The big job of the day was converting this full-sun area that had been under occultation for a long time (not sure when I put the tarp down!).
It had been long enough that I found basically no viable Cynodon dactylon rhizomes further than a foot in from the edges—they were all brown and rotting. I did find a lot of rocks, though:
I planted and staked four more tomatoes (Green Vernissage and Juliet) and made cages to keep the chickens off the little plants. Then I partly mulched the area.
Still need to install ~6″ mulch containment fence around the bed areas, thanks to the chickens. Then I will also mulch the paths. I also have some native perennials to plant in the other ends of the bed spaces from the tomatoes.
A couple of shots from the bed out of frame to the left of the previous photo:
Silene undulata (African dream root), started from seed in winter of 2018/2019
Eryngium species started from seed in winter 2018/2019. I need to look up what species/variety this is.
Started the day removing Cynodon dactylon (Bermuda grass) from a to-be bed that was in semi-shade. Worked there while talking on the phone with my cousin, and it became quite sunny within an hour and I was already filthy when I stopped for a slightly early lunch.
Forearm after removing gloves for lunch. This is not a suntan.
Switched to a guinea coop renovation project after lunch.
Guinea coop before
Before, there was one long roost parallel to coop length up at the top, and a number of roosts perpendicular to coop length at varying heights. The problem with the cross-roosts is I never found a good, secure way to attach them to the hardware cloth sides of the coop without movement. Whatever I tried, the force of birds landing on and taking off from the roosts eventually tore them loose. Plus, when a bird landed on or took off from a roost, it made a very loud sound that made me duck and cringe.
Guinea coop after
After: three roosts, all parallel to length of coop. There was some confusion (and grumbling from the chickens) about how to roost with the new arrangement, but I expect they will get into a routine soon. I did find one guinea hen sleeping on the floor of the coop at 2:55am when I went out to do rounds after that grey-and-white cat who has been hanging around woke me up yowling outside (which was driving Hermes nuts).
We’ll see if I got the spacing right this morning, by seeing how many birds got pooped on in the night. Adjustments may be in order.
Anyway, this whole project took four times longer than expected (as usual) and wore me out more than seems reasonable.
Cinnamon Chicken was definitely a bird-about-the-yard.
Cinnamon Chicken helpfully perches on the wheelbarrow
Cinnamon Chicken is queen of the mulch pile
In the evening, I moved to another bed to continue Cynodon dactylon removal, pulling back the tarp to reveal a very large spider, which Cinnamon Chicken ate, and a toad, which Cinnamon Chicken excitedly ran toward, but which I was happily able to capture and save from a terribly brutal end.
And there was another snake friend near the guinea coop. As long as they are not eating keets, I’m happy to have them around.
Today’s black snake encounter
And finally, after dinner I found a tick on the outside of my left thigh. This is a weird place for a tick because I tuck my pants into my socks, tuck my shirt into my pants, and wear a belt. I will be checking my pants for a hole, I guess.
Cut back Artemisia absinthium yet again, this time more emphatically
Staked lily bed and Ruta graveolens flopped over from the rain
Pruned Lurkey’s flight path
He’d been roosting across the street for a few nights, and I thought it was because the leafed-out trees had closed up his usual flight path. He was back in the huge sugar maple next door last nightm so I might have right. The goats appreciated having a bunch of mulberry branches
Planted out seedlings: cucumbers, sour gherkins, and some tomatoes, peppers, and squash
Staked Cercis canadensis ‘Ruby Falls’ with real stake
I do not, as a general practice, stake young trees, but this is for training this weeping-form tree to grow taller
Gathered and moved rocks unearthed by the fiber-installation process, so they don’t kill my lawnmower blade
Have I mentioned it has been raining? That it hasn’t really stopped? That another pounding torrential wave of it just started falling and woke up the guineas, who are now yelling from the coop?
It is Thursday night and it started raining Monday in the wee hours.
Water is standing at least 5 inches deep in some places, and is creeping up on where my Chamaelirium luteum planted last fall are currently blooming.
I have several low areas like this that pond for a day or so after we’ve had tons of rain for days. I’m not entirely sure what to do with them, given that they dry out and can become quite parched once we get to the part of the year where we won’t see rain for weeks at a time. These areas are far from convenient water sources, and I don’t like (and don’t really have the attention/energy capacity) to commit to regularly watering something long-term.
(It’s kind of sink or swim for most plants here at Snailshell Thicket. I try to remember to water newly planted things regularly, but I have too many other things to do than stand around watering things. Also I need to use cached rainwater for watering non-food, and sometimes I have to ration that carefully.)
Unsightly “temporary” fence for discouraging guinea fowl from running directly into the road. I guess I need to get on that…
One good thing about the completely sodden ground with rain like this is that it creates a brief window in which the most tenacious of roots and rhizomes can be effortlessly plucked from the earth. The sensation of an 8-inch long dock root sliding out of the ground is so satisfying.
Rumex crispus root harvested this evening. Perhaps another dock species is in there, too?
