Chicken Chores

Sometimes it is just nice to be outside . . . watching the kids take care of the chickens :) 

I decided to check out our almost-thoroughly neglected garden while they fed, watered, gathered eggs, and swapped nests for the birds. By using the wonder of google photos (Gabby had to help me) I identified three of our largest and most productive plants (nearly as tall as me, and definitely broader) as cocklebur (not great childhood memories of those things stuck in my socks and shoelaces all summer long), pigweed, and velvetleaf. Where these came from, I have no idea. We don't have any other plants like them on our prairie hill. I used a hoe to shave off their branches and chop them down and Brennen brought up a saw for the pig stalk. We laid them in a large pile within the garden for a fall burn-off. We don't want those billions of nasty seeds spreading.


Some seeds we DO want to spread are our cute sunflowers which are growing better than anything else we planted! One large stalk split in three pieces, so I threw one of them up on the second hill to reseed. How pretty would it be to look on a sea of sunflowers out the back window?! We've tried to plant other wildflowers and it was a no-go. I know these sunflowers will survive in this dirt, because it's the second year we've planted them :)


We can always use a little drop of sunshine on a gloomy day.

Also, Buck weed whacked all of our neighbor's flat part of the hill (his arms were shaking the rest of the day from the effort!). Gabby raked up all that seven-foot tall grass once it was dry, and now our hay bin is stuffed for winter! Happy chickens, happy me :)