Portage River Farm

Yesterday morning, the boys and I headed out into our woods to pick some black raspberries. I had noticed some canes coming up in the springtime in the woods near our chicken coop but had not been back in that area since.

When we arrived at the edge of the woods our eyes opened wide at the abundance of raspberries everywhere we looked. Since they are wild they are relatively small but the moist soil at the edge of our wooded wetlands has provided them the conditions to grow in abundance.

A part of our master plan for the farm is to plant a large berry patch with just about every variety that you can imagine. My experience with domestic raspberry varieties thus far has been that they are much larger but much less flavorful than their wild cousins. Now that we know about this wonderful wild resource at the edge of our woods we plan to incorporate its preservation into our plans so that we will always have wild raspberries for our table.

Last spring in my gardening classes at the local extension office, I was singled out as one of the few people attempting true organic gardening. The instructor explained that for most people organic gardening was a matter of degree and that they follow some of the rules and ignore others according to personal taste and convenience. Among the packed room of classmates, I was clearly holding down the "purist" extreme of the spectrum.

Thus far I have stuck to my guns and intend to carry it through. This has meant that I have paid more for my seed stock and potting soil. It has also meant that I have been keeping careful records of everything that I have done including keeping the labels off of everything I have used for eventual inspection by an auditor. I have also called the certifying agency a number of times to get advice on what I can or cannot do.

This has meant that I have been extremely cautious about what is placed in the garden or used on the plants. It has also led to some minor problems such as when Janet came home with a few basil plants that she had picked up from the grocery. Because they had no paper trail to prove where the seeds came from or what might be in the potting soil, I would not allow them to be anywhere near our food production areas. In the end I stuck them in the ground along the edge of our shed to be treated as second-class citizens on our farm.

Up until recently the garden had been pretty exclusively my problem to deal with. It is true that Sean and Aidan lent a hand during some of the planting but the rest of the work had been done by me mostly late at night when I could finally find some time to get to it. During a recent trip by the children and I to visit family, I was surprised to hear from Janet that she had spent considerable time weeding the garden. In the past week her participation has led to a couple of evenings where the entire family could be found heads-down in the rows. My smile could not have been broader at the sight.

A few nights ago we were all together among the vegetables when Aidan observed, "The cabbages are getting eaten up by something." Up until this point our plants had been completely free of insect pests. My experiences with growing potatoes in Tennessee, for example, has left me amazed at the sight of our great big healthy potato plants without a single potato beetle! I walked over to the cabbage and saw that Aidan was absolutely correct. Every single cabbage plant had holes nibbled in its leaves.

It didn't take me long to find the culprits. A close inspection of the plants revealed that imported cabbage worms and cabbage loopers were both happily munching away at our plants. I am very familiar with these pests from previous seasons. They arrive in the garden daily as little white and grey moths to lay eggs on the undersides of the leaves. Unless something is done about them, the green caterpillars that emerge will quickly reduce the plant to a hole-riddled skeleton.

I have dealt with them many times before using a tried and true organic method. There is a wonderful line of products made from a soil bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt. I have used it for years in powder form. A light dusting of the plants prevents any further problems with the worms. The nice thing about Bt is that it has been in use for nearly 100 years with no known issues for the environment or human health.

Bt is nice to use because it only affects a few species of insects, primarily moths and butterflies, and only those who decide to eat the plants on which I have applied it. A light dusting of the cabbage plants now and then is enough to keep them completely free of the pests. The problem is that I can't find Bt anywhere!

I have spent a number of days calling and visiting every garden supply store and greenhouse in the area. Each visit has found me standing in the store explaining what Bt is to employees who have never heard of it. With enough effort, I can generally get to the point that they will offer to special order it for me and have it available in a week or two. My problem is that my cabbages are getting eaten right now!

In one phone call, I did manage to find an employee at an Ann Arbor garden supply store who actually knew what it was without me having to explain it. Regrettably, they didn't carry it in the store either. In my frustration I asked the man, "Why can't I find this stuff anywhere? Isn't anybody else doing organic gardening? What are they using to combat cabbage moths?". He sheepishly admitted that it is very rare for anyone to really be concerned about using anything other than the standard toxic stuff from Ortho. One application of that stuff would be enough to cause an organic farm to lose its certification for three to five years!

