Month: May 2021

Cat update for week ending May 15

It’s Caturday! Which means time for mushrooms and spuds, I guess?

The mushroom girls sniffing noses — Porcini and Portabella (aka Bella):

Mushroom girls sniffing noses

Spud jumping up to his breezeway cabin:

Spud jumping up to his breezeway cabin

(His full name is Potato, as all our cats have names that start with “P”, but that’s more of whatever the antonym of hypocorism is (hypercorism?) for Spud.)

A GIF time-lapse of Porcini going into a cabin, having a bath, sleeping, rolling over, looking around, and leaving:

Timelapse

A more realtime GIF of her cutely rolling over:

Porcini in a cabin

A couple of stills:

Porcini in a cabin

Porcini in a cabin

Another shot of Spud jumping up, this one during daytime:

Spud jumping up to his breezeway cabin

Porcini in the cat house:

Porcini in the cat house

Porcini on the front steps:

Porcini on the front steps

Waiting for food:

Waiting for food

Two cats waiting for food:

Two cats waiting for food

Two cats at the feeder:

Two cats at the feeder

Flock Friday for May 14

On Flock Friday this week, we’re visited by a heron a couple of times, a second nesting duck, and more.

Firstly, a couple of chickens in the new coop, one emerging from a nesting box:

Chickens

An animated GIF of a heron landing on the pond island:

Heron

Ducks on the lawn:

Ducks on the lawn

Ducks on the lawn

Ducks on the lawn

Chickens in their run, and ducks on the lawn:

Chickens and ducks

We evicted the chickens from the veggie garden, and closed the gate into their run:

Chickens with closed gate

Another GIF of the heron, this time flying from the island to the edge of the pond in front of the camera:

Heron

A GIF of Betty arriving back in the duck house after taking a brief break, drying herself off, then heading to her nest, and Sonja going to hers:

Ducks

Lots of finches on the bird feeders:

Birds on feeders

Betty on her nest, and Sonja laying an egg on hers; not on it full-time as of this date:

Nesting ducks

Chickens with treats:

Chickens

Ducks in the pond:

Ducks in the pond

Ducks in the pond

Ducks in the pond

A nice circle of eggs in Sonja’s nest; about nine there:

Eggs and nesting

Ducks on islands:

Ducks on islands

This morning Sonja seems to have started sitting on her nest full-time, like Betty is — we’ll see if she stays there, or is just spending a longer-than-usual time (apparently common to gradually increase the nesting time):

Nesting ducks

Here she’s pulling some straw into the nest:

Pulling straw into the nest

The ducklings hatch in about 28 days from full-time nesting, so Betty’s are expected within the next week, and Sonja’s will be around June 11. When they hatch, I’ll be sure to do a special post with the news.

Planting the front garden

Another garden project was to plant our front garden. It used to have a tall hemlock tree, but it died and had to be cut down several years ago — some large rounds of that remain at the back of the garden. We had a grand plan to add a stream and such, so left it empty for years awaiting that, but we finally decided to not bother with that, and do a simpler design.

Here’s the garden cart with the green Japanese maple tree, barberry, nandina, and Japanese forest grass, plus the empty garden:

Cart with plant and empty garden

We planted the Japanese maple tree in the center of the garden, then laid out the other plants around it:

Laying out plants

While Jenn did the planting, I installed irrigation pipes and emitters. Here’s the result:

Planted and irrigated

Manual water timer:

Water timer

Another angle, showing an overview of the finished plants and irrigation; the pipes will eventually be hidden under bark:

Plants and irrigation

A closer look; irrigation for the green Japanese maple:

Plants and irrigation

Wide-angle irrigation for three triangles of Japanese forest grass:

Plants and irrigation

Individual irrigation for barberry and nandina plants:

Plants and irrigation

The view from my office window upstairs:

View from my office window

Much nicer than the empty garden!

We might add a few more plants to fill in some holes. And as mentioned, later we’ll add a layer of bark to give it a finishing touch.

Preparing the veggie garden

Yesterday I evicted the chickens from our fenced vegetable garden, and prepared it for planting — which Jenn subsequently did.

