Category Archives: Gardening

Winter in Greeley – Already!

Well it’s officially the first snow and it’s only October! Cassie and I moved the chicken coop -with the chickens inside of it- into the greenhouse last night. The wind had picked up and the temperature was dropping. Good thing we did because this morning it would have been much harder to move the coop in the snow.

greenhouse snow

It was funny because the chickens were all asleep, but when they woke up they had been magically transported.
Chickens and snow

As long as you keep chickens dry and out of the wind they can withstand some really cold temperatures (last year -20 and things were ok). So moving them into the greenhouse affords them quite a bit of protection.  When it is sunny, the greenhouse can be 20-30 degrees warmer even in the middle of winter. Tomorrow its supposed to be back up in the 50’s and most of this snow will melt away and the chickens will be extra toasty.

Chicken coop in Greenhouse with Kitty
With Kitty on top of the chicken coop inside the greenhouse

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Fall Gardening and Harvest in Greeley

This weekend we started the task of the last harvest. Things are starting to turn brown and since the frost hit, our basil, tomatoes and peppers have not been happy. We decided to go gather up as much of the bounty as we could wrangle together. We started to turn under the garden and we need to do the same to the greenhouse and move the chickens in, but that we might save for  another warmer  day. Here is a fun video I made of our harvest, greenhouse and garden. I just started playing with Youtube’s video editor so it was kind of fun to do. I hope you like it:

The fall bounty
Here’s some of the bounty all washed

Purple potato
Look how purple this potato is…and iridescent!

Today we made egg and potato breakfast burritos with this and since it’s chili out, I’ll use some of these ingredients to make some chili to stay in too!

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Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere

Last night Britton and I went to meet the Boyles Family at their farm in east Greeley. It was really nice meeting Claire, Matt and their adorable kids, Simon and Madzie.  We got a little tour of the farm that grows small fruits and veggies, chickens, pigs and turkeys, but also very beautiful flowers. Since it is the end of the season and frost will shortly be upon us, Claire invited us to cut some flowers and take them home in a huge 5 gallon bucket.  So we did! And when we got home I knew I wanted to make bouquets out of them.

flower field
Britton took this picture of the flower field (zinnias) with his cell phone

Schnoodle and bucket of flowers
Here’s our dog, Schnoodle next to the bucket-o-flowers

Arrangements
Then I arranged them while Britton and Schnoodle relaxed!

Bedroom
Then I put them all around the house -our bedroom

Basement
Our Basement

100_5410
Our Kitchen

Our bathroom
Our hallway, living room and even our bathroom!

I made this one out of an abalone shell and some of the flower heads that fell off in transit.

Thanks Claire and family for so much beauty and bounty!

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Case of the Missing Eggs -Solved!

One morning, about a week ago, Britton woke me, “Surprise! We have 2 eggs from our girls!” However, the eggs were soft shelled he said, so we should wait and I could get them at lunch (and hopefully they would harden). Well, I went home at lunch and there was nothing there but a white egg with what looked like a little bit of yolk on it. Hmm…mystery. So I never did see the new brown eggs he spoke of.

Well, although I never did see any other eggs,  I just chocked it up inexperience on their part and figured they would lay again soon. (Possible explanations: Maybe they ate their own eggs or a squirrel got them?) In the mean time, our white chicken and white egg-layer, Omelette AKA Salt continued to lay in the nesting box we created for that purpose in their fancy chicken coop.

That is…until a few days ago. I kept asking Britton if he had seen any eggs from Omelette lately, but he said no. Well, she is very regular. So, tonight I said we needed to go on an egg hunt to see if there were any eggs hidden somewhere. I thought they might be behind the greenhouse. We had no luck until….Britton found this clutch of eggs under an unruly rose bush by our house.

Egg Clutch and chicken
If you enlarge the picture you MIGHT see the clutch

Close up of clutch
Close up

They were not as easy to get out of there as you think. Britton had to jump down into the window-well to reach them. While he was down there he found another egg as well!

Eggs and Tomatoes

Neatly arranged and with garden fresh tomatoes!

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