In the end I ended up asking my local hardware store to special order a couple of containers for me. As a hold-over measure until they arrive, I have been hand picking the caterpillars off of the plants and feeding them to the chickens. This morning I consulted my new organic gardening guides to make sure that it wasn't just a case of me being out of date. They confirmed that Bt was the solution of choice. I'm just left wondering how much longer these companies will continue to manufacture products that so few people are buying.

Where the heck are all of the other organic gardeners?

Yesterday was a very pleasant day weather-wise. It was cool and breezy with a solid cloud cover that kept the roasting sun at bay. I spent much of the late evening with hoe in hand trying to make gains in my struggle with the weeds in the garden. As the light grew increasingly dim, Aidan returned to notify me for the third time that it was time to come in and read his bedtime story.

Making my gradual way to the house, I stopped by the coop to bed down the chickens for the evening. They came out of their huddle in the corner to accept my offering of feed and fresh water with appreciative little honks. I counted them, said goodnight and closed the door behind me.

I found the house pleasantly dark and quiet. Freya had gone to bed early and Aidan was sitting in his bed awaiting my arrival. I stopped by to briefly check in with Janet who was comfortably curled up with a book in the bedroom. She was enjoying the stillness and the cool night air that came in through her open window. She was in the final few pages of a very long read but patiently endured my interruption to receive a good-night kiss.

I retrieved a chair from the kitchen and sat down next to Aidan's bed to pick up the story of Tom Sawyer where we had left it the night before. Tom was taking advantage of a surprise visit from a local dignitary to his bible study class to force his teacher to present him with an award for memorizing verses that he hadn't earned. He was smitten with the visiting judge's daughter and was trying to make a good impression. The judge was unknowingly praising the badly behaved boy as "a fine young man". Tom was on the verge of getting caught in the lie by being asked to recite when our story was interrupted by a call from Janet's room.

Janet asked, "Did you put the chickens away?". I replied that I had. Then she said, "I just heard a really strange noise coming from the coop." "It sounds like something is killing the chickens!"

I raced around the house preparing to head out to investigate. I flipped on the outside floodlights in the hope that it would discourage whatever was out there until I could get my shoes on. I grabbed my LED headlamp and burst out of the front door. As I rounded the corner of the house the coop came into view in the white-grey light of the floods. I could see nothing out of the ordinary but I grabbed a weeding hoe from the shed just in case.

About halfway to the gate of the coop I was collected enough to finally turn on my headlamp. It is a little marvel that puts out a surprisingly bright white light. I sped along the edge of the garden toward the coop and scanned the area with my light. It was then that I caught sight of something that stopped me in my tracks.

About thirty yards to my left the fencing of the chicken enclosure turns a corner toward the woods. Next to that corner was a large pair of bright green eyes looking directly at me. They were wide-set and triangular, clearly belonging to something fairly large. They were very still as the creature watched to see what I was going to do.

I resolved to scare it off, whatever it was. With a rising sense of indignant rage that this thing would dare invade our tranquil little farm I began running down the fence row toward where it was standing. The ground there is very rough with leftover ruts from the spring plowing and before long I had tripped and sprawled to the ground.

I quickly jumped up and resumed my pursuit. With a half roar, half growl emanating from my throat I charged through the weeds to the property line. A quick scan ahead showed me that my quarry had fled across our neighbors field and had paused at the safety of the treeline to stare back at me with those bright green eyes once again.

I continued my growling pursuit, running as fast as I could across the recently mown hayfield to where it had been standing. Arriving at the spot, I checked my pace and stood barking a threat into the dark of the forest. I could hear it crashing through the brush, moving in an arc away from me through the woods toward the southeast. After a short walk into the woods and a bit more growling and waving my hoe in caveman fashion, I convinced myself that it was gone.

