trellises finished, but for now I'll wind up as I've got dinner in the oven, a hungry husband who kissed me twice when he walked in from work (it just means he's really hungry), and more work on a big project to do this evening.