Teenage chicks, luscious gardens, and progress on the house - oh my!

Chickens!

Our baby chicks continue to grow at what seems an amazing rate.  Check out their progress:

June 16 - left to right: 3, 2 and 1

June 23 - 1, 3 & 2

June 29 - 1, 2 & 3

July 9 - 3 & 2

July 17 - 1, 2 & 3 all in a row

We've now turned off the heatlamp. They are nearly indistinguishable, and are close to the same size. 1 is fully feathered and still the largest by a very small margin; 3 is the smallest and still has a bit of baby fuzz; and 2 is between them for both size and feathering. 1's distinguishing feature is some trailing wing feather on his right wing that just don't quite line up. 2 seemed to have a slightly prolapsed vent for the first two weeks which resulted in sticky butt that needed to be monitored and cleaned, but that has completely cleared up and they all seem to be doing great! I haven't weighed them yet, but I've been meaning to - I need to find last year's weight sheet for comparison.

In the neighbouring stall, the adults are in great shape as well. They're still in the barn as we haven't fixed their run yet, but when we're home and it's nice out we kick them out of the barn completely and set up their waterer outside. They are evicted to protect the chicks, who aren't yet big enough that I feel comfortable with a potential run-in with the adults. But they wander around the barnyard and the barn itself and generally have a great time, especially in their dirtbath that they've wallowed out between the barn door to the stalls and the big door to the main barn.

Foghorn perfect his Covergirl head toss

Foggy and three of his girls checking out the pea support

House!

As always, we are working on the house. As I mentioned, last-last Saturday was the huge work party at the house. Scott, who owns a local log home company and has built log homes for over 30 years, came out to replace another log end and install our new front door. While he was out, he trimmed some overhanging logs for us so Jordan wasn't up on a ladder with a chainsaw.

Scott, our go-to log home guy, taking his chainsaw to the peak of the roof

New front door!

The door will be painted red to match the roof. This lets in so much more light that the living room and kitchen are much more delightful during the day - they seem much less like dungeons, even with the curtains and blinds closed on the big window.

Jordan checking the fascia while David holds it in place

Our clever concealment for the junction box in the soffit

Various parts of the house, ready to burn!

Garden!

The gardens are thriving, and so is the greenhouse. This year I picked up two Italian Parsley to add to the perennial garden - it is typically hardy to zone 4 but can be coaxed through a zone 3 witner with a few feet of mulch, so I will drop a hay bale on them after the first hard frost and see how they look in the spring. It is near the lemon balm, so while it came back this year, I am interested to see if it shows benefit next spring from the hay bale treatment. The strawberries started producing a few weeks ago, and I ate the first raspberry of the year this past Friday, so I anticipate I'll be spending some time each morning collecting berries.

Jordan was working on weeding the big garden this morning when I left for work - I am excited to see how it looks when I get home! The peas are big, so I have been working on building pea trellises and one is almost ready to go down to the garden (see photo above in the chickens section) - keep an eye out for a How To post in the near future! We also have to thin the carrots - what a nice problem to have after the trouble we had last year! - and the beets. I plan to make salads with the beet tops as I thin them; I tasted a leaf two weeks ago and it was very similar to spinach, which I enjoy for salads. Our pumpkins are starting to flower as well, and I'm very excited! I'll take some photos of the big garden once we get it a little cleaned up.

Blooming lilies in a bucket

Swallowtail in the greenhouse

It's raspberry season!

In the greenhouse, the zucchini is big, and the cucumbers and tomatoes are all looking great! I am very excited as this is the first year that our cukes have germinated, survived to transplanting, and then flourished. Last year they didn't germinate when we tried to start them early, and they did no better when I tried starting them in the garden. This year they are unstoppable!! We have a lot of tomatoes too: two Amish Paste, about 6-8 Azteca, and the rest are Black Plum. I am really hoping we get enough to sauce - I think we have over 20 plum tomato plants! They just started flowering last week.

Saskatoons, zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers, with lilies in the foreground

Hanging cukes

More tomatoes!

Random!

Here are some other bits and bobs from the past month

Swallow chicks - "You don't have food for me, go away!"

The swallows had 5 chicks in the deck birdhouse this year, and they fledged almost three weeks ago. I am already looking forward to their reappearance next May!

LoW map, circa 1880

I have lots of family on the Lake of the Woods, and Kim found this old map for me. It's from 1880, when Kenora was still known as Rat Portage. I'll be mailing this beauty to Dad for his perusal and enjoyment :)

The house was like this for over a week

We had a huge heat wave that finally broke late last week. For two weeks we had highs in the high 20s and mid 30s. This was what the thermometer looked like every morning: at 7:30 it is already nearly 20 degrees out, and it' still in the mid to high 20s from the night before, even though we had the fan in the kitchen window and the living room ceiling fan both running all night. I love summer, and heat, and sunshine, but by the end of the heat wave I was surly if I was inside (and especially if I was trying to cook supper and it wasn't working out - I'm looking at you, udon noodles...).

Beautiful moonrise!

The clear skies did make for some wonderful sunsets, when I was up late enough to see them!

The day of the smoke - I woke up to a very sepia-coloured world

However, the hot weather did not help our forest fire situation. There were a few burning before the heat wave rolled in, but the dry weather helped the spread of the fires. There weren't any near us, and only small fires near the city, but one very large fire was to the southwest of us. On Thursday, the smoke rolled in with the rain, and as the morning progressed the skies got darker and darker. The photo above is from 7:23 am, as I was leaving for work. It got darker as I got to work, and around 8:30 to 9:00 it was black outside, darker than it has been at midnight since early May.  The photo below is from 9:33, as the sky was starting to lighten again.

The day of the smoke - then it started to rain...

It was very creepy, and many of us commented on how eerie it looked outside. Luckily, the rain knocked down some of the smoke and particulate, so by 10:30 am the sky colour had stabilized. Note that these photos aren't that great and don't capture the true colour of the sky (it is just an Android phone, after all...)

Cuddling kittens!

And, to counter the creepy, here are the kittens having a nap in the front window. Molly (closest the window) has yet to really get along with Mander; usually she just tolerates him. This near-cuddling was just adorable :)