I returned to the coop and verified that the birds were all healthy and safe. I'm pretty confident that no predator can get to them once they are closed inside, but I just wanted to check to be sure. They were stirred up by all of the commotion but otherwise unharmed.

After I returned to the house, I spent some time exploring the Internet for any clues to the identity of our invader. My assumption had been that I was chasing a coyote and the websites confirmed that their eyes shine green-gold at night. One other possibility came to light as well that I admit was a bit of a surprise. According to several conservation groups researching the subject, we have a sizable population of cougars in the state. For example, click here. According to them, cougars have been spotted all around our area including a sighting only ten miles away two weeks ago.

I know that coyote is the far more likely culprit. We know that they live near us and they are certainly more plentiful. At the same time, when I think back to the sight of those ghostly green eyes I find myself not so sure. The placement of the eyes seems very broad, suggesting a large, wide head. The eyes were also rather triangular in shape, definitely suggesting something more feline to me.

I'm sure I'll never know. I went out this morning in search of tracks but found nothing remarkable. If nothing else we can just chalk it up as another exciting adventure here on our little farm.

Late last week, the sky opened up and dumped one quarter of a million gallons of water on our little farm. Rest assured that it came down slowly and gently over a number of hours but it came just the same. The roof and gutters dutifully routed it away from the foundations and the sandy soil quickly drained it away to somewhere beneath the surface.

I watched the rain from the front window, thinking to myself that it would be good for the vegetable and wildflower gardens. It gave me a good excuse to remain indoors for the evening and I worked on house projects instead. Little did I know that we were getting much more water than we needed.

After the storms had finally passed, I took a walk to survey the results. The wheel barrow had been left out and accumulated an impressive amount of water. It was at least six inches deep. I turned it over, releasing all of those gallons to soak into the yard and join up with the rest of the water somewhere below.

My inspection tour moved on to the gardens. The wildflower garden had only been seeded a few days earlier and had yet to sprout. I found myself peering at the heavily washed sand and wondering if all of those expensive seeds from the wildflower mixes had been washed away. A repeat inspection a few days later revealed that small seedlings were in fact coming up all over the place and everything seems to be fine.

The vegetable garden looked none the worse for wear but looks can be deceiving. After standing at the edge of the garden I decided to walk into the middle to have a closer look. Stepping off of the sod into the saturated soil, I found myself half-way up to my knees in sandy mud that was exactly the consistency of pudding! Seeing the potential for doing irreparable damage to my long-suffering seedlings, I quickly retreated to the solid safety of the untilled yard.

A couple of days later, Sean came home and asked to have a friend over to camp out on the farm for his thirteenth birthday. The boys selected a spot for the tent between the double rows of evergreens that crown a low ridge in our front pasture. Due to the high weeds, they asked if I could mow the area before they started setting up.

We hooked the bush hog to the tractor and I mowed a path through the high weeds to their selected spot. I carefully maneuvered my way through the trees and must say that I did a mighty fine job of prettying the area up for their camp. The job being accomplished, I began the drive back to our side yard where I customarily park the tractor.

Had I gone directly to that spot and quit for the day this tale would have a very different end. Instead, I emerged from the trees into the front field and surveyed the high weeds with the thought that I could quickly mow it as well while I was at it. I swung the tractor along the treeline and began mowing the edge of the field.

As I was rounding the far end of the field the tractor suddenly stopped moving forward. Looking down, I saw that it had sunken to the axles in mud! It took only a few minutes of attempting to back out of the mess to convince me that there was no hope of freeing it.

The transmission casing between the rear wheels was resting on the ground and preventing the big tires from getting any purchase on the muck. I walked back to the house all the while shaking my head at myself that I had not thought about all of that water that had saturated the ground only a few days before. This is not the first time that I have gotten the tractor stuck but it is certainly the worst.

I figure that I'll give it a week to dry out before giving it another try. Until then, there's no shortage of other things to do.

A few nights ago the quiet of our home was suddenly shattered by an eruption of barking from the front room. The children had just gone to bed and I was in the back of the house having a conversation with Janet. Aidan came running down the hall with alarm in his voice telling me the obvious fact that "The dogs are barking!!" The commotion even stirred Freya from her bed who came out to follow me down the hall to see what was going on.