I need to figure out the best thing to do with these roots. I am almost out of Everclear and I think there might have been a COVID-19-related run on that to use as a sanitizer, so a tincture probably won’t work. Probably slicing and drying is the best bet. I really need to order some of the herb/flower meshes for my dehydrator.
The leaves of Lonicera caerulea (honeyberry) bead water in an interesting way
After work this evening, I…
did quite a bit of this lovely, buttery weeding during a long, only-slightly-drizzly break in the rain
chopped the tops off the stand of wild solidago to see if that’ll keep it from becoming quite so unruly by the end of the season. Experiments!
did some light pruning of some branches I can actually reach now that they are sagging with the weight of water
gathered/relocated some rocks surfaced by the laying of the fiber last week
enjoyed this display (below) from multiple angles, multiple times.
Again, it has been raining all day long. It is too wet to do anything outside, and I was hyperfocused on creating a new ETL process for work and worked way too long.
The big non-work thing of the day is: I PUT NINE GUINEA EGGS IN THE INCUBATOR.
We will see… I have no idea what their level of fertility or viability will be.
I made a spreadsheet that, when given an “Eggs in Date” on the “data” tab, populates the “days” tab to tell me when to candle the eggs, put them on lockdown, and expect hatching. You should be able to save your own copy of the spreadsheet and use it, if you like.
It rained all day here, so I did nothing outside except animal care. I slipped in the mud outside the guinea coop when I took their food away after roost, and did an almost half-split to catch myself. I will probably be sore tomorrow or the next day.
A big fluffy grey and white cat has been haunting my yard and tormenting Hermes. At 5:40 a.m. today, Hermes was up on his back legs frantically pawing at the inside of the bedroom window. That grey and white cat was on the front deck railing staring in.
I chased the cat off, and am now apparently at a time in my life where I choose to stay awake at 5:45 a.m. because I can go ahead and do a puzzle and eat my dark chocolate Catalina Crunch with heavy cream and drink tea in a leisurely fashion and still plant out and mulch my winter-sown Lobelia cardinalis and Mentha pulegium (pennyroyal) before animal care and the workday.
Who am I?
Also, why have I accumulated so many seedlings that require consistently moist/wet soil when we consistently have summer droughts? (Probably because I’m buying seeds in late fall/early winter when half my yarden is a giant puddle?)
It was a grey and drizzly day, but I’m not sure we got rain-rain. I’ll have to check the level of the rainwater catcher tomorrow when it’s light.
After work, I potted up a couple of tomato seedlings to give away to a friend tomorrow (Green Vernissage and Siberian).
I stole all the guinea eggs out of the coop and sorted them into:
laid during dewormer egg withdrawal (marked with a wax crayon X, and to be put out for my nocturnal anti-tick crew: the opossums)
fresh but too dirty to incubate (set aside to be washed and Instant Pot hard “boiled” to make pickled eggs)
fresh, pretty, and clean (for possible incubation!!)
I began data collection on incubator temperature and humidity constancy, and if that looks good, I hope to put a batch of eggs in on Wednesday (maybe even tomorrow night?). I am still waffling on how many eggs to put in. This will be my first time attempting egg incubation and I have no clue what the fertility or hatch rate is going to be.
I am sure this whole process is going to be heartbreaking but also fascinating.
hosted outdoors-only, socially-distanced guest for garden tour
planted out 5 basil seedlings
added mulch-containment ~6″ chicken wire fence around south-side-of-house-bed, connecting all the way around the big redbud, finally creating one big bed border
curbside pick up of 16 8-foot steel-core garden stakes and 50 4-foot bamboo stakes at Lowe’s
finished mulching within the newly created bed area
The little chicken wire fence sort of ruins the neat visual effect of the Victorian trench, but is necessary to have any hope of the mulch staying in place, given that there are at least five chickens free ranging at any time.
The bed that used to close around the back of the fig and spirea is now connected with the bed around the big redbud.
Finished cutting down the unruly holly. Again. This time I won’t fall for the idea that I can keep it trimmed into some semblance of something attractive.
Prepped area between corkscrew hazel and redbud for final conversion into bed.
FINALLY located some 50 inch by 8 foot handy panels. They are in Burlington and there are only 4, but I just paid for them online and will go pick them up after I drop a thing off in Mebane. I need these for my cucumber trellises and they are as hard to come by as toilet paper at this point! (Update: got 4 for the price of 3 because one was bent!)
Errands including the above and a big trash drop off and getting some vegetables and dairy products.
Today marks the first outing I make in my new-to-me truck! It is fabulous to be able to throw big feed bags full of old carpet and other crap I dug out of the ground in the back of a truck instead of in the back of my enclosed car. I never know what crawled into one of those bags while it was sitting in the shed waiting to be taken to a waste management drop off center!
Ordered this book: https://www.botany.one/2020/05/how-do-plants-work/
Planted 3 cardoons and 3 more plugs of cilantro
Made some chicken wire rings to protect the tomatoes I’ll be planting out tomorrow.
