The quiet season

[clarentine]

The eggs have begun, six months to the day from hatching to laying. They're coming every other day. After two days of one egg each, we got two eggs yesterday--more than one hen is getting in on the action. Both of them are light-brown, which means it's either the Australorp or the Jersey Giants; eggs from the Ameraucanas ought to be greeny-blue. More interestingly, my mom tells me the earliest eggs ought to be smaller than the hen will eventually settle into. These are nicely medium. I look forward to large brown eggs.

I look forward even more to them learning to lay their eggs in the boxes provided, instead of burrowing them into the bedding straw. >:-)

Coincidentally, yesterday afternoon we ran a power cord out to the chicken house and hooked up a light on a timer. A friend had advised the hens might not have been laying due to the reduced daylight hours. Also, the house is not insulated and, while there's a big window on the south side to let in warmth in the winter, it wouldn't hurt to provide a bit of auxiliary heat in the coldest hours. It will make it easier this winter to feed the hens their daily cracked corn snack, too, if I can see inside the storage part of the henhouse. And, if the extra light works, I should get more eggs, just in time for baking season.

***

Most of the leaves are out of the trees now. The best color of the autumn is done and laying on the ground--those bits which I did not capture and dry and take to work to add to my collage there. The number of comments I get on that collage (leaves dangled by thread from their stems and attached by tape to the upper edge of a lateral drawer on my wall cabinet) continue to surprise me. Such a simple bit of art! It reminds me, though, that interaction is an essential part of enjoyment. The collage wouldn't be half as much fun if it didn't move as you breezed past.

Bright, crisp afternoons and night skies full of woodsmoke and constellations: I do so love the autumn.

***

Garden-wise, things are quiet. The garlic is up and doing well. The spinach and new beets and tatsoi handled the recent freezes well under their little frost blanket, and the radishes are just about ready. The collards are nearly big enough to start harvesting, too, which will please me and the chickens, for whom they're really intended.

We've gotten in one big truckload of screened topsoil and expect a couple of loads of manure (cow and horse) to begin the long process of building up the soil in the garden. We still need to get the area for the greenhouse leveled, and I have to spread all that topsoil and the eventual manure. It'll pay off in a big way in the next couple of years.

***

I'm sticking with the novel_in_90 750-words-a-day plan and hitting the goal most days, except when things are just too crazy at work. I'm up to 7500 words--first draft quality, to be sure, but that's 7500 words I probably wouldn't have if I hadn't committed to the community, and you can't edit what isn't on the page. The rough plot outline format I'm using is working, too, keeping my focus on the direction I want the novel to take. We'll call this cautious optimism and try not to think about it too hard. >;-)

Comments

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I do so love the autumn.

So do I!

I'm up to 7500 words--

With Ni90? Please say no or I'll feel like a total slacker. :P

[clarentine]

A little over 5K with Ni90, I think? I didn't mark exactly where I'd started daily counts. And remember that I started a couple of days early, as well. You've been hitting your marks more regularly than I have, and your daily numbers have been higher than mine. If that's slacking, then I am really in trouble!