In our old house in Ypsilanti, the barking of the dogs was a nuisance noise that elicited little more reaction from the rest of the family than a half-hearted scolding to "Be Quiet!" from elsewhere in the house. The world outside our home was a busy place with families walking their dogs and mailmen cutting through the yard on the way to our porch. Finn and Sirona would spend much of their time gazing out the front window or "dog television" and rarely let anyone pass by without a giving out a bark or two.

Life on the farm is another situation entirely. The dogs still look out of the window but the green world outside rarely presents anything worthy of comment. Occasionally Finn will alert us to the passing of our little deer herd but usually his barking is an indication that somebody is coming up the driveway.

On this particular evening, his barking was especially insistent. I looked out the front window but saw no cars nor people. With Freya cautiously in tow, I walked out into the front yard and shined a flashlight into the dark. In the hope of stirring some movement and probably a tiny bit to settle my own nerves, I shouted a warning "Hah!". After a few more minutes of looking around, I concluded that whatever had peaked Finn's interest had moved on. We returned to the house and our evening went on as before.

Around two-o-clock in the morning, we were again disturbed by frantic barking from the living room. As far as I know nobody else stirred but I rocketed out of bed to investigate. This time I found Finn standing at the back window barking and growling excitedly. I grabbed a flashlight and a dog leash and we headed out to have a closer look.

Immediately upon passing through the doorway into the cool night air, Finn puffed himself up with all of the hairs on his back and neck bristling. Clearly on the trail of something, he sniffed the air and pulled on his lead. We raced across the yard toward the chicken coop while I encouraged him to "show me what's out here boy!".

We searched around coop, we headed a little way into the woods and we circled the house. All the while Finn sniffed excitedly at everything. In the end we failed to track down or scare up anything. I found myself wishing that he could talk and could tell me what it was that he was smelling.

The next morning, I was going through my usual chicken-feeding routine before heading off to work. I had pretty much forgotten about the adventure of the previous night until I approached our shed in the backyard. I found that our nocturnal visitor had chewed a big hole in a fifty pound bag of chicken feed and had spilled much of the contents on the shed floor. I moved the remaining feed into a trashcan as I should have done from the start and cleaned up the mess.

At the end of the day, Aidan and I were working on the garden when we discovered a couple sets of tracks in the mud near the shed. I retrieved one of our field guides to animal tracks and we sat down to determine the identity of our visitor. Right away I could see that two very different animals had been there.

One set of tracks were easy to identify as raccoon. This was pretty much what I had expected since neighbors had been warning me that the raccoons could be a nuisance. The second set of tracks, however, proved to be a bigger identification challenge.

The field guide that I was using was meant to cover the eastern half of the country so I knew it would include some animals that didn't live in our area. As I scanned back and forth through the pages, one particular animal stood out as the best match for the tracks. I would look at the track and tell myself that it was the best match but that it had to be something else.

I methodically worked from one animal to the next and made certain that there were no other matches. It was too big for a skunk. It had too many toes to be a fox or large cat. The clear separation of the toes from the central pads and the close placement of toes ruled out raccoon. The deep claw marks ruled out a number of other possibilities.

In the end I had no option left but to return to the original track that seemed improbable, that of the badger. Unsure if it was even possible, I consulted the Michigan Department of Natural Resources website. To my surprise, it told me that badgers are indeed in our area although they are rare.

Weighing all that I have seen, I have concluded that the raccoon was the culprit who was disturbing our sleep. A little more observation around our home led me to the discovery that an old bird-feeder had been knocked off of the deck railing just outside of our back sliding door. I imagine that he was after the bird seed inside and the resulting crash alerted Finn to his presence.

Thanks to the racoon's clumsiness, Finn and I had a few minutes of adventure during the night. More importantly, he raised our level of curiosity and observation of our surroundings which led directly to the discovery of our more rare visitor, the badger.

