thesalemgarden

The Beautiful Sweet Buff Orpington

If we could only raise one breed of chicken in our flock, I would choose the Buff Orphington. I think of this breed as the golden retriever of the chicken world. Their fluffy, yellow, friendly, obedient, loyal, and great with kids and adults. They’ll sit in your lap, come when you call and play with you. This is a family-friendly chicken!

A newborn buff orphington is a cute little yellow fluff ball and it grows up to be a wise, sweet creature that you can take anywhere.

I take chickens into schools sometimes and this is the breed that I choose for those events. I can put one down on a tarp with twenty first graders sitting around the perimeter and she’ll just stand there politely waiting for the presentation to start. Then she will allow all twenty kids to pet her (one at a time of course) and repeat the process for three more classes during the day. I’ve even had one lay an egg in the classroom a few feet away from the children during a presentation. This is a laid back, happy chicken.

These girls are good layers, winter hardy, docile and sweet… if your trying to decide what type of chicken to start with or add to your existing flock you just can’t go wrong with a buff orphington!

Michele

Let’s Talk About that Brooder…

Yesterday you saw the brooder that we used for our first chicks, and for many others that have come along since then.

As I mentioned we made it out of a twenty gallon glass aquarium that we’ve used over the years as a temporary home for creatures that need care. Many wounded birds and stray frogs have spent a few hours in that aquarium. To set it up we simply cleaned it thoroughly, put a shop light with a 60 watt bulb on top of the wire screened lid and filled the bottom with wood chips. The wood gives the chicks something to scratch at, sleep on and absorbs poop which helps with the almost daily cleaning that needs to be done.

We like to use the tall red and white water distributors and round feeders that you see above. You can buy these at your local feed store or on-line. We find that the specially designed feeders are worth the investment because they stand up to all of the pushing, pulling and scampering that baby chicks do.

The warm light along with towels draped over the sides at night when the heat is down maintain an inside temperature is 95 degrees for the first week, then 5 degrees lower for each week after. I should mention that our chicks stay in the glass brooder for just a few weeks before they get too big and we move them to a larger metal cage that’s also cloaked with towels to keep heat in. We gradually remove the towels and light over the cage as they outgrow them as well. We also lower the lightbulb from 60 to 40 watts as they get bigger in the aquarium, then back up to 60 again when we move them to the much airier cage.

The “aquarium as brooder” idea isn’t really the typical route that most people take, but it’s worked very well for us. It’s easy to move as needed and it gives us a great view of our new flock in action. You can find lots of other brooder systems by googling “brooder”, or checking Pinterest. People are really creative and I’ve seen brooders made from kiddie pools, plastic bins, even a portacrib! Really, if the chicks are safe and the temperature, food and cleanliness level are correct they’ll be fine.

We’ve been fortunate to have never lost a chick in our aquarium brooder, which leads me to sad news; our beloved aquarium “bit the bullet” as Michael would say and had to be thrown out last fall. Now we’re searching for a new one, or a good idea for our next brooder. Stay tuned… it’s coming soon!

Questions, questions… I know you have them! Leave them for me and I’ll answer them as best I can. Maybe some of my chicken raising friends who are following will step forward to give their input too… come on, I know your nearby!

Enjoy everything!

Michele

In the Beginning… Our Very First Day as Chicken Keepers

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to structure this chicken series. I’m hoping that it will be useful to aspiring keepers so I’m working on organizing my posts in a way that will be most helpful. That said, I’m just going to start at the beginning of our journey…

Here’s day one, March 31, 2007, twenty minutes after our first chickens arrived..

Knowing that we had been thinking about getting chickens, our friend Chip brought these three Silver Laced Wyandottes to us. A friend had ordered a shipment of fifteen or twenty and needed to re-home a few.

There was some excitement around here that day!

Because they were a bit of a surprise and we weren’t really prepared we had a wooden box for them to live in. But fear not, we quickly made a nice warm brooder using an aquarium.

On the kitchen counter of course…

We named them Sunny, Chip and Brady and they all lived for many years. We just lost Chip (the chicken, not our friend) a few months ago.

We were having fun with our new passion!. I remember the kids spending a lot of time up on that chair talking to the girls.

But we had so so much to learn, and we did, one step at a time..

You can too!

Enjoy Everything!

Michele

Thinking About Raising Chickens? Well You’ve Come to the Right Place!

And that’s because I herby declare March 2014 to be Chicken Month at The Salem Garden! If a crocus or snowdrop decides to miraculously appear in our garden you’ll see it before the camera cools down, but I’m going to focus on chicken keeping for a few weeks. This is the time of the year when most keepers in the northern hemisphere add new chickens or start a flock. I’m hoping to cover a range of chicken related topics– everything from breeds, to equipment, to daily care. Starting a new flock is easier and harder than you might think. With a little bit of information and some planning yours will be wonderful! What are your questions? Leave them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them in the posts that I’m working on.

Consider The Salem Garden to be Chicken Central for a little while (actually it already is, I can hear our girls out there enjoying the morning air).

Cluck, cluck!

Michele

On Turning Fifty and Fighting a Cold

Wow, nine days can go by like nothing. I was just starting to work on a post about constructing our chicken coop on Saturday when I started to feel kind of sniffly. Within two hours I was in the middle of a full fledged head cold. Then my oldest son walked into the house to surprise me for my 50th Birthday… then it was my 50th birthday, and my cold raged on. So here I am five days later… fifty years and two days old, with memories of a great birthday, the cold still running my life and no blog post published for nine days… it happens…

About this turning fifty thing: I have a very good feeling about it. I’m pretty sure that I have become just a little bit wiser in the past fifty years. I know things that are important like when to step forward and when to hang back. I know more about how to bring out the best in my kids and how to get along with my husband about 95% of the time, maybe more. I know a lot more about gardening than I used to. I’ve learned how to cook, how to work and how to see God’s face in people who are having difficulty, even when the difficulty is with me.

