The chicks are definitely turning into chicklets. Not much fluff left, especially on the Arcona's, they are pretty much feathered out and so can go outside to a coop very soon. Of course that means we have to build said coop very soon. I thought I would have more time, but of course that went by the wayside pretty darn quick. My babies is all growed up. I can see why chicks get abandoned so soon after easter, they look pretty mangie at the ripe old age of two and a half weeks. I put a small, apparently less scary, perch in the bedroom box and some of them seem to be taking to it. I have also raised the water and food, so a lot less crap, both literally and figuratively, gets into them now. They still like to sit on the feeder, but at least the litter and old poop don't get kicked into the food, just the fresh stuff.

We went on a book buying tear. New Eliot Coleman book about managing home and market gardens, a book on how to build earth ovens (yummy fire baked bread and pizza), a couple more back to the earth/community building books. It's kind of funny how all these books talk about the gardening/farming process as a great jumping off point for community building, but I'm not clear when it is that I'm going to have time to build anything other than chicken, more beds, trellises, canning shelves, etc. Seems like between my real full time job and raising a soon to be very active toddler, chickens and growing the plants, that I'm not going to have a whole of time to "share" the experience with anyone other than the quick posting to this site. But perhaps I'm being pessimistic. 

We're already having to transplant our tomatoes into bigger pots, which is a good sign. They won't go outside until mid-May at the earliest, but it's nice to see progress even before the weather turns. The cucumber sprouts are going gang busters, should be a good crop, love the lemon cucs. This is such a jumbled year for the plants. Trying to figure out what goes in when and where, what we are likely to eat and how much, what will store well and where - in the ground,  in the root cellar, pickled, frozen, canned, dehydrated, how the plants need to rotate in the beds, how, when and what to compost with. It's pretty much a crap shoot this year, but we'll learn a lot and hopefully not have too much to give away - please take this produce. I guess in times like these, the worst case would be we could give it to a food pantry or homeless shelter. Maybe we should have a bed of just the hardier stuff to donate to a pantry anyway, everyone deserves fresh produce.

As soon as I decide on a coop plan, I'll try to document the building process, and maybe draw up some plans. Then I'll report back on what was good, bad and just useless. Wish me luck.