We have not had any more losses since Sean and I fortified the coop. All of our efforts of late have been put into the garden and the coop remains a bit of an eyesore due to its less-than half-built nature. Despite this, it has been holding up well to the rainy weather and nightly probes by predators.

The birds have settled in well to their new routine. At sunset each evening I head out to bed them down with a pail of mixed feed and scratch in hand. As I approach the chicken-yard gate, I always call out saying "chick...chick...chick" to let them know that I am coming. During the day this call will bring them running from all directions to gather excitedly at my feet. In the late evening they will have already gathered indoors. Rather than venturing out, they simply answer my call with squawks and clucks.

Unfortunately they have picked the corner behind the door as their favorite site for their nightly pile-up. It is amazing how tiny of a space twenty one chickens can cram themselves into. While it is inconvenient to get through the door when they are packed so tightly behind it, I can't really complain all that much since I have yet to equip the coop with proper roosts. I actually went to the store a few days ago to pick up the recommended two-inch dowels but upon seeing the price they were asking, I told myself that I would find a way to make something more economical.

After scooping the wood chips away in a few spots, I pour the feed out on the floor. This brings them out of the corner and makes them easier to count. After making sure that they are all present, I leave them to their dinner closing them in securely behind the coop door.

In the morning the routine is similar. I lay out their breakfast outside while they excitedly gibber and squawk to be let out. Once the door is finally open they come charging out in an exuberant race to be the first at the buffet.

The rest of the day the chickens require no attention at all. They wander through the tall weeds in search of bugs, they nibble at plants, they take long luxurious dust baths and stretch, flap and run to their heart's content. From my vantage point as their chef, handmaid and butler, I have to say that they've got a pretty good life.

The past weekend was dedicated pretty exclusively to planting. Sean, Aidan and I started at the south end of the garden and worked our way north all weekend. I'm not sure how many hours were expended other than to say that it was many.

I started by going to the farm calendar on our website and looking through the months to find all the items that we would have already planted had we not been so behind schedule. We worked our way forward, starting with the peas that were scheduled for March 20th. Those we planted in the first row and then worked our way chronologically through the calendar and across the garden. As of late last night we had worked our way forward to May 2nd which meant that all of the beans (lima, black, Jacob's cattle, wax and pole beans) finally were poked into the waiting soil. In all, 29 varieties of vegetables were planted or transplanted from where they have been growing under lights indoors and about one third of the garden was used up.

It was a very satisfying feeling to straighten my back and look across the garden to see the work we had accomplished. Of course, I realize that having our schedule so far out of whack means that some things will not turn out all that well. I anticipate that a couple of the cold-weather crops at the southern end of the garden will bolt in protest of the hot summer weather. As well, some of the long season crops may not have enough time to make it to maturity before the frosts come in the fall. Some of my co-workers have mentioned that their gardens were all severely damaged by a late frost at the end of May so I may accidentally come out ahead.

Sunset last night found me poking the last of the pole bean seeds into the ground. As the light shifted from yellow to red, the thunderstorm that had been threatening all evening finally arrived. The roiling clouds in the last rays of the day made a dramatic display overhead that was quickly followed by an impressive lightning show and torrents of rain. I ended up getting caught for the worst of it while ushering the chickens into the coop for the night.

We rode out the storm together in dry comfort beneath the temporary roof. I sat on the floor in the dry wood shavings enjoying the rest for my tired muscles. I sat with a satisfied smile on my face as I listened to the thunder overhead and watched the chickens all about me busily pecking at their dinner. It was a golden moment. It just doesn't get much better than that!

Two evenings ago, Sean, Freya and I headed out to the coop to put the chickens in for the night. I had asked them to join me in preparation for an upcoming evening when I would not be home. I wanted to show them how to round up all of the flock and get them safely closed indoors before dark for fear of predators.

This is an easy task for the bulk of the birds as simple bribery with a little chicken feed is very effective. Unfortunately, there are always a few stragglers who seem to prefer taking their chances with the coyotes. If you make the mistake of trying to grab them, they will happily lead you on a wild chicken-chase that will leave you flustered and empty-handed. I have found that the best remedy is to patiently wait by the coop door until the desire to be in the evening pileup with the rest of the flock overrides their thoughts of freedom and independence. One by one they eventually poke their heads around the corner and cautiously make their way to the door to be let in.