I remember watching my mother-in-law turn fifty. Her youngest child was at an age where she suddenly had more time for herself. She became an artist. She painted and sculpted and shared her work in art leagues, and with friends and family. She traveled more and read books and started to have grandchildren whom she adored. It was fun to watch her enjoy life and accomplish things that she’d always wanted to do. I have the feeling that I may be headed toward lots of good, new opportunities and experiences too.

So, I’m sorry I’ve been gone from The Salem Garden. I’ll be back really soon with my chickens, my garden and all of the good experience that my fifty years have given me.

Lots of love to you all,

Michele

Zebra Finches, Guitars and a Chinese House–Just a Typical Afternoon in Salem

It’s hard to believe that this afternoon we threw on our shoes, drove five minutes and walked into this amazing building in downtown Salem.

Then paid nothing (because Salem residents are admitted for free), and waited in line for twenty minutes to view from here to ear, an exhibit featuring zebra finches playing electric guitars and cymbals…

No photos were allowed, but check out the video in the right margin here on the PEM website and you’ll get the idea. It was quite an experience.

While we waited to see the birds we looked out and enjoyed this view of Yin Yu Tang, a two hundred year old merchant’s house that was brought here piece by piece from China in 2003 and reassembled by the museum…

No photos are allowed of the inside of Yin Yu Tang either, but it’s full of original artifacts from the house as it was while it was used by the family that owned it. It was easy to imagine what it might have been like to live there.

After all of that amazing cultural opportunity, we ran right into this guy

Who elicited this reaction from my littlest girl…

There was even a quick view of a frozen garden through a window…

Maybe we don’t need spring in Salem after all? We’re doing just fine.

Enjoy everything!

Michele

Making Pots From Newspaper

Here’s an activity that we worked on at Bass River today. For my adaptive gardening/horticultural therapy friends and followers, I found that as simple as this was to do, it was full of good opportunities to talk about recycling, work on fine motor and social skills and to start thinking about spring. The post just before this one on Bass River Gardens features a seed tape project that we’ve been doing, which has similar benefits. Most importantly, it was all fun! Michele

Bass River Gardens

Here’s another fun activity that we did this week to help us get ready for spring.

We made seedling pots from newspaper!

We used a sheet of newspaper, a soup can and a little bit of tape.

First we folded the newspaper in half lengthwise…

then we rolled it tightly over the soup can.

We folded it in, creating the bottom of the pot and used a piece of tape to hold it together.

Then we slid the can out and we had a pot shape!

We folded in the top edge to give it stability.

And we had created a nice pot, ready for some seed starting soil and seeds. When the seedlings are ready, we’ll be able to plant them right into the ground because newspaper is highly biodegradable and a good source of carbon, and the inks are made with natural earth pigments and soy.

Now we…

View original post 27 more words

Buds of Hope

I know, I know… there’s a nor’easter coming, or maybe even a blizzard, but take heart…

I found these this morning…
Yes, here in Salem, Massachusetts… with a foot of snow on the ground.

They’ll be open before we know it.

Stay warm and well!

Love, Michele

Six Months

August 6, 2013

Today, February 6, 2014

That’s all I have to say.

Michele

Pinterest Gardening

In the middle of winter when it’s snowy and cold and spring seems a very long time away… I Pinterest garden.

I love Pinterest but not in a “check out what other people pin and re-pin it” way. Not that I never do that, but my time is limited and once I start I really can’t stop. I try to use it simply as a place to keep photos and articles that inspire or inform me. When I see something that I like or can use I pin the image to a board so I can get back to it.

I’ve been organizing my gardening boards into separate, more focused categories. It’s nice to have an idea on my mind and know just where to look to find that photo that I loved or the article that I remember reading. I start to see the garden coming to life again.

Recently I created a board about garden markers.

I know, that may seem a bit crazy, but I spend a good amount of time thinking about garden markers and creative ways to identify plants.

And then there’s the succulents board…

I really feel like I’m in the garden, surrounded by beautiful colors and interesting textures for a few minutes, even on the coldest winter day.

I also have a board dedicated to shade gardens. I don’t even have a shade garden right now but lots of people ask me about them so I’m hoping to fill this board with good references. It will be nice to say “If you look at my Shade Gardens board on Pinterest, you’ll get lots of ideas and information.”

And of course there’s the Front Yards board. Front yards are changing, aren’t they? I’m inspired every time I take a look at these photos to dig up my whole front yard. I’m pretty sure it’s actually happening one square foot at a time, but don’t tell anyone!

I’ve also been collecting ideas for my new herb garden…

I have new space that we opened up in the fall when we cut down a few juniper shrubs. A new herb garden will be planted there soon and this board makes it easier than ever to keep my ideas organized and ready for that day when I sit down with my afternoon coffee to sketch out the plan.

I can’t wait to start digging!

I have other gardening boards too, along with home ideas, recipes, chickens and grilled cheese. I kind of love grilled cheese and chickens.

Pinterest is a perfect way to get out to the garden in the winter. A little Pinterest gardening will help you feel the energy of this year’s garden to be!

Check out my Pinterest boards here on Pinterest and be sure to follow me! I add things all the time and I promise to follow you back.

Stay warm and enjoy everything,

Michele