Around now is the time to plant your cool weather veggies in Idaho/Pacific Northwest. If you haven’t already been out there (and as long as your soil isn’t frozen or waterlogged), it is a great time to plant peas, lettuces, swiss chard, bok choy, spinach, beets, carrots, onions…anything that is considered a cool weather crop. My soil is perfect (as in not too wet and not frozen) though the last few days have been a bit chilly with freezing night temperatures again. Still, I am seeing sprouts coming up all over my flower beds and dandelions starting to grow here and there. A few days ago I got some beets and some of the peas planted. Soon I am going to plant lettuces, spinach, and bok choy and transplant a bunch of volunteer onions that are poking up in several different beds into one bed that I prepared a couple of days ago. This year, I am going to be working on continuing to improve my soil by adding mulches and compost and making a nice border around the garden with some bark. As of right now, the beds just join basically into the grass.
The chicks are getting much bigger. They are looking awkward as they have lost a lot of their chick fuzz and are sprouting feathers. Dragon is the only one with greenish feet. Weird. The rest have orange colored chicken feet. Dragon is also the only one that I have seen eat a bug yet. Though we are now transitioning them to being outside for afternoon and early evening hours on nice days and they seem to love it. They have gotten so big. I will include their baby pics so you can see the difference more clearly.
Angel is the sweetest. She comes right over and doesn’t seem to mind being held as much. She also loves her dust baths. She digs a deep hole in her wood pellets and digs sawdust up all over herself. The first few times she did it, we thought something was wrong with her because she was laying so funny in the dusty wood pellets and Dragon was stepping right on top of her head to get around her. But she always gets up afterward and is fine.
Courage is also pretty holdable and is turning more brown than black. She is our second most independent chicken. Always checking things out.
Butterfly is also turning into quite a pet. She is quite the lady, always looking very elegant. She likes to fly and keeps trying to get some air.
Dragon will do anything to get away from you when you try to catch her. She is the wild child. Green feet, eating bugs, overly independent, stepping on her sister. What is with this chicken?
They are growing so fast. Amazing really. They all freak out if they are separated. Who knew such a small animal could be so noisy? Definitely social little creatures. Still enjoying the chickens. Still an experiment. The coop is almost ready for them and it is a good thing because they are quickly outgrowing the boxes we have for them. Now if only the temperature outside would warm up just a hair again, the peas and greens would start poking out of the soil and we could put the chicks in their new home! Happy Spring!