Having completed the task, we closed the gate and started walking around the end of the newly plowed garden and toward the house. Glancing at the soil in the sunset gloom, my mind registered that something seemed out of place. There was a large dark patch in the otherwise dried out soil just a few feet from the edge of the garden. We walked over to the spot and found a very large snapping turtle partially dug into the dirt. It had a shell that had to be at least 17 inches in diameter.

After the initial excitement, we retrieved one of our field guides to verify the species. The book said that the female turtles would leave their watery haunts in June and lay their eggs in sandy soil. We let her go about her business undisturbed and resolved to mark the spot with stakes so that we wouldn't harm the eggs. According to the book, she will have laid between 10 and 96 eggs about six inches beneath the surface. They will remain there until hatching in 55 to 125 days.

It would be amazing to see them dig their way out of the soil but I suppose our chances of being there to see it are slim. In any case, she added a little excitement to our evening and served as a reminder of the wild animals that share our farm as well.

Over the past few days, I have been using the tractor to get a few more tasks completed. The driveway has been plagued with potholes since before we bought the farm. With the warm spring rains those potholes became huge and filled with water. I felt embarrassed any time somebody came to visit as they slowly bounced and jostled their way up to the house.

When things were particularly desperate, the children and I spent a couple of afternoons loading the wheelbarrow with small rocks and attempting to fill the holes. Our efforts resulted in small improvements but most of the rocks we deposited ended up getting shifted to the sides as our car tires worked their way back down into the muddy mess.

This problem was on our mind when we went tractor shopping. We wanted to be sure to purchase something to help us restore and maintain the driveway. In the end we bought a 6' box blade (fourth photo down).

The box blade has six adjustable teeth that loosen up the gravel as it is pulled along. The loosened gravel accumulates in the box and is graded smooth by the blade on the lower back edge of the box. I made about a half-dozen passes up and down the drive with this implement and it left the drive smooth and the previously packed-down gravel loose and soft.

The second task for the tractor was getting the garden soil ready for planting. I had already plowed it up a few days ago but unfortunately left a few grassy patches. I decided that I would have to turn it a second time to be sure that we wouldn't be attempting to plant portions of the garden in sod and then spending all summer searching through tall grass to find our crops.

The surface of the garden was still very rough from the large furrows the plow had left. Before plowing a second time, I decided to use the disc harrow to cut up the large chunks and smooth it back out. After backing the tractor up to the disc, I found that it was equipped with the wrong size of draw pins to mate up with the lower arms of the three-point hitch. I ran out to Tractor Supply and bought smaller pins, removed the old rusty ones with a grinder and installed shiny new pins.

The disc harrow (two pictures below the box blade) made quick work of reducing the clods. Then I hooked up the plow set again and turned the entire garden once more. The second try at plowing was so much easier. By the end I really felt that I had gotten the hang of it and the resulting garden was uniformly turned.

I finished up the task by passing the disc set back over the whole area and then dragging the spring-tooth harrow (pictured below the disc harrow) across the soil to smooth the final high spots down. The soil is now fully broken up and very soft. I will have to do a bit of raking to remove small clumps of broken up sod that are still on the surface but otherwise it is ready for seeding.

Nevermind the fact that this task should have been done long ago, I'm still having fun and have decided that we are just going to do the best that we can for this first year. As long as each year brings some improvement over the last, I'll consider myself successful. As things are going, I'm ensuring myself many years of satisfaction by leaving lots of room for improvement!

Sunday morning dawned cool and beautiful. Sean and I talked about the possibilities for the day over breakfast trying to decide which of the many projects that we have going would be the best use of our time. Sean asked if he could feed the chickens before we started so we headed out to the coop to check on them.

The chickens always come running from all directions when they see us approaching. They crowd the fence like adoring fans and welcome us with excited peeps and whistles. I remarked to Sean that the flock seemed a little smaller than usual as we passed through the gate and began the slow walk to the coop as the milling chickens did their best to position themselves directly in the path of each footfall.