Here’s a wide-angle photo of the veggie garden as the chickens left it, mostly bare of plants (and dirt strewn everywhere):

Fallow veggie garden

I started with a layer of homemade compost, from the three old plastic compost bins:

Compost

Here’s the veggie garden with piles of compost:

Veggie garden with compost

Then a layer of soil on top:

Veggie garden with soil

And with some of the beds planted:

Veggie garden with plants

There are tomatoes in this bed, plus some sunflowers in the potato planters on the right (we’re not going to bother with potatoes this year):

Tomatoes

Pumpkin and zucchini in here (a few chickens visible in their run in the background):

Pumpkin and zucchini

Finally, tomatillos, jalapeño, cherry tomato:

Tomatillos, jalapeño, cherry tomato

We’ll probably add some more sunflowers in the fourth bed, plus some lettuce and kale (which are primarily as treats for the chickens).

The plants are all very small at present, but they’ll grow fast!

Cat update for week ending May 8

This Caturday is a bit of a yawn… two yawns, actually. And some fun GIFs and such.

Porcini peeking at me from a cabin:

Porcini peeking from a cabin

Two cats at the cat house:

Two cats

A GIF of Porcini jumping onto the camera housing:

Jumping

Porcini looking up at birds in a tree:

Porcini looking up

A GIF of Porcini looking around:

Looking

Pommie in mid yawn:

Yawn

Here’s a GIF of her yawning:

Yawm

The twins, Spud and Pommie:

Twins

Porcini watching me from under a tree:

Porcini under a tree

A GIF of Paladout next to the cat house, when another cat runs by. I’m not sure who was more startled:

Cats

Bella chilling on the deck:

Bella

Another yawn, this time Porcini:

Yawn

Three cats at the cabins; Spud, Porcini, and Pommie:

Three cats

Flock Friday for May 7

For Flock Friday this week, an assortment of chicken and duck pictures, plus more of nesting ducks and broody chickens.

Let’s start with some pictures of the chickens:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

And ducks:

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Ducks

Here’s Betty nesting on her clutch of eggs in the duck house:

Duck house

Sonja has also started laying some eggs in a different nesting box:

Duck house

Two of Sonja’s eggs:

Duck eggs

Yesterday I needed to refill the duck food dispenser (the jug at the top of the feeder tube), so had an opportunity to peek at Betty:

Duck food and Betty

I try not to disturb her too much, as she huffs like she’s stressed when I open the door, unsurprisingly. But she relaxes after a few seconds once she realizes I’m not a threat to her nest:

Betty nesting

Closer:

Betty nesting

Some of the chickens want in on the fun; there are currently three broody chickens… though they’re wasting their time, since we haven’t had a rooster in years, so the eggs are unfertilized:

Broody chickens

Broody chicken

Bee shed: finishing touches

Yesterday I finished work on the bee shed project!

I started by digging a small ditch on the uphill sides, mounding dirt against the base of the walls, so rain will be diverted around the shed, instead of seeping under the walls:

Ditch

I then scraped off the worst excess of the expanding foam filler.

I mentioned last time that I wasn’t entirely happy with the top panel of the door, so next I replaced it with a clear panel, and caulked it:

Replaced top panel of door

The caulk goes on white, but cures to clear, so it’ll be less visible once dry:

Caulk

I may need to top up the caulk once it has cured, if I missed any spots.

Here are the finished walls and door; you can also see scraped off filler foam on the ground, which I cleaned up later:

Finished walls and door

To make it easier to close the door from inside, I added a handle on the inside of the door:

Handle on inside of door

It’s easy to lift the latch to open the door from inside.

The door wall from inside:

Inside door wall

The next step was to finish the shelving, with plywood panels:

Shelving

Cutting shelving:

Cutting shelving

The completed shelving:

Shelving

Shelving

Looking in from the doorway:

Shelving

Open door:

Open door

I could then move the hive feeders, boxes, lids, etc onto the shelves; I’ll move more equipment from the workshop in due course:

Hive boxes on shelves

Hive lids on shelves

The last step (other than removing the wood scraps and tools) was to install a mirror. These are reflective self-adhesive plastic sheets; not as smooth a reflection as a glass mirror, but safer, and good enough:

Mirror

The reason for a mirror in the bee shed is to help put on our bee suits in there. Though it’s fairly likely we’ll continue to put on the suits in the back of the workshop, as the bees can be a bit aggressive after an inspection, so getting some distance from the hives before taking off the suits is usually preferred.

Here’s me in the mirror, in my work overalls and hat; definitely some distortion, but not too egregious:

David in mirror

That concludes the bee shed project! I may do some minor tweaks, like touching up the caulking, but it’s basically done now. It will be a more convenient location for our beekeeping equipment, no longer needing to lug hive boxes etc on a cart from the shop, or going back to the shop to grab something in the hot bee suit.