Dino in the yard..

We thought this picture was too funny not to share. Everybody who keeps chickens knows the 'dinosaur run' that they do: head leaned way forward to counterbalance the tail. Always reminds me of a T-Rex running with his head way forward and tail way back. Anyway, never saw a good picture of the effect till a friend managed to snap this one.

Baby Chicks

So we decided to hatch some eggs from our hen Eva (she lays the small blue one pictured) so that we could hopefully get more hens like her. I don't have a picture of Eva strangely enough, but Tango our rooster is pictured here. He's the black rooster, sans tail.

We put 12 eggs into the incubator and hatched 9 successfully- one died after pipping, and two were not fertilized.

All the babies are now feathered, living outside, and growing very very fast. 

Not much else to say about them, so here are the pictures. I've included a couple stages of development and one of the coop they live in.

Enjoy!

Introduction

About a year ago, my girlfriend and I (we are Tom and Jen) moved out of the city and into a little farmhouse outside of Santa Paula, CA. We have been composting, gardening, and keeping chickens and rabbits- just now starting to feel like our efforts are 'working'.

When we moved in, the place had 9 mature avocado trees, 6 mature oranges, and a very old peach tree that stays pretty moldy. We have planted a turkish brown fig, a mexican lime, a persian mulberry (white), and a "Mid Pride" peach tree (all of which are very young).

Currently we have growing in the garden an artichoke (second year- finally producing), lots of hardneck garlic, swiss chard, beets, leeks, tomatoes of various kinds, yellow onions, parsley, french thyme, rosemary, basil, epazote, tomatillos, olalieberries, collard greens, raspberries, diakon radish, a cabernet grape, peas, crenshaw melon, mexican sour gerkin cucumbers, armenian cucumbers, jalepenos, strawberries, corn, butternut squash, summer squash (the yellow ones?), cranberry beans, pinto beans, pumpkin (pie), and sunflowers. Even after typing that I can't believe we tackled so much this spring! Quite a change from last spring's glut of tomato and cucumber..

We made some mistakes, planting just what we saw at the stores that looked 'interesting' only to find that one ignores the seasons at their own peril- even in southern California. Our brussel sprouts seem to grow nothing but aphids, and our cabbages (standard and napa) never even sprouted (inexplicably, neither did our bell peppers)- but we have learned a great deal as well. Oh well, seeds are cheap..

We are calling the blog "All Thumbs" cause we are, and (green) cause that's the goal. Thanks for checking in.

Pictures of the garden coming soon!