As Sean fed the hungry birds we attempted the difficult task of counting them. It is difficult because they are continuously moving about and jockeying for a choice bit of ground at which to peck. After coming up with a number of different results we finally concluded that the correct number was twenty-one, a sum that was two birds less than it should have been!

We begun looking around the chicken yard, searching for the missing birds. We were sure that they would not have been able to resist coming back to the coop for breakfast. I walked along the fence trying to spot anywhere that a predator could have entered but found none.

In the far corner, I came upon the remains of one of the birds. It had been killed and half eaten by something that was strong enough to crunch right through the bones. What was left was the lower half of the chicken with the spine and ribcage cleanly chewed through. A while later we located a single leg from the other poor bird. Clearly something big and hungry had been dining in the coop during the night.

Since there was no sign of digging, the perpetrator had either climbed or jumped over the fence. My bet was that it had been a raccoon. My neighbors opined that a coyote could clear the 4 1/2 foot fence as well. Whatever it was, it was obvious to Sean and I that our day would now be spent improving the security of the coop to prevent further losses to the toothsome visitor from out of the dark.

The chickens had been housed on the previous night in the unfinished coop surrounded by a second run of chicken wire. Since this type of fencing was not doing the trick, we resolved to completely wall in one half of the coop so we could close them safely inside. We joked that we were on a mission to fortify "Fort Fowl" in preparation for the attack from the enemy that would surely come again as soon as the sun went down.

We headed off to purchase twenty sheets of plywood and then spent the rest of the day walling in the northern half of the coop. It was exciting the see the room coming together. We completed it by installing one of the doors that I picked up from a reuse center. At sunset we placed our feathered charges in their new home and closed them in.

It was a school night so Sean had to turn in. I continued until midnight tacking up chicken wire across the large window openings. I was unsure if the predator could climb all of the way up to those windows but I was in no mood to take any chances.

On my way out to work this morning, I stopped by the coop and let the birds out for the day. They were all present and accounted for and none the worse for wear. As long as our bold chicken stealer doesn't get so hungry as to risk an attack by daylight we should be able to prevent further casualties.

The coop project has moved along to the point that I needed to start thinking about the roof. My design hadn't moved beyond laying out the walls and they had recently been framed in. For a little while I entertained the idea of putting off the roof and just continuing to finish the walls but a few days of rain convinced me that all of our work was going to get ruined if I didn't do something about getting it covered.

My first question in designing the roof was what sort of pitch should be used. I searched around the web for recommended pitches to handle the significant weight of snow that can build up during our Michigan winters. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the information that I wanted so I simply settled on a 6/12 pitch.

I drew up the trusses on the computer and bought all of the supplies. We had some friends over last weekend who were willing to lend a hand so we pulled out the mitre saw and the mending plates and gave it a whirl. Joe and I measured the angles on the drawing, adjusted the saw and made the cuts in the hope that it would turn out as planned. To our surprise, the pieces of the puzzle fit together very well and we began turning out truss after truss.


I now have half trusses mounted on the coop and securely covered with a tarp. I am still shopping around for reasonably priced sheet metal to cover it. In the mean time, it is very satisfying to stand in that half of the coop during a rain storm and watch the rain pour off either side leaving the coop high and dry beneath.

The weather had been dry, rain was in the forecast and the planting was way behind schedule. The day had finally come when I had to take my courage in both hands and give plowing a try. When I purchased the tractor and plow, the dealer gave me a long-winded explanation of how to set up and adjust the plow. At the time plowing seemed a far-off prospect and the information went completely over my head.

In the past month I have attempted to gain some understanding of what is involved. I read websites on plowing but only picked up tidbits of knowledge. I talked to my father and father-in-law. Everyone seems to be saying that I just needed to hook it up, give it a try and learn as I go.

