For what it’s worth, I did notice a package of beans I forgot to blanch (the wrong (blanched) bag made it into the fridge and the unblanced into the basement freezer) and ick. Rather slimy. The chickens appreciated them though.

Yay Amanda! You’ll be quite surprised how much work it is at first but really you do get into the swing of it after a few tries.

WF! Hah. Well: is there anything in the Koran about “beautiful frozen bounty machine” or just plain “good machine”? I am glad you like it.

Emily! Hwhahahwah! yay. You get to inspire others now too! Yay.

Lori, attagirl. You know spread sheets do help in terms of really trying to figure out how long things grow. If you are good enough with them, you can input things like days-til-harvest (straight off the seed packets) to kinda understand what overlaps with what. Of course I say this and I have NEVER been so organized as that

Annika, yep: the Eat Local Challenge really does help you to suss out what might be growing near you that you’d never even thought about: I got locally-made sorghum molasses that way (to. die. for. in ginger cookies). But yes: baby steps: you have all of next winter and most of spring to think about canning. Strawberry jam season then is not too far off!

Ohmigosh Meg you have a DREAM in a husband then: so many hubbies I know would never yield grass space to garden space. (My husband doesn’t care but then we’ve got 4 acres he could–but doesn’t–mow.) But I do understand how busy one can get with little ones. I remember, when pregnant, leaning over my sink skinning beets; my gosh I thought I would collapse my back hurt so much afterward. Backrub time.

Hiya B. Thanks for the link! Yeah, your neighbor: how about a taller fence, like 6′ or so? I ended up having to go that route with my kook of a neighbor in the city. Nutjob neighbors can make your home hell. I suppose educating her isn’t helping, is it: the inspectors surely can tell you that composting is not WRONG, and is actually a good thing. Sometimes people respond positively to what authority figures have to say. But as to the hawks: vigilance is what helps me so far, that, and locking up all my biddies. Thank Jah we have no weasels, how horrible to ponder. But yes farm life does have a lot of death attached to it.

Jennifer, you are welcome! And yeah, I have another compost post floating around. For the most part, if you ignore it completely, it will do fine. I’m not one to ignore mine though so I will definitely go into some tips.

John, thanks. I saw it on Friday and spent a good part of my work day reading it!

Thanks for the greenhouse info too, got it.

Anyway, I finally was inspired to comment (and came back to find this wonderful post!) by finding an interesting poultry-yard tip in a 1910 manual on handy farm devices. (The full text of the book is available here: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/device/devicesToC.html)

“Scare Away Crows and Hawks

For keeping hawks and crows away from the poultry yards, get a few bright tin shingles, link them together with wire, and hang upon an arm extending from the top of a high pole, where sun and wind strike fairly. The jingle and glitter is sufficient to keep these pests at a safe distance. You will also find them useful in the corn and melon fields where crows are troublesome.”

Have you tried anything like that, or is your current solution adequate? Reading about your various poultry losses took me back to my childhood– all those chickens had names, and I was so young it was my first experience with death. The family dog killed my favorite hen right in front of me. A fox took our friendliest rooster, in broad daylight (which was, at least, interesting.) Then weasels got into the coop and slaughtered all 14 of the remaining flock, and only ate the heads, leaving the bodies to rot. That was a really, really, really hard lesson for us kids: sometimes, Nature is as cruel and wasteful as humans are. (Raccoons would get into the coop now and then, but never took more than two or three– which they would actually eat. Weasels, however, kill for sport.)

I’m working on creating a second veggie bed so I can grow excess veggies for storage next year. So far, I’ve laid down straw, one week of grass clippings, one raking of leaves, and some coffee grounds. I’ll need to add several more layers (including newspaper), but at least I’ve made a start.

Oh, and I’m starting to develop a spreadsheet for planning successional planting – with a limited amount of garden space, I need to figure out which crops will rotate into which spots as the year goes on…