Well, I can't the pictures from my phone to download to my computer.....because it's SO SMART, and thinks it knows what I want.
I spent 5 hours one day, setting up one garden bed. It's made from my portable chicken pen that is 3 feet wide by 3 feet tall by 9 feet long (guesstimate.) I set it up where I want to place one semi-raised bed, and is about 2 feet from the chain link fencing of Spanky's pen. After I had it in the spot, I arched a cattle panel over each end, which left a spot about 2 feet wide in the middle that isn't covered by cattle panel. One end of the panel is butted up against the chicken pen, and the other is against the fence. (Imagine the pen as a horse. One end sits touching the near side, the other is against the fen on the off side--the pen is inside the arch.) This left me with an aisle on the one side. I then used some green plastic garden fencing that is 3 feet wide to enclose most of the top of the arches. It left a space about 2 feet wide along the top, which is about 6 feet high at the top of the arch. (Remember this, it's important later.
) I used a tarp to cover one end of the chicken pen, and set up a roost. Each long side of the pen also has a sheet of tin along the outside of it. To finish, I layered leaves, then old OLD manure from Spanky's old lot, then I raked up the hay from the barn and put it on top. I damped everything down......then ran out of steam. The plan is, to pen the chickens up there until 1 April, so that they can till it up for me. That's why I put the tin along the sides, so they wouldn't kick everything out and leave a 6 inch deep pit. (I learned that after previous times penning them up.)
That was last week. I've spent the time since trying to herd, entice, chase, bribe and beg them into that pen. What I have left (after storms and a couple of predator losses) are two Campine hens and my original little bantam rooster, Chauncy. Campine's are a wonderful breed to have if you're not in town. They are intelligent, curious, healthy, hardy, free range well, and are fairly steady layers of medium eggs. Mine are a pale pinkish tan in color. They don't, however, care to be penned up, hence the chasing during the last week. I finally bit the bullet, and didn't feed them yesterday or this morning. (That didn't stop them from raiding the cat food dishes though. Chauncy chased the stray kitties off and the hens ate to their hearts' content.) When I went out this afternoon, I took TASTY, DELICIOUS table scraps. I made sure that they got to peek into the dish, then I went down to the pen and chucked it in. The mistake they made was all running into the pen at the same time--trapped!! I chuckled like this
as I closed and locked the door.
Now, do you remember what I said to remember above, about the space up top? By the time I'd wobbled the (about) 20 feet to the house, I heard cackling. Looked over my shoulder just in time to see the 2 hens fly out.
They ran off like the crazy women they are. Since it was close to roosting time, I went ahead and let Chauncy out. I'll look to see if I have a tarp long enough to cover it all, and try again another day.