What understanding I had managed to gain was this: 1) the angle of the plow should be adjusted so that all three shares dug into the ground at the same depth; 2) the side-to-side tilt of the plow should be adjusted so that the resulting cut was level in the ground; 3) the coulters (the black wheels in second picture) should be adjusted to cut the sod in front of each share; 4) the sod should turn off of the mold board so that it lands grass-side down and 5) I should not break anything or run into anything while accomplishing all of this.

Mounting the plow to the tractor proved to be tricky. It is very heavy so the tractor has be to positioned exactly to allow everything to link up. This involves a lot of jumping on and off of the tractor to make tiny adjustments and to raise or lower the hitch. After a good ten-minute struggle, I was able to raise the plow and drive toward the field.

As I had read, I paced off the field at each end and placed stakes to show where the first cut should be positioned in order to divide the area in half. I lined up the tractor on these stakes, lowered the plow to the ground, gunned the engine and kicked her in gear. Just as if I knew what I was doing, the plow dove into the soil and began expertly turning three big furrows. I gave Janet a smiling shrug and continued down the field quite pleased with the results.

I probably plowed up a little over 1/2 acre that day. It went pretty smoothly and nothing broke. The forces that plows withstand while doing their work is amazing. It is no wonder they are built so heavily.

I also learned a number of refinements as the job went on. Early on I noticed that the hind-most share was cutting much more deeply than the front. I turned the top-link of the three point hitch to adjust the angle of attack and that problem was solved. I also had some issues with the fact that the ground was so uneven. Now and then the plows would come completely out of the ground and leave a grassy patch as the tractor bumped along. Some of these I backed up to fix, the rest I left for next time.

Once completed, I stood at the edge of the field and felt good about my accomplishment. I would leave the soil as it was for at least a week (two weeks is recommended but I am late as it is!) to let the grass die underneath. Then I will disc it and perhaps plow it a second time to get those grassy patches that I missed.

Even with all of my trepidation, the job got done and not too badly for a first try. Oh yeah, there was one comical collision with a spruce tree that borders the garden area. I hadn't removed the front-end loader and the bucket is pretty hard to see around and makes the tractor much longer. At one point I rounded the corner while looking backwards to check on the plows. Suddenly I realized that the bucket had rammed into the spruce which waved wildly back and forth making a big display of my error. I backed up and continued plowing. The tree only lost some bark and will recover. Later, while admiring my handiwork I made a sideways comment about having run into the spruce hoping that it hadn't been noticed. Janet grinned at me and said, "Yeah...I saw that."

Here are the chickens as they settled into their partially built home on that first night back on the farm.

Saturday dawned cool and rainy. Sean and I spent the morning getting things ready for our "coop raising" while the rest of the family attended a local fundraiser for the Humane Society. Our helpers were scheduled to arrive after lunch and the weather progressively improved as the time to begin our work approached.

When the appointed time arrived, we dove right into the work with one crew laying out the top and bottom plates for the walls while another cut all of the boards to length. We laid the boards in place and nailed it all together. Before long we were raising upright and bracing it in place.

Our progress slowed a bit as we began work on the front wall. It was admittedly more complicated due to the inclusion of two more windows and the front doorway. When we were about halfway through, the call came from the house that dinner was on the table.

Janet and Freya prepared a delicious dinner of fried chicken which seemed fitting with the theme of the day. We were all a little tired but pleased with the progress we had made. With the meal and dessert behind us, we headed back out to finish up the front wall.

As the sun lowered into the trees, the fields were bathed in a dimming rosy glow. With the front wall standing, we had been enjoying a nice dessert and socializing with our friends when it was time for them to head home.

Sean and I looked at the two finely built but precarious walls and decided that we should add the two end walls to stabilize the structure. Somewhat doubting our ability to accomplish the task in the failing light, we grabbed hammers and boards to see how far we could get. The job went quicker than we had anticipated. In a gloom so dim that we could barely see what the other was doing, I drove the final few nails home tying the walls together at the top.

We headed back to the house very satisfied with the day. The work had been so much more enjoyable when mixed with socializing, even if it meant that we took lots of breaks. Topping all of that off with Janet's good cooking and a pretty sunset made me wish that every day could be like this.