new arrivals

This is Wyatt, my oldest grandson checking out the new chicks and geese.  In this bunch are 35 Cornish cross to be used for meat and 10 new geese. I like to have geese around to scare off predators from having a snack on the chickens.

They are all growing so fast that they had to be moved out of their brooding box and have now taken over the half of the chicken house that I use for storage.  This is not my first attempt at chickens for meat. I did not do so well the last time since I had to pluck 100 chickens by myself. By the time it was done I could not eat the chickens because the smell of scalded wet chicken feathers ruined it for me. I have plans for an automatic chicken plucker this time, so I hope it works better this time. If not the dogs will eat good. Or should I say better than they do already since they get all the extra eggs too.
I have even started dehydrating the extra eggs since I can not keep up with the 3-5 doz we are getting every day. I am hoping these can be used during the next slow period for the chickens next winter. This winter it slowed down to about 1-1.5 doz a week.
Not much else going on around here due to the constant rain fall. It is said we had twice our normal in the month of March.  I am hopeful that April will be better.

As you can see here the ground is pretty saturated with water. Even when it stops raining it will take a few days before the ground is dry enough to do anything with.

So here are the seeds I have purchased for this years garden. I tried to be conservative and not double up on anything this year.  I did pretty good I think. I only have one package of pumpkins, not 5 this year.  Since it is to wet to do anything in the garden I have started my cold weather crops in the green house. 
The bench is now full of flats of cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. I plan to have these in the garden in about a month weather permitting, and make room for other seeds to be planted that will do better when it is warmer.
I have also started tomatoes, sunflowers, eggplant (cause it's pretty) bunching onions, and garlic. All are doing great and have stared to sprout. Some now 2 inches tall. I have to do regular slug patrol to make sure the nasty slimy critters don't eat them all.  I have started crushing egg shell and sprinkling them over the flats also. Slugs don't like the pointy shells and with them ground they will stick to the slugs also so they can not get far.

The onions that I planted earlier in the garden came up about a month ago and are doing good.  The Walla Walla yellow onions are slow to take off. I haven't had good results with them. They are usually eaten by something before they get very old. I hope that by planting earlier this time they will have a better chance to be eaten by me.
Notice my little buddy trying out his natural gardening skills.  Got to start them early so they can learn to love it, right?

So other than gardening..... This past weekend a new 3 hole rabbit hutch was built using scraps of the wood saved from other projects. I put mommy and daddy rabbit together about a week ago and will be expecting babies in about 6 weeks. I can never have too much rabbit poop for the garden and my sis also said she needed more bunnies too. Last year I did this and ended up with 12 babies when we wanted 4 or 5.  At least I will have plenty of room this time if I need it.

Above is a picture of the new fence around the yard designed for my smaller dogs. I planted grape plants of several varieties around two sides of the yard. I thought it would be a great place for them since it will provide a source of shade in the summer, not the winter and it already has a trellis of sorts to train them on as they grow.  Need to get 2 more to finish the two sides.  I will be moving some rodies to the third exposed side since they are in the way where they are now.
I have decided I need to have a cellar type place to store my food from the garden. We estimated there was more than 700 lbs of potatoes alone from the garden last year.  We eat them 2-3 times a week and have eaten maybe half of them. Now they are starting to grow and I don't think they will be good to eat in another month. Out they will go to the garden to be planted for this years potatoes.  Hopefully by the time they are dug up in the fall I will have a cellar to put them in. I would like them to last until June or July.
I always can find new projects to do.